Deliverance and the Prayer Life of Jesus

The Process of Deliverance: Lessons from the Gadarene Demoniac

Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes. And when He had come out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no one could bind him, not even with chains, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains. And the chains had been pulled apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces; neither could anyone tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped Him. And he cried out with a loud voice and said, "What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God that You do not torment me." For He said to him, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit!" Then He asked him, "What is your name?" And he answered, saying, "My name is Legion; for we are many." Also he begged Him earnestly that He would not send them out of the country. Now a large herd of swine was feeding there near the mountains. So all the demons begged Him, saying, "Send us to the swine, that we may enter them." And at once Jesus gave them permission. Then the unclean spirits went out and entered the swine (there were about two thousand); and the herd ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and drowned in the sea.

(Mark 5:1-13)

When Jesus cast demons out of people, the demons did not always leave immediately. In the account quoted above, examining the sequence of events reveals that it took the Lord some time to cast these demons out. The account began when the demon-possessed man ran up to Jesus to worship Him. He did this because the demon recognized Jesus for who He was—as we have already mentioned, after our Lord was baptized with the Holy Spirit, all demons could recognize Him. When the demon began to worship Jesus, our Lord commanded the demon to come out of the man.

However, even though our Lord had commanded the demon to come out, the demon did not leave but instead spoke back to the Lord. Scripture tells us that the demon cried out with a loud voice and said, "What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God that You do not torment me." At this stage, our Lord asked the demon what his name was, and the demon gave his name as Legion. The demon then asked the Lord not to send him out of the country. Luke's account of this incident provides additional insight into what the demon actually said, telling us that the demon begged not to be cast into the Abyss (Luke 8:31).

Up to this point, the demon named Legion had been using the man's voice to speak to Jesus, since that demon had possessed the man and therefore controlled his voice. All the people present heard the discourse between the Lord Jesus and the demon. Then something else occurred in the realm of the spirit: the Bible teaches that all the demons began to beg Jesus to let them go into the swine. Only Jesus could hear the approximately two thousand demons begging Him at this stage. Jesus then gave them permission, and they came out of the man.

The point I want to make from this account is that it took our Lord some time to get this man delivered. If there were instances where it took our Lord longer to get people healed and delivered, then we can expect that there will be times when it will also take us time to see people healed and delivered. The key is to be led by the Spirit when laying hands on people and to follow the examples given to us in Scripture, such as the one we have just read.

Important Note on Dialoguing with Demons

As an aside, I must mention that it is completely unscriptural to enter into conversations with demons when casting them out. We see on numerous occasions that the Lord Jesus would not allow demons to speak when He cast them out (Mark 1:34). So why did Jesus seemingly enter into dialogue with the demon on this occasion?

When the demon did not come out immediately, Jesus recognized that He was dealing with more than one demon, so He commanded the demon to reveal his name. The demon's reply was that his name was Legion, "for we are many." Based on the demon's reply, Jesus knew that Legion had authority over all the other demons dwelling in the man, and He therefore did not need to cast each demon out separately. Our Lord could then command Legion and all of "his demons" to leave the man, which is what transpired.

When an individual has more than one demon, however, there will not always be a dominant demon that the others fall under. On some occasions, several demons will have joint access to the individual, and in those instances, each demon will have to be cast out separately. You will recall the account where our Lord taught us that an individual had eight demons inside them, and even though several were more wicked than the others, there was no set hierarchy among them (Luke 11:26).

Although the above account is the only example we have of our Lord casting out multiple demons from an individual where we see the process in detail, there were other occasions when Jesus cast out more than one demon from a person. For example, Scripture teaches us that He cast seven demons out of Mary Magdalene (Luke 8:2). How did Luke know that Jesus had cast seven demons out of Mary? He knew because either Jesus made each one reveal itself by name so that He could cast each one out, or, as in the case of Legion, a dominant demon had possession of Mary and revealed to Jesus how many demons were dwelling in her at the time.

The Foundation of Jesus' Healing Ministry: Prayer and Fasting

But as for me, when they were sick, My clothing was sackcloth; I humbled myself with fasting; And my prayer would return to my own heart. I paced about as though he were my friend or brother; I bowed down heavily, as one who mourns for his mother.

(Psalms 35:13-14)

We look at the life of our Lord Jesus in the Gospel accounts and see Him being used by God to perform many miracles and healings. Even though we know that He walked this earth as a man, we think that somehow He could do what He did because He was special. Well, He was special—our Lord Jesus walked this life in the flesh without ever once committing any sin. But what we fail to realize is that Jesus had to walk this life as we do, for Scripture tells us that our Lord had to be made in all things just like us (Hebrews 2:17).

The point I need you to see here is that the anointing manifested through Jesus when He walked the earth was not simply because of Him being the Son of God. The account in the Psalms that I have quoted above describes the private prayer life of our Lord Jesus when He walked in the flesh. More specifically, we see how our Lord interceded to the Father on behalf of the sick so that He would be used by God to heal them through His ministry. In this account, we see that not only did our Lord pray for the sick, but He also humbled Himself through fasting for them. It was because of our Lord's intercessory prayer life that God the Father anointed Jesus with the degree of healing power that He walked in.

Our Lord Jesus said that we would do the same works that He did, and even greater works, because He was going to the Father (John 14:12). If we are going to experience similar results as our Lord Jesus when we lay hands on people, then we need to follow His example in every way, including in our prayer lives. Prayer and fasting have the effect of increasing the anointing in our lives. In the same manner, lack of prayer and fasting will diminish the anointing in our lives.

Michael E.B. Maher

Laying on of Hands

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