 What a shiny group of people you are. You look like Moses coming down from Mount Sinai. You've been on Mount Sinai this weekend, encountering the Lord, huh? I see the joy of the Lord on your faces. Can you all still hear me OK? Do you like that nice background music? That atmosphere music? So much for that. OK, OK, that's good. That's good. Welcome, everybody. It's wonderful to have you here for this workshop on Deliverance Ministry, Letting the Oppressed Go Free. And it's interesting that we're having this workshop in the chapel where they have just had an hour or more of the sacrament of reconciliation. And Jesus has already been letting the oppressed go free. So we're going to be talking about a different way that the Lord lets the oppressed go free. And that is Deliverance Ministry. Let's pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord Jesus, your mission is a liberating mission. And you died on the cross and rose from the grave so that no one might no longer have to walk around under the oppression of the enemy, weighed down and burdened and captive to the enemy and his snares. And not only that, Lord, not only do you set us free, but you send us to help set others free. We are in awe, Lord, of what you've done for us and what you've commissioned us to do by your name, by your power. We pray your blessing on our time together this afternoon. Holy Spirit, come, awaken our hearts to serve the glorious King in whatever way he is calling us to serve. And we pray this in the holy name of Jesus, amen. Merry seed of wisdom and star of evangelization. Pray for us in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Well, the title of my talk is From Our Theme, Scripture Passage for this Weekend, Look 418, when Jesus said in his mission statement that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him and has anointed him to evangelize the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free. And as I mentioned in my little workshop intro last night, Jesus, after giving that as his mission statement, did it. And throughout his ministry, he truly liberated so many who were oppressed by the devil. That was a major part of his ministry. He came to a Jewish people who thought they were being oppressed by the Roman Empire, and they were. But Jesus showed them that they had a much worse enemy. They were under the thumb of a much more cruel tyrant. And that is Satan. And he came to set them free. He announced it. He did it. And then he told his followers to continue it in their mission. And that's what I'm going to talk about. So I'm going to go rather quickly. So you can take notes. You can get the tape of this talk afterward if you want. Buckle your seat belts. I'm going to cover as much as I can. I'm going to try to leave time for questions at the end. I'm going to talk about what is deliverance ministry, who needs it, why they need it, who carries it out, and how to carry it out in an authentically Catholic way. First of all, why deliverance? Why does anybody need this? Well, for nearly 2,000 years, there was a civilization founded on Christian faith, founded on the biblical worldview. In the last century or two, that has almost completely collapsed. There has been a dramatic rejection of God, rejection of Scripture, and of the authority of the church, and even of the very truths that God has written into us in the way we were created as male and female. And that rejection of God has consequences. And so Christian culture has been being dismantled for the last century or more, leaving a vacuum, a spiritual vacuum. And a vacuum has to be filled. And so people are filling that emptiness inside with all kinds of spiritual counterfeits, including new age practices, involvement in the occult with Ouija boards, practices like Reiki, which purport to bring healing to people, practices with roots in Hinduism like yoga. Many Catholics have been drawn into yoga. Maybe some of you have done it. Many people claim it's just innocent exercise. You need to do more research and find out how deeply rooted it is in Hindu. I just talked to somebody this weekend who, through a yoga practitioner, ended up in spiritual oppression. It's not innocuous. People get involved in demonic attachments through these practices. There's even overt paganism that people are falling into and Satanism, overt embrace of evil. Among Latinos in the Latin American culture, there's Santaria and the Cult of Santa Muerte. I mean, a horrible mixture of some aspects of Catholicism with a worship of the culture of death. So all of these things are ways of saying to evil spirits, come on into my life and have a party. Come on into my life and wreak havoc. But it's not only those kinds of obviously occult practices that get people into demonic oppression, also immoral behaviors, especially serious and repeated sins, sins like promiscuity, pornography, drug abuse. We're living in a culture that, because it has rejected God, has completely lost its moral compass and is spinning out of control. And all of those sins are ways of inviting the enemy to come on into our life and start doing damage. Along with that is the breakdown of the family. We live in a generation of almost complete collapse of the family. Today, fewer than half of the children in the world live in a home with both their parents. When people grow up, having never experienced, particularly the love of the father, because it's usually the father who becomes the absent one, never having experienced stability and commitment and sacrificial love, they don't know who they are. And therefore, they are much more vulnerable to being deceived and to people offering them pseudo identities, synthetic identities, including synthetic sexual identities, artificial identities that people latch on to because they're so desperate to find some identity. Those are also ways of inviting the enemy in. As Jesus said, the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. What an incredible illusion to think that somehow by getting into these practices where the enemy makes all kinds of glamorous promises that we're going to do well for ourselves. What a demonic deception. Now, while all of this has been going on in the last several generations, at the same time, even in the church, it's become fashionable