You are here at number 5 (My Deliverance From the Spirit of Fear).

My Deliverance From the Spirit of Fear

It had been suggested to me by more than one person that I might have a spirit of fear. Therefore, eventually I was prayed over by a group I will call group A. It was cast out in the name of Jesus, but nothing happened! Compare that to this Biblical reference.

Mark 9:16 -18
And he asked the scribes, What question ye with them? And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not.

(The disciples had called the spirit out and it hadn't worked.)

Then Jesus spoke to those there, saying that they were of little faith and told them to bring the boy to him.

Mark 9:19
He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me. 20 And they brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming.

When the boy came into the presence of the Lord, the spirit rose up in the boy to control him one more time. Then Jesus spoke with the father of the boy.

Mark 9:21-22
And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child. And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.

Obviously, the spirit had been in the boy for quite a while. We need to understand that the length of time a spirit has controlled or harassed a person is relevant to what must happen to get rid of it. The longer a spirit is resident, either inside or on the person, the more it is entrenched or attached. So there is more to understand than just what type of spirit it is. Then we see the father of the boy ask for help and here is Jesus' answer.

Mark 9:23-24
Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

Honesty with God is always the best avenue. The father asking the Lord for help, in tears, reminds me so much of my very sincere, "Oh God, help me," when I needed delivered from anger.

Mark 9:25-26
When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead.

Notice that Jesus told the spirit "and enter no more into him.." This particular spirit was 'in' the person, not 'on' the person. There is a great difference. What Jesus said also reveals that you can tell this type of spirit not to come back. From this we can learn that a spirit has the ability to intensely control the soul and flesh of a person. This man's son looked so lifeless after the spirit was gone that many said he was dead.

Mark9:27-29
But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose. And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out? And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.

Jesus said the reason they couldn't cast this type of spirit out was because, "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting." The King James (Open Bible version, with study notes) also shows us that "come forth" could be translated "be driven out."

"This kind (type) can be driven out by nothing (no other way), but by prayer and fasting." In other words, Jesus was telling the disciples that this particular kind of spirit had to be driven out through prayer and fasting, that just speaking to it, "In the name of Jesus" (poof!), doesn't make it happen! This helps explain the intensity we must have in some cases to take the Kingdom of God by force!

In Matthew's account we see that Jesus also spoke, in answer to the disciples, about having the faith of a mustard seed, etc.

Matthew 17:19 -20
Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

From my experience, I believe that the disciple's lack of faith was the reason they did/could not pursue the spirit.

Matthew 17:21
Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

Jesus had just spoken to them about their lack of faith. Then He says, "However" this type "goeth not out" but by prayer and fasting. ("And fasting" is not included in all versions.) It is clear that He was saying, "However, this is the only way this type will go out." Jesus had just given them more information about this type of spirit. It takes this knowledge, this understanding, along with faith!

The Greek word for "goeth not out" is the same word translated "can come forth" and "be driven out" in the book of Mark. So we can arrive at the same picture given in Mark.

Howbeit (however) this kind goeth not out (must be driven out) by prayer (and fasting?).

You may be asking why Jesus just spoke and it happened? For one thing, Jesus had the fullness of all the gifts of the Spirit. We don't individually have all the gifts, but corporately we do. This is why it is so important to recognize the body of Christ. To recognize the body of Christ means that we must recognize the gifts given by God to each person. This sheds light on why Paul said that some Christians are sick and die because they haven't discerned "the body of Christ." In my case it took team work to deliver me from the spirit of Fear!

At any rate, Jesus was telling His disciples that for them to have success, pressure must be applied to the spirit through prayer (and fasting?)!

I have shown you the scriptural evidence Jesus indicated that some spirits must have 'pressure applied' and won't leave by just speaking to them in faith. The testimony of my deliverance from the spirit of fear verifies this fact. The spirit of fear was very entrenched in me and probably was there from birth (family curse). It had a 'strong hold' on me!

It was well over a year after fear was cast out of me by group A, with no results, that the following events took place. As a matter of fact, I was going to a different church! First of all, in a prayer meeting (group B) a person was moved by the Holy Spirit to slap me (a backhand) in the upper stomach and say, "Come out, in the name of Jesus." No name was mentioned and no one knew what it was.

