They are held down or captive by this evil spirit, and so in dealing with the person, you have to not just get the spirit out; you've got to deal with what it energised inside them, which was the sin issue that was in their heart, and possibly the grief and the pain and the anguish of what happened to them in their life. So all of us face many different experiences, and all of us have had painful experiences in our life, and it's often in those trauma or painful experiences the demons ride in and get into your life, and use them to energise your heart, so that you're held in bondage to that thing that happened in your past. So all of us have got a history, all of us have got a past, and it doesn't all get dealt with when you become a Christian. Potentially it is, at the cross, but it has to be realised by appropriating it through faith, and so we've got to step up and take hold of it by faith. Getting the idea?
Okay then, so Jesus healed all who were oppressed. Let's have a look at a guy in Acts, in Luke, Chapter 4, Verse 33. Now here's a guy that Jesus delivered, so we're going to look at an example of Jesus delivering a person. Then we're going to look at what He taught about deliverance, and so here it is; Jesus is in a synagogue. A synagogue was a place where believers congregated, so this is a place of believers. Many Christians struggle with the thought that a Christian could have a demon. Their thinking is well, you know, Christians are temple of the Holy Spirit, got the Holy Spirit in you, demon can't live where the Holy Spirit is. The Holy Spirit won't live where the demon is, therefore you can't have a demon and be a Christian - or you can't be Christian and have a demon. But if you - it's faulty and flawed thinking, and it shows lack of understanding.
The Holy Spirit is joined to our spirit, and He is one spirit with us. When demons occupy your body and your soul, that's where they find their place of access, and they don't just stop because you become a Christian. They stop when you drive them out. They stop when you remove the issues associated with them. So here's a guy now for example, so he's a believer. Jesus said deliverance is the children's bread, in other words He said - in Matthew 15 He said deliverance, being set free from demons, is the children's bread or in other words it is the right of believers, it's the privilege of believers to have the experience of deliverance.
So if we deliver someone who's got a demon and they're not saved, the demon's just going to come straight back in. Deliverance is not so much just about casting a demon out. It's about establishing the kingdom of Jesus Christ in the person's life, so they have to come under another king, and bring the part of their life that's out of order into kingdom order, and when it comes into kingdom order, then deliverance is very easily brought about. Getting the idea?
Okay, so here's a guy who's in church and so - Verse 33 - in the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon, and many times Jesus cast demons out of people in church meetings. And so Jesus is in a church meeting, so He's preaching away and sharing the word of God, and here it is - a man with an unclean spirit. So we've got a spirit, most likely a spirit of lust, and he's tormented inside, in his mind and emotions, tormented with sexual thought, sexual images, sexual desires and most likely breaks out and commits sin from time to time.
He's in the church, indicating his desire is to serve God, but he's tormented. He is not free. He's in the body of believers, but he's tormented in his life, and he's living only a measure of freedom. There's a greater level of freedom, or like a new level of normal, that he has to come into this day. So he's in the church, and as he's in there, Jesus begins to speak, and the anointing flows. Now notice what the demon does. He cries out with a loud voice. Now what's happening is this, is the demon is aware of who Jesus is. Now when we look at one another we see only the external, so you look and you see the house the person lives in. The real person is the hidden man of the heart, so the real you is the spirit man with the soul inside the temple - that body that you live in. When we look at one another, we see the outside. From the spirit world, they see what the real man is like, so the demon recognised Jesus immediately, knew exactly who He was. The people in the congregation didn't know who He was, but the demon knew who He was, recognised Him straight away. And so the demon was highly agitated and afraid, so notice what it does - begins to yell out. Now I've had that happen a few times in church. I've had it happen on more than one occasion in church, and I've had it happen out in the community, had it happen in restaurants [laughs] had it happen in public places, and especially when we've been in a flow of doing deliverance, and people suddenly will just yell out, with no reason at all.