to deny that Satan even is a real being who exists. What, you mean the devil? That thing with the tail and the pointy horse? Seriously? What, you believe the devil exists? What are you, Neanderthals? Unfortunately, that attitude has been present even in the church. And for two generations, sadly, many seminarians have even been taught in seminary. If they've been taught anything about the devil at all, that he's not actually a real being. He's only a projection of our idea of evil. Pope John Paul II, one time, was told, Holy Father, there are many bishops who don't believe in Satan. He said, he who does not believe in the devil does not believe in the gospel. You can't believe the good news if you don't accept the bad news. C.S. Lewis said this, there are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. They've done really well with that these days. The other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. That's also going on. How many video games? How many hard rock bands are overtly demonic? Recently in the Colosseum, just maybe three years ago, there was erected a statue of the Old Testament god, Molek, the god who demands child sacrifice. This big statue placed there in the Colosseum as a kind of cultural artistic monument to cultures of the past. Really? It's like the devil is no longer trying to even hide himself because he has succeeded so much, he can now come out into the open. So all of this has been going on. The silence on how Satan works among pastors and teachers in the church, on the one hand, it leaves people undefended because if you don't know how the enemy works, you don't know the strategies for defeating him. And at the very same time, it also leads to an unhealthy fear and unhealthy interest among some people in demons and how they work. What a tragedy that in some mission areas, particularly in Africa and parts of Asia, the native people are more keenly aware of the reality of evil spirits. If you ever go there on mission, you see it. I mean, you see people demonically manifest and you're like, whoa, this is real. People that are more keenly aware of the power of those evil spirits, then some of the Catholic missionaries are of the power of Jesus Christ to liberate people. Something's wrong with that picture. Something's missing. How tragic when Catholics sometimes seek out help from spiritualists or shamans for relief because they're being oppressed or they're hearing voices or they know there's something evil attached to them, but they don't think the church can help them. Sometimes they actually go to the church and the pastor or the lay ecclesial minister doesn't know how to help them and says, let me give you a referral to a good psychiatrist. And so some people are drawn to Pentecostal or non-denominational charismatic ministries for help. Some of which are very good, but some of which are not so good. Some of which are a little bit wild and a little bit showy and leave people just as oppressed as they were before. Something's missing in this picture. Today, friends, there is an enormous unmet need for deliverance from evil spirits, addictions, compulsions, hearing things that aren't there, seeing things that aren't there. Yes, there's mental illness and that's something distinct from demonic bondage, but how many people are doing things, thinking things, making choices that when you see it, you're like, there's something more behind this. That's not her. That's not like him. How many people are being oppressed by the enemy? And yet, the ministry of deliverance is part of the mission that Jesus entrusted to his church. As long as Christ the Lord is our deliverer, risen from the dead and his disciples are walking the earth, nobody should have to walk around oppressed by evil spirits. Nobody should have to walk around under demonic bondage or under the oppression of spirits of guilt or of anxiety or of fear or of lust or whatever else is oppressing them as long as Christ's church is on the earth. Our mission is to continue the mission of Jesus which is to let the oppressed go free. And so it's a tragedy when that doesn't happen. You remember the story of Naaman the leper, in the Old Testament? If you remember Naaman is a military officer in Syria. He comes down with leprosy. And his servant girl tells him, hey, there's a prophet in Israel who can heal you. And so he's like, all right, tell me how to do that. He says, I'm gonna pull all the right strings and I'm gonna get this to happen. He gets his king of Syria to write a letter to the king of Israel. King of Syria writes the letter. He says, I'm sending you my military officer Naaman to get jurid of leprosy. What does the king of Israel do when he gets that letter? He tears his robe. Actually, I'm not gonna demonstrate that. He tears his robe and says, how am I supposed to cure this guy? Obviously, Syria's just trying to pick a fight with me. What am I supposed to do about this leper? Does the church sometimes sound like that? What am I gonna do with this problem? But then it says, when Elisha, the man of God, the prophet heard that the king had torn his robes, he said, send him to me. Why have you torn your robes? Send him to me and let him know that there's a prophet in Israel. In other words, send him to me and let him know, we have a God who heals and a prophet who knows that we have a God who heals and is willing to be his instrument of healing through faith. So what does the church do when we are surrounded by the walking wounded as we are today? And they send, help me. Whether they're saying it overtly or sometimes just in their hearts, help me. Do we say, oh, let me give you a good referral. Or do we say, send them to me, send them to us and let them know that there's a God who heals. Let them know that there's a God who sets the captives free. Let them know that Jesus Christ is alive. The one who cast out so many demons in Galilee 2000 years ago is casting out demons today and liberating the oppressed and healing the sick in body and in heart and in mind and in spirit. That's what the church needs to say once again today. So I'm gonna talk about the biblical foundations of deliverance. We know from scripture that since the dawn of creation, the enemy, the evil one who hates God, who has rebelled against God, has been