Then, three months later, I was in a prayer meeting with these same people and I became ill with symptoms that I had about two weeks earlier. I had gone to a doctor and had been diagnosed with hepatitis - the non contagious kind. In this prayer meeting I had tremendous pain in my upper stomach, so much so that I had to bend in the middle to alleviate it. If I could have afforded it, I probably would have considered asking them to call an ambulance. I decided to trust those around me who seemed to know what was going on. (They were surprised it had taken three months.)

(I'm sharing the following in detail, not to scare you, just to let you know how real this is. I'd go through it again to get rid of this despicable thing that had a hold in me.)

As they were praying for me, they were told it was the spirit of fear. One lady placed her hand just below the bottom of my chest bone and started to push up. It was where I had been back handed, with the words "Come out," etc. Surprisingly, I felt something move inside me. I thought, "My God, this is real!" As she pushed it up, I felt it move more and more but then I started to realize that it had tentacles all through my flesh (body) like an octopus, with its head being where she was pushing. I could feel the tentacles tearing at my flesh as this thing moved up in my chest. (I want to make it very clear here that the spirit did not move unless she pushed it up with her hands. She knew exactly where the spirit was as it moved up.) They continued praying a warlike prayer in the Spirit and using the name of Jesus! It was the voice of the Lord delivering me. The spirit was tearing my flesh and started to make me bleed out my mouth. When the group realized I was bleeding, they commanded it to stop tearing me and it did.

My pastor told me afterward that I would be weak and sickly for three days. He was right. I rested and listened to Christian music most of the time. The amazing thing was that the next morning I felt like I woke up to a new world. It didn't look the same, it didn't feel the same, but it was the same. I finally realized I was the one who was different, not the world. I definitely saw clearer, in fulfillment of what Jesus said.

Matthew 7:4
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? 5) Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

I have found that in every case, when I have been delivered of a spirit, it has left me with clearer vision of what that particular spirit produces. That "aura" we have around us, produced by a spirit, most certainly blinds us to even seeing its works in ourselves clearly until we are delivered of it.

I should have written down everything that I realized was missing from my mind that next morning. The thought pattern that I remember the most as being gone was the thought pattern that contained the "What if's." "What if this" and "What if that," is easily seen to be of the spirit of fear. I remember (before the deliverance) standing in front of people and having the spirit of fear rise up so much that it stopped me from delivering what I was to say. I had always thought that it was "just me!" Well, it wasn't, it was the spirit of FEAR!

To understand a little more about the unknown ability of spirits, I share something about a person who was told they had fear in them. This person denied it; most people do. You must understand that the spirit can deny it's own existence. The pattern of denial is directly related to the type of spirit it is.

Anyway, I gave my book Evil Spirits . . . Yuck to this individual to read because this person was very active in spiritual warfare. They read it but never made any comment about it to me. Some time passed and this individual was at a meeting where the spirit of fear was cast out of them. After that experience this person was giving me testimony of it being gone, and how different they felt. They knew it was gone and could now see it's previous activity in their life!

In the conversations that followed, this person revealed that they had reread my book Evil Spirits ...Yuck and was now excited about what it said. This person was now telling me what a good book it was. This shows what a spirit can do as far as producing a mote in our eyes. This individual could now see clearly what the book says; the spirit had been blinding them before.

We can recognize a spirit by its fruit, but in all honesty I was only able to see fear's fruit in the limited vision and knowledge of fear that I had before I was delivered from it. I had taken part in spiritual warfare with success. But now I see the fruit of the spirit of fear much clearer because the mote that was produced by that particular spirit was removed from my eyes. I had been seeing in part!

I have shared this experience with you in the hope it will help you to recognize the fact that in some cases it takes 'pressure' to remove a spirit. Perhaps you have picked up some other nuggets to add to your knowledge of spiritual warfare. The lack of knowledge and understanding was the reason group A didn't get the job done.

In closing, let me make it very clear, no fasting was involved in my deliverance. It was the Lord who delivered me from the spirit of fear through His Spirit, His Name, and some obedient people!

5a Pain in Deliverance