Deliverance & the Early Church

Wednesday, December 18th, 2013     Sixteenth Century ink and pigment Scripture text and artistic depiction of Christ casting out demons from the demoniac of Gadara. In a new book by Michael Brown, entitled Authentic Fire: A Response to John MacArthur’s Strange Fire (a book I admittedly haven’t read yet), there is an excellent quote that I found on a web site, a quote on which I’d like to put a spin. Brown quotes noted Christian writer A. W. Tozer as having said, “If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.” I agree completely with that observation. Contemplating the ministry of healing and deliverance to which the Lord has called me, I’d also put it another way. If every instance of healing and deliverance ceased in the church today, most Christians would hardly notice. If miracles, signs and wonders, and healing and deliverance had been removed from the Early Church of the first three centuries A. D., there would be no Church as we know it today!

To put it more directly: if the casting out of demons and the healing of sick bodies and souls had been ignored when the Church started, there likely wouldn’t be much of a Church today, including those preachers and denominational bodies who actively oppose deliverance. In my new International School of Exorcism� (call 303-980-1511 to register and find out about special scholarships), Level 1, Course 2, I cite the observation of Dr. Geoffrey Lampe, British Anglican priest who for ten years was professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. Dr. Lampe argues in his writings that exorcism was the dominant miracle of the Early church and that it “provided support of a person’s authority, character, and doctrine.” In short, if there had been no exorcism in 200-300 A. D. (The First Century was the apostolic age and Scripture clearly tells us they cast out demons during that period.), the Church could not have survived the opposition of Rome, the mightiest pagan empire on earth. Every preacher who opposes deliverance is part of the legacy of deliverance which started in early Christianity. Even a John MacArthur can do what he does because those first Christians cast out demons!