trying to destroy the human beings who are made in God's image. The enemy can't, he can't do anything to God. I mean, you know, it's not exactly an equal fight. You know, if you think that God and the devil are kind of locked in combat and not sure who's gonna win, that's not Catholicism. That's not Christianity. That's Manichaeism. Two equal gods, one good, one evil. No, Satan is just a fallen angel. He's nothing. He hates God though. He can't destroy God. So what does he try to do? He tries to burn God in effigy by destroying his image. So he came into the garden in the form of a serpent, tempted them, getting them to doubt God's goodness, getting them to see God as the enemy of their happiness. Do you notice, by the way, if you read Genesis, you see the evil one didn't come into the garden by force. He didn't come with a legion of demons and just take over. Why not? It's more powerful. Why did he come as a serpent to seduce them? You see, because he couldn't come by force. Because God had given human beings the title deed to the planet. He had given human beings dominion over the earth. They had authority over the earth. Satan couldn't touch them. There's only one way he could get them. By getting them to agree to his lies. That's the only way he could get them. Insofar as they would agree to his lies, he could get them under his thumb. And that's exactly what he did with our first parents. And that's the way he works today. He has no power, except insofar as he gets us to agree to his lies. Satan works by getting our consent. Now the Old Testament mentioned Satan only a few times and the Hebrew word for adversary is Satan. That's where we get the word Satan. The Satan is the adversary or the slanderer or the accuser and the Greek word for it is diabolos. That's where we get devil. We only see that a few times in the Old Testament but really it's only in the New Testament that we get the full picture of just how big our problem is. That the enemy doesn't have a hold on just a few weirdos. A few really troubled people like Job or King Saul. But the enemy actually has a certain amount of control over the entire world. And so the New Testament tells us Satan is the ruler of this world. The God of this world, the deceiver of the whole world. It says in one John, the whole world is in the power of the evil one. Now that doesn't mean he has absolute power, right? No way. God alone is absolute power. But the enemy has in some way a grip on every earthly reality. Every earthly reality in this fallen world is in some way tainted by, slimed by the work of the enemy. Therefore the mission of the Son of God who became man was not just to heal us, not just to open the doors of heaven, not just to teach us how to love one another or be a good model for us. The word of God tells us the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. He came for battle. He came for war. He came fighting to win the victory. And that's why you could say the word deliverance even sums up Jesus' whole mission. His whole mission is deliverance. Deliverance isn't just one of the things he did. It's everything he did. It's just a way of saying salvation. He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son. God has delivered us, brought us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. We're not in the land of the enemy anymore. There may be some of you here who have felt very much under the dominion of darkness. You may have seen in your family the dominion of darkness powerfully at work. It is very powerfully oppressing this world right now. You could say that the strongholds have gotten incredibly strong in our time, perhaps like no other time before, but the deeper truth is God has delivered us from that dominion of darkness. If you are in Christ, if you have been baptized into him, unless you have consciously turned away from him, you are not in the kingdom of the enemy. You are in the kingdom of God. You have been delivered from the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of God's beloved Son. And the enemy works really hard night and day with his PR apparatus to make you think that you're still in the dominion of darkness and under his thumb. Don't buy it. It's a lie. And he's the father of lies. Okay, so if that's Jesus' mission, let's look at for a minute at how he carried that out in his public ministry. As I mentioned yesterday, what was the first thing that happened after he was baptized? Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit and immediately he went into the desert. Immediately he went to confront Satan. You see that Jesus is not on the defense. He's not like, oh, I better get away so that Satan doesn't attack me. What's he gonna do next? No, he's on the offense. He's going right into the territory of the enemy. He is taking ground from the enemy, liberating those who were captive. I used to play the game, capture the flag as a kid. Maybe some of you played that game. You go right into the enemy's territory. You get to the jail that the tagged kids are in that jail. You tag them and they're free. And they come back to their own territory. That's what Jesus did. He went right into the territory of the enemy. It's just the prelude to what his entire ministry is going to be. He's gonna be liberating captives right and left. It's no accident that in the gospel of Mark, Jesus is very first work. His first public act is an exorcism. The exorcism in the synagogue at Capernaum. Jesus, after confronting the enemy, resisting his temptations in the desert, very next thing is Jesus says, get out of that guy. You have no place in him anymore. Sets the man free. And again and again, the gospels say things like, he healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons. He went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons. You see, this wasn't something he did occasionally on the side when he encountered those weirdos. He was doing this every day in every village. There were demonized people. Whenever the unclean spirits beheld him, they fell down and cried out, you are the son of God. And he ordered them not to make him known. So when you see how common and central a part of the ministry of Jesus this was, you can ask, how is it that we have neglected it? So seriously, in the church