ANSWER: No, I do not believe demons can "reside" in the
soul of a Christian. Some Christians do believe a believer can be "demonized,"
but I cannot find any specific reference to this in the Bible. I have spoken to many
regarding such issues and they always say the New Testament is full of such references to
Jesus Christ effecting demonic deliverances on Christians. Yet, not one of them has ever
given me a specific Scripture to address this. They just repeat, "The New Testament
is full of them." These same Christians generally dispute my statement that neither
Jesus Christ nor any of the disciples or apostles ever "did" a deliverance on a
believer or held a deliverance meeting in a New Testament Church setting. When I have
asked them to show me their proof that this was done, they again repeat, "The New
Testament is full of such references." I cannot find one such reference. I see the
New Testament full of Jesus Christ preaching the Good News. He dealt with spirits that
manifested in people brought before Him--not one of these people were Christians.
What is a Christian? As simply put as
possible, a Christian is one who believes and confesses that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God who died on the cross to pay for his or her sins and purchase his or her forgiveness
and salvation.
You have to be talking about Christians here,
for a non-believer would not be filled with the Spirit of God. I do believe that a
Christian's unsurrendered soul can be so riddled with open doors of access (due to the
mind, will, and emotions working together to bring about a rationalizing and justifying of
disobedience to God's Word) that this Christian can be severely harassed by demonic
spirits. I explain this "opening up of doors in the soul" concept in Shattering
Your Strongholds with specific regard to Ephesians 4:26-27 AMP and further
in Breaking the Power. The Christian who has multiple open doors
in his or her soul (opened because of rationalizing and justifying why he or she believes
it is not possible to obey a certain command of God, such as not letting the sun go down
on anger, or forgiving everyone of everything all the time, etc.) can be demonically
harassed and hammered to the point that it might seem that there were demons
"within" his or her soul. But don't fall into the trap of believing that the
manifestations of bad attitudes and reactions out of a wounded and angry and frightened
human soul of a Christian are manifestations of demons within that soul.
The answer is not in trying to effect
deliverance from these harassing spirits, for that will only bring temporary relief if
their mode of access to harass the believer's soul remains open and available. This is one
area where Christians often overlook the obvious. Satan does not just have one harassing
spirit to send, one singular spirit that could be bound or rebuked or cast out and the
problem of that person's harassment is over. Satan has far more spirits to keep sending
through open doors of access than any human being has time to deal with and still find any
kind of life outside an ongoing spiritual survival mode. When Satan can get you in such a
"spiritual survival mode," he knows that you are effectively prevented from
focusing on pursuing your destiny with God. You're totally focused on him and the ensuing
spiritual warfare. Hello? That is his Satan's whole intent in harassing you: TO KEEP YOU
FROM FOCUSING ON YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST AND THE FULFILLMENT OF YOUR DESTINY
PURPOSES IN GOD!
To continue to war with Satan over spirits he
is sending to harass you is like trying to mop up an overflowing toilet without ever
turning off the water pouring into the toilet tank. The permanent answer lies in stopping
the inflow of what you're trying to deal with or clean up. Otherwise you are just
continually mopping up the mess, never coming to a permanent solution. In the
unsurrendered soul, a permanent solution occurs when you close the doors of demonic access
brought about by your own stronghold thinking (also explained in Shattering Your
Strongholds and Breaking the Power). This involves using the binding and loosing
principles of prayer (as referenced in Matthew 16:19) to free yourself from this cycle.
Bind your will to the will of God, bind your mind to the mind of Christ, bind yourself to
the full truth of God's Word. Loose (crush, smash, break into minute fragments) all
hindrances and devices the enemy is trying to send against you, loose wrong patterns of
thinking you have, loose wrong beliefs you have, loose the effects and influences of wrong
agreements you have made with wrong teaching, and loose all of your soul's stronghold
thinking patterns. Do this every time the enemy launches another attack against you. You
will see victory! Please refer to the books for further explanation. Rev. Liberty Savard
