06/06/2022
Casting out devils is not the same as deliverance
By Charles Awuzie
CALM down! Take off the hat of what you used to know about deliverance, let's study the Bible in love and humility.
When Jesus talked about casting out devils, He used the Greek word ἐκβάλλω - Ekballo which literally means to banish an unwanted thing or person from a place. And that's not what deliverance is. Let's paint a picture.
Let's assume you were kidnapped by 'Evans' and taken to an evil forest. In the forest, you were tied to a tree awaiting death. To further torment you, the kidnappers positioned a monster with a whip next to you. Every hour, that monster would flog you until you bled. Then someone shows up, fights the monster with a sophisticated weapon and banished the monster from you. You are relieved but you have not been delivered. If that person's help to you was only to banish the monster, would you say that you have been delivered while you were still tied in the forest? A capital NO. So then what is deliverance?
Deliverance focuses on the victim and not the demon tormenting him or her. The word Deliverance is the Hebrew word Teshua or Yesha from which the name Yeshua was derived for Jesus. In Greek, it is soteria. Yesha and Soteria both means to save or rescue a victim from danger. So deliverance actually means rescue or salvation. To be saved means to be delivered. If you believe your salvation in Jesus is eternal, it will be easy for you to believe that your deliverance in Jesus is forever.
Back to the picture we painted, if your helper only drove away the monster that tormented you without relocating you from that forest to a safe place, you were not helped at all. That's why Jesus said that "when the demons come back, they will come in seven fold" and meet you where they were banished from. So the help you need from your kidnappers would actually be to completely Relocate You from that evil forest to a better place of rest and comfort. That's exactly what Deliverance or Salvation means. That's what Jesus did. The Bible captures it this way "He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son..."~Colossians 1:13
Notice that the Bible mentioned the words 'domain' and 'transfer'...that's what defines deliverance - to be moved from a dangerous domain and transferred to a comfortable domain. So when you are saved, you were relocated from that evil forest and transferred to a place where 'Evans' and his gang can not reach. The Bible captures this when it said we are now seated with Christ in heavenly places, "far above powers and principalities". So we were rescued from the kidnappers and transferred to a place where the kidnappers can never reach again... Or are we saying that Christ rescued us from the kidnappers and still placed us within the reach of the kidnappers? If so, we were never saved.
Beloved, when we cast out devils, we are not conducting deliverance, we are just driving away tormentors. Deliverance only comes through the knowledge of the truth... "for the truth you know shall set you free". That's deliverance. So we don't pray deliverance upon people, we teach people into deliverance. We deliver people by exposing them to the Finished Work Of Christ. Once they are successfully delivered, that is saved, they are eternally safe from every demonic torment. This is why it is wrong to conduct another deliverance on someone who has already received the salvation of Jesus. It is an act of ignorance.
We need to humbly admit that we mistook casting out devils for deliverance. We need to stop reading the Bible and start STUDYING it. It's time to search and re-search the scriptures for light.
Maranatha!