today, and it's really only our modern time. It was not neglected in most of church history, but it's in our modern time because of the skepticism of the enlightenment and the denial of the existence of Satan that we've neglected this. Now I want to just make a couple of clarifications. In the gospels, we see Jesus casting out demons all the time, we shouldn't assume that all of the people that he cast demons out of were necessarily possessed in the full sense. I'll talk later about what possession means, but it's an extreme form of demonic oppression where you really lose control of even your body and your voice. But Jesus cast demons out of people who had a whole range of demonic affliction from the seriously possessed, like the garrison demoniac, the guy who had the legion, to people who were probably less afflicted by spirits but still afflicted by evil spirits. Today we make more distinctions, we talk about possession versus oppression and different levels of demonic affliction, but the gospels kind of group those all together. And also, we use this word possessed, but I would say it's an unfortunate English translation. It's not an ideal word because it can lead to misunderstanding. The reality is an evil spirit can never possess a human being, ever. Can never own a human being. God alone owns every human being that he made in his image. So the word possessed, it's just kind of an accident of translation. It's not the Greek word that's used in the gospels. The Greek word really means demonized. Jesus cast demons out of demonized people. And that helps us see that there's a whole range of levels of demonic influence, but nobody is actually possessed by in the sense of owned by an evil spirit. Even the most terribly demonized person still has free will. Otherwise you could never cast a demon out of them. You can't cast a demon out of somebody against their will. Now, you could say somebody like Judas deliberately invited Satan into his life. Nobody could cast a demon out of him. He had chosen that. But the Gerocene Demoniac, the guy who's possessed by allegiance, he wanted to be free. So no matter how badly afflicted a person is, they always have some free will until the moment they die. And if they die having chosen the evil one, well then in some sense, they do get possessed by the evil one. And that's a pretty frightening thing. That's why, by the way, the sacrament of reconciliation, it is more powerful and more important than exorcism because if you have committed a serious sin, a mortal sin, and you die without having been reconciled to God, you end up in eternal separation from God. Nothing could be worse than that. But if you, so the sacrament of reconciliation reconciles you to God, so if you die after having received that sacrament, you are redeemed, you're saved, you're with God forever. But if you die terribly oppressed by a demon, that doesn't mean that you are necessarily condemned to hell. It's a spiritual affliction, like cancer is a physical affliction. Now, by their choices, a person may have invited that affliction. But it's still a spiritual affliction. And so if you receive deliverance or exorcism, you're free from that affliction. But that's not the same kind of freedom that you get by having your sins forgiven in the sacrament of reconciliation. Does that make sense? All right, you can bring up anything if you want in the question period and I'll try to clarify. All right, so in the Gospels, Jesus also sometimes implied that sicknesses can be caused by the enemy. There's a woman bent over who couldn't stand up straight. Jesus called her a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for 18 years. He healed a mute demoniac, a blind and dumb demoniac. So Jesus clearly says, demons are actually able to cause some physical illnesses. Does that mean that all physical illnesses are caused by the devil? Absolutely not. Don't fall into that trap. It's just the devil made it. No, probably most illnesses are not caused by the devil, but some are, Jesus indicated. So he did that through his whole ministry. He set people free. But all of those acts of mighty deliverance, release, healing that he did were done at a cost, the highest possible cost to himself. All of that liberation he did because he himself paid the price on the cross. If you read the Gospels carefully, you might notice that when Jesus cast demons out of people, often there's a loud cry when they come out. There's a shouting, a loud cry. There's only one other place a loud cry appears in the gospel. It's Jesus himself at the moment he dies, he cried out with a loud voice. Jesus himself took upon himself the horrible oppression of the enemy that the human race had invited to earth, had invited to wreak havoc. He took it all and he nailed it to the cross and he won the ultimate victory. And he left that tomb empty. He totally robbed Satan of his power. He won the absolute, total definitive eternal victory in his cross and resurrection. Well, that's great, then we're done, huh? No, we're not done because for some mysterious reason, although the battle is won, the skirmishes continue. You know, that happens sometimes in wars. The treaty's been signed, the general has capitulated, the war's been won, but in some outlying areas the battles continue. That's our situation. That's why the Scripture says your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. He's still on the move. He knows his time is short. He wants to bring as many souls as he can down to eternal misery with him. And so the catechism says the whole of man's history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil. Stretching, as our Lord tells us from their dawn of history until the last day, finding himself in the midst of the battlefield, man has to struggle to do what is right. That's why we're the church militant. Our life is a battle, but what an awesome army to be a part of when you know who has already won the war. You've read to the last page, you know it's already accomplished. But because the battle continues, we better know the strategies of the enemy. How dumb to go into battle having no clue, go into a football game having no clue how the opposing team works and what their strategies are. What a tragedy that that has not been taught to Catholics by and