Jesus gave three main commissions when it came to casting out demons. The first commission is in Matthew 10:5–8 when He calls His 12 disciples to cast out demons. The second commission is in Luke 10:17–20 when Jesus sends out the 72 disciples. The third commission now applies to every believer, “In My name they will cast out demons,” (Mark 16:17, MEV).
People often think that once deliverance takes place, nothing more needs to be done. That could not be further from the truth. Often after we go through deliverance, there are steps we need to take to make sure the demons don’t return or new demons don’t seek entrance. It’s very normal after someone goes through a deliverance for there to be backlash and even the feeling of not being fully delivered. Demons do everything they can to assault you right after you get completely free. The first one to two weeks are the most important.
If we can teach people to resist the enemy during this period, the demons will not usually keep trying to come back.
James 4:7 (NIV) says, “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Notice that before we even resist, we must submit to God! If you don’t submit to God after your deliverance, you open yourself up to being re-demonized. Sadly, in the Western church we resist God and submit to the devil instead of the other way around. The word resist is a verb that means exerting yourself, to counteract or defeat. This is not simply saying no to the devil when he comes; this is actually counteracting or defeating him.
So now you’re submitted to God, you’re fighting against the enemy’s attack, and what is the result? The devil runs! Imagine that! Instead of running from demons that try to attack you, demons are running from you because you fight back against them. When Jesus showed up, the demons would say, “Have you come to torment us?” The very presence of Christ torments demons, and that same presence is alive inside you. If you really understand this, it changes the way you fight against Satan’s kingdom.
In Matthew 12 Jesus teaches us an extremely important principle when it comes to demons leaving a person and attempting to reenter. Jesus tells us the first thing an evil spirit does when it leaves a person. Whether this is when it’s cast out or it has the ability to leave on its own will is not clear, but we know the demon has just left a person. The very first thing it does is look for somewhere dry to rest. Demons love dry Christians, dry churches, dry pastors, dry preaching, dry prayer lives and dry spirituality. Pretty much anything that is dry is a good place for a demon to rest. We want to make sure our lives are not suitable places for demons to rest! Demons love dry environments. Psalm 22:3 (KJV) says, “But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.” How incredible is it that God inhabits environments of praise while demons dwell in dry places.
Next Jesus tells us that the demon says something to itself: “Then it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from’” (Matt. 12:44). Here we see the clear intention of a demon that leaves a person. It wants to return! It wants to reenter the person it left. So we now know our job is to make sure it doesn’t have the ability to make a reentrance. Our job, once the demon is gone, is to make sure it can’t come back even if it wants to, and because of this verse we know it wants to. Jesus then says, “So it returns and finds its former home empty, swept, and in order” (v. 44).
Jesus gives us another insight into the mind of demons. They actually treat humans as “homes.” Principally, demons live inside human bodies, making the human bodies their homes.
Pause reading for a second, and say this out loud: “Devil, I am not your home; you cannot live inside me. You must leave now in Jesus’ name!” I take it personally that a demon thinks I am its home. Sometimes I wonder how comfortable I’ve made my “house” for demons.
Some of us want our demons to leave, but we’ve made them a comfortable house. We give them a nightly snack of compromise and feed them meals of sin all day long. We need to make our “houses” places of prayer and worship so demons no longer want to live inside us.
Isaiah Saldivar preaches a message of revival and repentance. His ministry reaches 6 to 8 million people each week through his social media platforms including his YouTube channel with over 860,000 subscribers. He also hosts a weekly podcast called Revival Lifestyle, currently in the top 1% of podcasts in the world. Isaiah and his wife, Alyssa, have four daughters and reside in central California. His new book, How to Cast Out Demons, is available now at Amazon.com.
