Blurry Creatures - EP: 341 Demystifying Demonization with Grant Pemberton

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Pastor and author Grant Pemberton (co‑host of God Is Not a Theory and Everyday Exorcist) joins us to explore the supernatural intersection of demonization, spiritual gifts, and the deep work of healing trauma. From unseen battles to inner restoration, we dive into how the spiritual realm impacts the human experience—and how to reclaim wholeness through the gifts of the Spirit.  This Episode is Sponsored By: https://takelean.com — Get 20% off with promo code BLURRY20 today! https://mintmobile.com/blurry — Get your premium wireless plan for $15 a month when you try Mint Mobile for the first time! - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Luke's so often, people email us, and they have this story. They're out in their woods, and they're looking in the bushes, and they go, what's that? And when you are pouring your dog food and your dog's bowl, that's the last thing you want to say. What is that? What is this stuff coming out of this bag? You know, I don't think a lot of us think about maybe what we feed our dogs, and that's why we partner with rough greens.

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it all goes back to the fallen chair. And the problem with the modern day church, they have a very truncated view of the supernatural. This backdrop that's just pregnant with all kinds of meaning, associated with this Mount Hermon event. And this guy defects from the kingdom. That's a big deal. All right, welcome back. It is April 22nd, 1985.

We're here in the basement with Pastor Grant. Pemberton, did I get that right? You did. And before this started, you were saying, you know, as a pastor, you upgraded to 4K cameras. You don't have a neck. Either just Bigfoot. What are your thoughts on Bigfoot? Welcome to Blurry Creatures.

Yeah, I don't have a neck. So this is way I knew I was coming on here with you guys. So I got the beard going. I've got a V-neck to try and elongate. There. I like it. You know, elongate my neck. But you could do a mad Bigfoot walking.

Do the perfect look back. You know what I'm saying? I could. Was it you in the suit? That's the conspiracy theory? We don't know. Well, I grew up in Appalachia. Okay.

In the hills of the Smoky Mountains. And so Bigfoot, man. He's all over the place. He's over there. He's definitely there. I mean, it's still good to have you, man. We were saying pre-roll. Grants, that's a member of the show, but that's really baseline.

You're a friend, pastor at Franklin Vineyard. So you're local here, so it's great to have you in studio. We've been talking about doing this for a while, so it's exciting to have you in here. We're going to have a normal conversation about exorcisms, right? That's sort of a normative, if we will. As normal as it gets. I cut you off, though, because your first time of Lory Creatures, we have to ask you. This is part of how everything goes.

Well, that's why I was trying. He was getting there, yeah. We're getting there. And we're talking about Bigfoot looking back here from out. at you. You know how he feels. What do you think he is? I know how Bigfoot feels. Yeah, he's, he's misunderstood. I think he feels misunderstood. I think he feels alone. I don't know. I had a lot of people ask me what I thought. So I'll only tell you a story. All right. So my uncle, his name is Stanley, and he's from North Alabama and is the ubiquitous redneck that you

could imagine. And so he told me a story growing up that got me believing. And I've never seen Bigfoot. I've never had an encounter. But his story was pretty legit. He was hunting, deer hunting. He was in the stand early morning, early morning. Now this is in Northern Alabama. So I don't know of the squatcheries that's happening in North Alabama. I don't know. Yeah, he's there. He's there? Oh, yeah. Really? He's everywhere. He's got to be there. Yeah. Well, so he was there, at least at this point. So he's in the tree. It's real early. It's dark and he hears the kind of sounds that you might hear that maybe if people have listened to the intro, those kind of sounds. And he gets incredibly, incredibly afraid and stays up there and he hears

it scratching at the tree. He hears all of these right beneath them. And he's terrified and just all he did was cry and pray and he thought that he was going to die. And he thought that he was going to and he's you know he's pretty familiar with sounds he had a big farm you know he would have known if it was bore he would have known if it was yeah a normal type of an animal you know and and so that that story he told me as a little kid and and that's that's stuck with me quite quite a bit well I appreciate it because a lot of people still don't know what those noises in the intro are the way to way to remind folks yeah you know but today we're getting into you know that is true If there's no frame of reference, it's like, what are these weirdos sounds?