large of the last couple of generations. So how does the evil one get a foothold in people's lives? How is he able to horribly oppress and afflict people? Well, there's some very clear ways that scripture teaches us. Occult practices, as I already mentioned. Tarot cards. I know somebody who had had a great conversion really started walking with the Lord, getting on fire with their Christian life. One time they were commuting on the train and this lady was doing tarot cards. He said, oh, that would be kind of fun. I'm gonna have her do a reading of my life with her tarot cards. After he did that, he said, I was set back spiritually for months and months. I didn't figure out what it was until months later I realized I had opened the door to the enemy. I had closed the door to the Lord. He repented of that and then his spiritual life was able to get on track again. Astrology, palm reading, all of those things are ways we invite the enemy in. As I said, sins, especially repeated or grave sins. But then finally another way that many people don't realize is a wound or trauma which leads a person to believe a lie. And this is so common. A wound or trauma that can occur even in childhood, especially abuse, physical or emotional, verbal or sexual abuse can lead a person to believe a lie in the very depth of their subconscious. A lie like, I'm not worthy to be loved. I will always be rejected. My value is based on what I achieve. Or my value is based on how sexy I am or how beautiful I am or how athletic I am. God is distant, he doesn't care about me. Those are the kinds of lies that trauma can cause a person even at a very young age to believe. And those lies become strongholds in a person's life and the enemy is able to get a foothold through them. And once he gets a foothold in our life, he's able to yank us around and do havoc. That's why the key to deliverance is removing the foothold. And we'll come back to that. Now, the best ways to combat the enemy, and we're here doing a work shop on deliverance, but the best ways to combat the enemy are the things that you are all doing here this weekend. Living the full Christian life. Filling your minds with truth. Receiving the sacraments, especially the sacrament of the holy Eucharist and reconciliation. Daily prayer, getting to know the Lord, reading his word, the basic disciplines of the Christian life. If you do that, the enemy is gonna be trying to get in every door and window of your life and he's not gonna succeed very well. He's not gonna find much of a place to get to you. So those are the most important ways to stay free of the enemy's influence, to put on the armor of God. So we don't wanna underestimate the ordinary means. Growing in virtue as well. Ted Stree gave a beautiful talk on virtue. That's another way to be free of the enemy. However, it's true that sometimes we need more than these things. Because there may be people here who are practicing the disciplines of the Christian life. The sacraments, the prayer, the daily scripture, trying to grow in virtue, all of that. But you're still under the oppression of the enemy. Or your loved ones are under the oppression of the enemy. And that's when you need the help of others. And that's why the Lord has given his church the gift of deliverance ministry. Now, let's look at how Jesus commissioned his followers even during his lifetime to do this. I gave some of this in my talk yesterday. In Matthew 10, he sends out the 12 apostles. And the very first thing he gives them is authority over unclean spirits. If bishops are successors of the apostles, what is this saying about a primary ministry that they ought to have? One of the most important things that they're responsible for is getting people free of demonic influence. And Jesus sent them out, told them to preach the gospel, heal the sick, cast out demons. So therefore, the apostles in a full way have Jesus's authority for casting out demons. But then he also sent out the 70 in Luke 10. So it's not only the apostles, it's disciples. And just as a reminder for anybody who wasn't here for the early bird talk I gave yesterday, a disciple is a follower of Jesus. Does anybody hear a disciple? Okay, a handful of you. Again, anybody hear a disciple of Jesus? Praise God. Okay, we got a room full of disciples. This is for you. Now he says to them, go heal the sick and proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near to you. But then it's interesting, they come back from their mission trip. They give Jesus their report, they debrief with Jesus, they tell him what's been going on in their mission. And the first thing they say is, wow, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. It's so cool, Lord, we started healing the sick and we found that even the demons are getting cast out. And Jesus said, wait, I didn't tell you to do that. No, he doesn't say that. He said, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. No, he's not in this context. He's not talking about the fall of the angels before the dawn of time. He's talking about what's happening through their ministry. The enemy is losing his grip. He's falling from power. You're doing just what I did and what I've sent you to do. You're liberating those who are captive to the enemy. And as I mentioned yesterday, this is the very place where Jesus rejoices in the Holy Spirit. He's so thrilled to see them going out in his name and extending the kingdom of God and shrinking the dominion of darkness. And then at the end of the Gospel of Mark, we see the same thing, that the risen Lord Jesus about to ascend into heaven. Go preach the gospel to the whole world. These signs will accompany those who believe. In my name, they will cast out demons. The very first sign he mentions, the very first sign, those who believe in him, not only apostles, not only bishops, not only great saints, those who believe are gonna cast out demons in my name. He said that. And then what happened in the early church? The Holy Spirit fell upon them at Pentecost and they went out in the name of Jesus and they did just what he had told them to do. And through the whole Acts of the Apostles. It's so glorious. Jesus, during his earthly life, he said some of you are not gonna taste death until you see the kingdom of God coming with