10 Steps to Freedom

Ten Steps to Freedom
By Pablo Deiros and Pablo Bottari
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Excerpt from Chapter 9 – Deliverance From Dark Strongholds
Power, Holiness, and Evangelism, compiled by Randy Clark

Inner healing and deliverance ministry is so needed today more than ever. The Church needs to learn how to minister to those troubled with demonic oppression. When demons manifest through shaking, falling, screaming, or some other very observable way, the minister can rebuke Satan. A powerful electricity goes through the people is simply an incredible work of the Holy Spirit. When a constant stream of people comes for deliverance, practically all of them come out with a substantial degree of healing and deliverance.

With the help of the Holy Spirit, this 10-step model of deliverance is developed. It is quiet, loving, dignified, and very effective. It is pastoral and teachable. It is not spectacular. However, it goes to the root of a problem rather than dealing only with the symptom; and you can see, right on the spot, the freedom, joy, and peace on the face of the person ministered to.
The need for inner healing and deliverance is so prevalent. Church members need to be trained to minister to people effectively. It needs to be a normal part of our church life.

In one region, more than 75% of the pastors and pastors’ wives carrying heavy burdens require inner healing and deliverance because of just one problem-traumatic sexual experiences as children. Pastors and leaders need help too. They too can be liberated through clinics. Pastors and leaders who receive training and go through deliverance themselves can help those people who manifest. A healed leader, a freed leader, will bring freedom, deliverance, peace, and health to the rest of the congregation.

Are there something hurting you, binding you, and preventing you from serving the church the way God wants you to serve? We must begin to take the devil seriously, rebuke him, and denounce him by name.

The demonic oppression gained entrance through an “open door,” such as hurtful relationship, a traumatic event, a prolonged illness, or a habitual sin. If all open doors are not “closed,” a deliverance is often difficult, sometimes humiliating, and may be only temporary. On the other hand, if all open doors are closed, the actual deliverance is usually easy, quick, not humiliating, and more likely to be permanent.

This model is appropriate for crusade settings, and also for local church or private settings. The minister needs to remember these principles for deliverance.

1. Deliverance ministry should be guided by God’s love and by a dependence on the Holy Spirit every step of the way. Remember, your main job is not to cast out a demon; it is to help a soul whom the Lord loves and does not want to hurt. Behind this entire ministry there must be the heart of God for a suffering soul whom the devil is oppressing. Don’t ever treat the person being ministered to like a demon!

2. Lovingly pray in general for the prayee or hurt person for the healing of his wounds and hurts.

3. The power to heal and to deliver is in the Name of Jesus. You cannot use His name too much!
Step 1: Give the individual priority.
Be loving, not militant. Firmness is necessary in bringing a demon under Christ’s authority, but the prayee himself needs to feel loved, accepted, and encouraged. The prayee may have been in bondage for years and has perhaps received prayers that did more harm than good. Encourage him; he is on his way to freedom.

Step 2: If a spirit manifests, bring it under submission, in the name of Jesus.
Take authority over any spirit that manifests and make it be quiet. Simply say something like, “Submit, in the name of Jesus!” or “Be quiet, in Jesus’ name! I want to talk to (Bruce or Helen).” Keep repeating such commands until the spirit is quiet. Don’t be surprised if this takes time. Be persistent. It is helpful to tell the prayee you are talking to the demon that is manifesting and not to him.
Ask others not to touch or speak to the prayee or pray loudly while you are quieting a demon. Spirits are very quick to sense divided authority. If others impinge on your authority, it is more difficult to quiet the demon.

Step 3: Establish and maintain communication with the prayee.
The prayee’s cooperation is essential for deliverance and inner healing. He must help you find the “open doors” and get them closed. This means that you must be able to talk with him. You can’t do this if a spirit is manifesting.
Maintaining communication during ministry may require additional commands to spirits to submit. The prayee perhaps cannot hold his head up, look at you, or sit still. If necessary, order the spirits again to submit. This may take time, but it is absolutely necessary. Don’t speak to any spirit except to give it orders, in the name of Jesus.

Step 4: Ask the prayee what he wants to be freed from and try to make sure he really does
want to get free.
Unless God sovereignly intervenes, it is probably impossible to permanently liberate a person unless he genuinely wants to be free. Successful deliverance requires unqualified forgiveness, sincere repentance, and renunciation of wrong conduct and attitudes. It requires willingness to change any lifestyle that gave entrance to the demon in the first place. If the prayee seeks deliverance without these, he is likely to soon again be in bondage, even if a deliverance is “successful.”
If you find that the prayee is not a candidate for deliverance for any reason, don’t be offended. Pray for him and bless him, but don’t pray for his deliverance. Encourage him to come back later for deliverance if he really wishes to become free.

Step 5: Make sure that the prayee has accepted Jesus as his Savior and Lord.
The prayee will need the help of the Holy Spirit to stay free. This should be explained to him. If he is not a believer, perhaps you can lead him to Christ. If you cannot, pray for him; pray for his healing; but do not pray for liberation. Encourage him to take the step of making Jesus his Lord and then return for deliverance and healing.
Go on to the following steps only if the prayee really wants to get free and only if he has received Jesus as the Lord of his life.

