Friday, July 11, 2014

TORMENTING DEMONS

After returning from a recent class on Exercising Spiritual Authority where we witnessed many demons cast out of people, my good buddy Ed Murphy asked me how it went. My response stirred the fellow spiritual warrior in his soldier soul when I said, “Nothing seems quite as exhilarating as hearing a God-damned demon shrieking and screaming when they are cast out.” We both belly laughed as we remembered the times we have tormented demons and they came out of people kicking and screaming. We are not the first ones to experience such exhilarating excitement. It is a biblical fact that demons often scream when they are expelled.

For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed.                                                          Acts 8:7a

It is interesting to note that it says the unclean spirits were the ones crying out—not the people they came out of. They are crying because they are being tormented and are in pain and agony.

In my prayer time following the above conversation, I was thanking the Lord for the power and authority to do such exploits. His response is still echoing in my head. He asked, “Has it occurred to you that I like to hear them scream too?” Actually, I had not considered that concept before; but now that I know He likes it, be assured that I will give Him some enjoyment in the near future. Why should He not like it? And why shouldn’t we like it as well? After all, it is evidence that the tormentors are being tormented.

Along the line of tormenting demons, not long after Jesus (Yeshua) walked out of the desert, He went to Capernaum where a demon reacted to His presence by crying out, “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” (Mark 1:24). The Luke 8:28 account of Jesus casting the demons out of the madman of the Gadarenes says, “What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You, do not torment me!”

The demons cried out when they saw Jesus because they knew He was an expert demon hunter and they feared His presence. The demon asked Jesus, “Are you come to torment us before our time [of torment]?” Though Jesus did not qualify a response to the question, He demonstrated His answer. Not only did He cast them out, but He also sent them into a herd of pigs where they met a gruesome end by stampeding off the cliff and plunging into the water to drown. The result? The demons were left with no house or job. Jesus did not answer the demon’s question by saying yes, but the action proved the answer was and is—yes! Absolutely yes. He made it positively clear that He had indeed come to torment them before their time.

We often think of demons as the tormentors, but how often do we consider that we can torment them by casting them out of their house? When a demon is cast out, he is not asked to leave—he is thrown out against his will.
Demons lose their homes and jobs all in one violent action of expulsion. They scream because they are being driven out against their will, just as they have driven their victims against their will. How exciting to consider that we can torment the tormentors and inflict punishment on the punishers. Even more so, hearing their screams is incredibly, spiritually satisfying.

The Bible testifies that a time is coming when all demons will be chained in the pit with Satan for a thousand years and then afterward be cast into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. That is their time of promised torment. Yet, until then, those of us who love to torment the tormentors can enjoy the precursor of them being cast into the lake of fire by casting them out of their houses NOW.

So I say to the spiritual warrior out there, what could be more exciting and exhilarating than to hear the tormentors scream because they are being tormented?