power. Oops, was he mistaken about the second coming? His own second coming? No. It's exactly what happened in the Acts of the Apostles. They see the kingdom of God coming with power because they see people getting liberated who were horribly demonized, people who were horribly oppressed, addicted, confused, walking in darkness, getting set free, sick people getting healed, dead people getting raised up. They see the kingdom coming in power. And throughout Acts of the Apostles, the Ministry of Deliverance continues, as you see in the lives of the apostles. If you could turn to the slide with Acts of the Apostles. You see it in Acts 5.16, Acts 8.8. We lost the, there they are. Acts 19.12, again and again, the apostles and ordinary Christians are doing deliverance. Did that all come to a screeching halt with the end of the Age of the Apostles? Once the apostles died out, new generation came, did they say, well, that wasn't, that was just for the first generation of Christians. That's not for us. No way! You see in the writings of the fathers of the church, deliverance was a huge part of evangelization. And I have so many quotes here, I don't have time to read all these quotes, but just to give you a taste of them, St. Justin Martyr, second century. He's writing his letter to the Senate of Rome and he says this to them, Jesus was born by the will of God, the father for the salvation of believers and the destruction of demons. And you, pagan people of the Roman Senate, can learn this by what you see with your own eyes. For throughout the whole world and in your city, Rome, there are many demoniacs whom all the other exorcists, sorcerers, and magicians could not heal. Notice what he's saying. In the ancient world, deliverance was in high demand. People would pay good money to the sorcerers who would do all kinds of incantations and all kinds of icky, what do you call them? Witches brew and all kinds of frogs and blood and sorcery to get people free. My friends, do you realize how many people are doing that today? How many people are desperate? So it was in high demand in the ancient world. Why? Because it was a world full of idolatry and sexual immorality. Hard to imagine, huh? Isn't it in high demand again today for the very same reason? And so Justin goes on, he says, you know, there's so many demoniacs who none of the professionals could heal but whom our Christians have healed and do heal, disabling and casting out the demons who possessed them in the name of Jesus Christ who was crucified under Pontius Pilate. In other words, he's saying the ability of Christians to cast demons out of oppressed people has become so well known, it's an apologetics argument for the truth of Christianity. Isn't that cool? Can you imagine if that were the case today? Guess what, it is the case today. I have a good friend who is, I won't tell his whole story, but he's an Armenian and his ancestors, some of them died in the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century in Turkey. Over a million Armenians were just killed in cold blood by the Turks. He grew up kind of hating the Turks, but he was a good Christian. Didn't even realize how much hatred and anger was in his heart. God led him through a massive conversion and forgiveness of the Turkish people when my friend Ralph Martin asked him to come on a renewal ministry's mission to Turkey. And John's like, whoa, no way, I'm not going there. But God changed his heart. He went to Turkey with the renewal ministry's mission and part of the mission was deliverance ministry. People are lining up to get deliverance ministry and Ralph looks over and Ralph sees it hardly. Anybody's on his line and this huge line up for John, the Armenian whose ancestors, some of them died in the Armenian genocide. All these Turkish Muslims are lining up to get deliverance from John. And so many of them were set free. With each person who came up, he would ask them to make a simple act of faith in Jesus. He did not try to hide at all. He said, you know, the only way I can set you free is through the name of Jesus. Do you believe in Jesus Christ? And only if they said that they believe in Jesus Christ, would he do deliverance and so many have been set free. He's gone to Turkey several dozen times since then doing deliverance ministry and unbelievers are coming to faith in Christ. It's also true in parts of Africa and elsewhere in the world. One more quote from one of the fathers of the church from origin, he says, the casting out of demons Christians do without the use of any curious arts of magic or incantations, but merely by prayer and simple adoration. And adoration simply means commands in the name of Jesus. Simple adoration that the plainest person can use for the most part, it is illiterate people who do this work, thus making manifest the grace of the word of Christ and the despicable weakness of demons. In other words, he's saying Christians have such authority in the name of Jesus to cast demons out of people. Even the most simple illiterate Christians are doing this ministry to the greater embarrassment of the demons. It's not just, you know, the super wise intellectuals the highly placed people, ordinary Christians in the power of the name of Jesus are setting people free to the humiliation of the demons. Isn't that awesome? That power in the name of Jesus was one of the most significant factors in the explosive growth of the church in the ancient world. It was like the dawn was breaking, the sunlight was shining on a land in deep darkness. My friends, what do you think God wants to do today? How many people are under deep darkness? And he wants to send us out as ordinary folks just like he did in the early church. Okay, now I have to get to two major questions that are relevant today. First, what's the difference between exorcism and deliverance? Am I talking about exorcism? No, I'm not talking about exorcism. Over time, the church gradually regulated the practice of exorcism and reserved it to bishops only or priests specifically authorized by a bishop. Only bishops or authorized priests can carry out exorcism. And that was a reaction to abuses and it was a wise pastoral move on the part of the church. So what is exorcism? Exorcism is the expulsion of demons from a person who is demon