Step 6: Interview the prayee to discover the event or events, the conduct, or the
relationship situations that have led to his bondage or bondages.
The purpose of the interview is to expose the places where forgiveness is required, where healing is needed, and where repentance and breaking of bondages is needed. These places are the open doors.
If there is a specific bondage the person wants to be free from, start there. If there is no obvious other place to start, begin with his relationship with his father and with his mother. Then continue on through other relationships and then through other areas. Look for places where the prayee has been mistreated or hurt and for ways that the prayee himself has sinned. The more thorough the interview and the more detailed the forgiveness and repentance are, the better.
Interviewing by “areas” is a convenient way to make sure the interview is thorough. The minister should cover one area fully, then go on to another.
Areas include the following: relationships (father, mother, etc.), drugs, the occult, sex outside of marriage, trauma, curses, habitual sins, as well as miscellaneous items such as pride, greed, or controlling others. In the relationship area, the interviewer is looking for mistreatment of the prayee and resulting hurts and wrong attitudes. In other areas, he is looking for participation, for persons who may have induced participation (who thus need to be forgiven), and for ways the prayee has hurt others.

Step 7: Lead the prayee in “closing” these “doors” to the admission of spirits.
“Leading,” in this case, means having the prayee repeat sentences after you, at least in the beginning. After some repetitions, he probably can take the steps on his own.
“Closing a door” involves three or four steps, depending on the situation. Steps B, C, and D below are always included. If another person is involved, step A is also needed.

Step A: Forgive
The prayee must unequivocally forgive the one who has caused hurt or led him into the wrong conduct, item by item, for each act, each hurtful comment, etc., that the Holy Spirit brings to his mind. After forgiving, he should tell God that he will not try to change the person but will with God’s help love that person as he is. Then the prayee should ask God to bless the other person in every way. Releasing and blessing tend to firm up forgiveness.
Sometimes the prayee has been hurt so deeply that he simply cannot forgive the person who hurt him. Explain to him that forgiveness is a decision he makes and is not necessarily a feeling. Explain that if he does not forgive, he will not be forgiven.
If he still cannot forgive, ask him if you can pray for him. If he says yes, quietly but firmly bind the spirit of unforgiveness in him and command it to leave him in the name of Jesus. Then see if he can forgive. That may break the logjam. However, if the prayee will not come to the place of forgiveness, you should gently and lovingly bring the ministry to a close. His unforgiveness would just be an open door for expelled demons to return.
The interview and door closing processes can be extremely painful as the prayee relives deep hurts. You may see some of much weeping. You can lovingly stop and ask God to heal his hurts and his broken heart. Do not hurry this prayer. Pray with your eyes open to note any unspoken responses to parts of your prayers.

Step B: Repent and ask forgiveness
The prayee must repent of his own attitudes, feelings, and acts that are not of God. This repentance includes the conduct itself, such as unforgiveness, resentment, anger, anxiety, pride, taking in rejection, self-pity, or depression. His attitudes and feelings may be very understandable, but if they are not from God, they are from the enemy and should be repented of. Then the prayee should ask God’s forgiveness for them. Here too the repentance should be specific, item-by-item. .

Step C: Renounce all sins or spirits involved in the name of Jesus
The prayee should audibly and firmly renounce his own sin, the effect on him of other’s sins, and any bondages. Some examples include the following:
* “In the name of Jesus, I renounce the fear that came upon me when…”
* “In the name of Jesus, I renounce having shared my body with (naming each person) and every unclean sexual spirit I picked up from them. In the name of Jesus, I renounce pornography, fantasy, fornication, and every spirit connected with them.”
* “In the name of Jesus, I renounce having put myself under the authority of that (witch, fortune-teller, hypnotist, etc.).”
* “In the name of Jesus, I renounce rejection, loneliness, self-pity, depression, hopelessness, despair, confusion…, etc.”

Step D: The minister should break the yoke of bondage and the power of any spirit
Establish eye contact with the prayee and break, in the name of Jesus, the power of the renounced spirits and the yoke of any bondage over the prayee. You could pray like this: “In Jesus’ name I break the yoke of fear, hate, unclean sex, resentment, anger (whatever is involved) over “John, Mary” so that when they are cast out, they will not come back.”
Do not cast out any demons until all “doors” have been closed, or at least all doors in a particular area. If not all doors are closed, expelling spirits is sometimes more difficult, and those that remain when some are expelled may manifest.

Step 8: When all doors are closed, cast out the unclean spirit or spirits.
Simply cast them out-always in the name of Jesus. It is not necessary to send them somewhere; if the doors have been effectively closed, the spirits will leave quietly and quickly with one or two commands.
If they don’t, it is a signal that not all doors have been closed. Go back to the interview stage! Find and close the unclosed doors.
The prayee may or may not display some manifestation of the spirit leaving (a sigh, cough, yawn, jerk, etc.). However, he usually will feel free, lighter, like laughing, or deeply peaceful.
When you think you have finished steps 6 through 8, ask the Holy Spirit to show one of you (you, the intercessor, the prayee, and any friend, spouse, or parent who is present) whether there are additional spirits to be exposed and expelled. Wait some moments to see if the Holy Spirit does show someone something. If He does, ask the prayee, gently, whether there is a need in the area that the Holy Spirit has identified. Remember that you might hear incorrectly, so be careful not to speak too strongly and not to be accusatory. If something comes to light, deal with it as per steps 6 through 8.

Step 9: Lead the prayee in a prayer of praise and thanksgiving to Jesus for his deliverance.
Suggest, as a starter, “Thank You, Jesus, for setting me free!…”

Step 10: Have the prayee ask the Holy Spirit to fill him, to fill up every space formally
occupied by an evil spirit. You and your supporters can add similar prayers for him at steps 9 and 10.
If the prayee cannot thank Jesus, if he cannot ask the Holy Spirit to fill him, or if there is further demonic manifestation when he does, it is a signal that there are more doors to be closed and more spirits to be expelled.
Ask the Holy Spirit for His help. Go back to step 6 or 7 as indicated.