possessed, the most extreme form where a person has truly lost control even over their own body or their voice. Through the spiritual authority, Jesus entrusted to his church, performed only by a bishop or by a priest with permission of his bishop using the liturgical right of exorcism. It's a liturgical right. And this form of casting out demons, exorcism, it's called public, not in the sense that you do it in front of a crowd, but in the sense that it's a formal act of the church. It's a liturgical right of the church. So it's a public exorcism. There are two kinds of public exorcism. I won't go into detail, but a major exorcism is casting demons out of a person who is truly possessed. A minor exorcism is what you do for people who are getting ready for baptism. And it's a very important part of preparation for baptism. You gotta move the enemy out of the way, whatever foothold he may have gotten in a person's life before they can be fully open to receive divine life in baptism. But even while the church regulated exorcism, restricted it in that way, simpler forms of casting out demons for less serious situations of demonic influence continued. And theologians called them private exorcisms in contrast to public exorcisms in the sense that I just explained, the formal act of the church. Private exorcism, that term has been used for several centuries, it's the same thing as what we call deliverance. Today, the term we use is deliverance ministry. And that's simply the effort to help a person break free of demonic influence in the power of Jesus' name. And I put a table up there that shows the major differences between exorcism and deliverance. In exorcism, the individual's possessed, it's a liturgical right of the church, requires the bishop's authorization, only a bishop or priest can do it, it's confrontational and it's relatively rare. Deliverance is when a person is afflicted or oppressed but not possessed. There's no set form, it's not a liturgical right, it may be done at will. Any baptized person, at least in principle, any baptized person can do it. It's usually non-confrontational and it's relatively common. Or you can put it this way. Exorcism is major surgery. Deliverance is physical therapy. I think that's a helpful way to look at it. Now we need to realize that both of these are not an end in themselves. It's not just, you know, let's get rid of this nasty demonic oppression in my life. It's not just freedom from the devil, it's freedom for life with God. It's in order to be able to live as a child of God, in the full freedom that he desires for us, in peace, in joy, in freedom. And that is a lifetime work, progressively removing all the footholds that we've given the enemy by believing his lies. So once you see that, you realize deliverance is part of the normal Christian life. Who needs it? We all do. I do. I get prayer for deliverance occasionally. When I see that I've given some foothold to the enemy, it's part of the normal Christian life. And when you receive deliverance, or you're a minister of deliverance for somebody else, the focus is actually not on the demons. You don't focus on the demons. You focus on the human person. You find the wound, or the sin, or the occult involvement, that opened the door in the first place. Once you let Jesus heal that wound, the enemy loses his foothold. He loses his grip. He's got no more right to come in and wreak havoc in your life because you've closed the door. You've given him an eviction notice. You've renounced whatever lies of the enemy you believed. He's got no right to be there anymore. So as my friend Neil Lozano says, who does a lot of deliverance ministry, wrote a wonderful book called Unbound, 90% of deliverance is getting the wound healed and getting the person's mind filled with truth. 10% or 5% is telling the demon to go. Once the wound is healed, that's, you've done it. You've done most of the work. The enemy has no place to land anymore. That's why Jesus talked about when the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, you know, don't just leave an empty place there. Now that you've closed the door, you've evicted the enemy, you have now got to fill that place in your life, that place in your heart, with the presence of the Holy Spirit. You can't just leave an empty space. You know, some people, they just want Jesus to come like a silver bullet, just get rid of my problem and let me go back to my life the way I was living it. Look out. You get deliverance that way and you want to go back to your addiction or your pursuit of pleasure or power or whatever it might be, he's going to come back with seven more. And your last situation is going to be even worse. So that's the difference between deliverance and exorcism. And then one more thing I want to talk about before I open the floor for questions. The role of direct commands. Is it legit to directly command demons to leave? Is it legit for lay people to do that? There are basically two ways to speak when you're doing deliverance. One is to petition God, to pray to God. Lord, please free this person from this demonic influence. That's a prayer to God. And the second way is by commanding the demon. I command you to leave this person in the name of Jesus. That's an adoration. You're commanding in the name of Jesus. I command you in the name of Jesus, leave this person and go to the foot of the cross. Is it illicit to do that? Today, there is a very widespread opinion that is getting around very widely saying that lay people may not do that. And then some versions of it are you may do that for your spouse or your children but not for anybody else. Is that view correct? Here's my response to that. Where do you find that view either in scripture or in the teaching of the church? It's not there. Why are you creating a prohibition that the church herself has not created? We are not at liberty to make rules and to place restrictions on what Jesus Christ has commanded, commissioned his followers to do. There is nowhere in church teaching that gives that restriction. And so I'll just very briefly summarize. First of all, what does scripture say? I already gave you the scriptures. Jesus sent out the 70 disciples and they cast out demons and he rejoiced. The end of the gospel of Mark. Those who believe will cast out demons in my name. Also we see in Mark nine, two disciples come and say, teacher, we saw somebody driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him. Jesus says, don't prevent him. There's no one who does a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. Okay, so scripture, if somebody ever says, where do you find it in church documents that lay people can command demons to go? Hold up a Bible and say this one. It's called the New Testament. There is no church document of higher authority than this. I wish I had one in my hand, but you get the idea. The words of our Lord himself. Who authorized us to do this? Jesus, pretty high authority. What about Catholic tradition? Well, does Catholic tradition forbid us? No, read what St. Thomas Aquinas says. He specifically asks that question in his summa. Is it lawful to adjure the demons, meaning to command them in the name of Jesus? And how does he answer? He quotes scripture, same scriptures I just gave you. Yes, it's lawful. Then he gives a caveat. He says, but however, it's not lawful and it's a very bad idea to enter into conversation with them or ask them questions. Don't do that. Why would you ask demons questions? They're liars. If there's anything you need to know, ask the Holy Spirit. C.N.L. Fonzis Liguri, same thing. He says, yes, it's lawful. And finally, what does the Magisterium teach? Some people say, well, the Magisterium says, lay people can't command demons. And they point to a 1985 document of the Congregation for the Doctor of the Faith. Read the document. Doesn't say that. It says three specific things, but it doesn't say lay people may not command demons. And why is that important? Why is it important that lay people also can be involved in deliverance ministry? I mean, for one thing, are there enough priests in the world to help all the people who need deliverance? Not remotely. Lay people need to be involved in this. But also, do you know, friends, Satan works so hard and his PR machine works over time to undermine your understanding of your baptismal authority. He does not want you to know the authority you have in Christ that Christ has shared with you as a baptized member of his body, sharing in his three-fold office as priest, prophet, and king, the evil one is actually terrified of you knowing and walking in your baptismal authority as a child of God. And so this view about lay people, you know, you better not command demons because then they might retaliate against you and they might attack your family and blah blah. Are we supposed to fear the demons? Scripture tells us there's only one whom we are to fear. God alone. He alone. Are we to fear? Scripture teaches us don't fear demons, don't fear anything else, just fear God. And we see it in the writings of the saints like Teresa of Avila. I love this. Not a fig, shall I care for all the devils in hell. It's they who fear me. I don't understand these fears. Oh, the devil, the devil, we say. When we might be saying, God, God, and making the devil tremble. Of course we might for we know he cannot move a finger unless the Lord permits it. Whatever are we thinking of? I'm quite sure I'm more afraid of people who are terrified of the devil than I am of the devil himself. For he cannot harm me in the least. We see it in St. Therese who at age four had a dream in which demons were running from her from a four year old girl in terror. No, she says a soul in the state of grace has nothing to fear from demons who are cowards, capable of fleeing before the gaze of a little child. If you're not in the state of grace, what does that mean? It means you've committed a mortal sin and you haven't received reconciliation through the sacrament. If you're not in the state of grace then, yeah, you better look out. People involved in deliverance ministry know very well. They better stay clean, keep their lives clean. Otherwise the devil can so easily get in and manipulate them and they can have a crash and burn. And there have been priest exorcists who've had a big crash and burn because of that. So is it dangerous to command demons? No, it's not dangerous to command demons. It's dangerous to dialogue with demons. It's dangerous to ask them questions. It's dangerous to get into any games with them. The only appropriate way to relate to them is by simple commands. That's it. Focusing on the person. Focusing on healing the wound. Focusing on evangelizing the person. Bringing truth into the person's life. Are you gonna become a target of the enemy? You bet you are. Are you gonna try to live a godly family life? You're gonna become a target. Are you gonna say yes to a vocation to the priesthood or a religious life? Are you gonna say yes to the vocation to a godly Catholic marriage? You're gonna become a target. You bet you are. Praise God. Does that mean run and hide, get out of the battle? No, because the only safe place to be is in the will of God, doing what he's called you to do. So we have nothing to fear. Now, one quick caveat. Just because laypeople have authority to cast out demons, does that mean everybody should be in deliverance ministry? No, it doesn't mean that. Laypeople in general can teach. Does that mean everybody's called to be a teacher? No, it doesn't. Some people are called and commissioned and gifted for that ministry. They need to be the right kind of people. They need to be under some kind of accountability. They need to be under the authority of the church. They need to be godly people, psychologically whole and sound, et cetera, et cetera. So not everybody's called to do it, but everybody can do it for themselves. And anybody living a mature Christian life can do it for their family or friends when need arises. So as we're fighting the work of the enemy brothers and sisters, what a joy that our stance is not defensive. When Jesus said, the gates of hell shall not prevail against my church. He said gates, gates are not an offensive weapon. Have you ever seen anybody fleeing in terror with gates in hot pursuit? No, we are victorious against the works of the enemy until we can stand in that confidence that we know who has won the victory and we can walk in that victory ourselves because we're convinced that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Alleluia.