Yeah, you don't know. No, people don't know. They have no idea. They're like, what is that, like, gibberish that's going on? Who's yelling? They can't understand what they're saying. You didn't have this intro in there. Right.

And all this stuff, you know. But like Bigfoot, Grant, you've got a great hairline. So welcome, welcome to blurry. You know, I think Bigfoot's got some awesome lettuce. And he's just a hairy, hairy good looking guy out there. He's a very hairy American winning machine. And we don't know. Over here, I guess we're dressed in military green because we're going in

I didn't know. Yeah. It's them. We're talking about the soldiers of the Lord, the exorcists, right? The deliverance. And so we had to get thematic here. Yeah, I agree. And, Grant, can you just start with our listeners?

Just sort of your story. Yeah. You're a pastor here in Franklin, Franklin Vineyard. Studios in Franklin, and that's where we reside. At least Nate doesn't, but I do. And partially. You got to get with it, Nate. We kind of connected.

We were talking, you know. We need a portal. that goes from north to south. Really doing a helicopter. Yeah. That traffic is gnarly. Yeah. No,

I'm not doing that. Yeah, what's your story? Tell us how'd you get involved in ministry? Sure. Yeah, I grew up in church as a kid. And in somewhat of a Pentecostal,

I mean, hillbilly Pentecostal, Appalachian, kind of a background. And I grew up in Pidgin forge, Tennessee. Gallumberg, you know. And so I'm a very good. Go cart. We put the Dolly.

Yeah, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. She was at our graduation, actually. But, wow. She really was. That's funny.

Lee Greenwood's saying in our, my third grade. So American. Lee Greenwood one time chased me on a golf cart. Because we teeped his house. Dude. Sorry, Lee. I love it.

If you're watching this. No, so I grew up in church, all of the stuff. had, you know, experiences, encounters, that sort of stuff with the Lord. And, you know, ended up sort of walking away in college. Yeah, when you say encounters on our show, it could be a whole different thing. Yeah, with the Lord.

Be careful. I'll get to him. One of the ones was in a deliverance context as a kid in Scotland. And scared me to death. We were seen in a castle. We had, it was a spooky castle, you know, kind of Scooby-Doo-ish. And we were, we were sitting around playing spooky castle games, you know, like the Bloody Mary stuff and all of that stuff. And I wouldn't recommend that.

But we were just kids. And one of the people on the trip started, what I now know, I didn't know at the time was manifesting, demonic manifestations. and you know when you're on a mission trip you're like extra holy right you know and you're just like really going for it is that is that the creature that shows up in like a mirror or something well we didn't see that so we were just doing we were just trying to scare the girls is what we were trying to do as teenage boys we were just trying to be silly and scare the boys

scare the girls you know and and so like we had snuck out like the chaperones had gone to bed and we were just hanging out you know as you do and um so she gets just petrified shaking, all of this sort of stuff. And one of my friends is like, you know,

because he's on a mission trip and all of that. He wouldn't have said this in normal life. He's like, you know, if you just say Jesus, it'll be okay. And so she sort of looks at him and then like, a voice like you hear on a movie. She's like, I can't. And then she just erupts in all this sort of stuff. So scared to death.

You know, absolutely scared to death. I run and get the leader. And proceed to have like a thing happened where, you know, The, I mean, literally it seemed like, I don't have a great frame reference, but it felt like it was all night. And kind of stuff you see on the movies was happening. I mean, I was probably 14, 15. This was a marking experience. So the other leaders coming in and you're like casting this demon out?

No, no, no. We didn't do anything. The leaders came in and did it. Yeah. Are you just? So I'm sitting there, honestly. and, you know, I would have said that I was saved. I wasn't very active in my faith.

And I kept thinking about the story of the Sons of Sceiva. I don't know if you remember that story in the New Testament where they go and they go to try and cast out a demon in the name of, I think it's in Paul and Jesus. And the one guy overtakes the brothers, beats them up, strips them naked, drives them out of the house. That story kept going, And he said, the demons said to the sons of Skivasa, I know Paul, I know Jesus, I don't know who you guys are.

And that kept going in my head. So I stayed in the corner and I was just like, I need to stay away from this. Like, you know, and I was just praying just like, Lord, please, please help, you know, whatever. And yeah, so I'm sitting there and I look out the window and it's the Scottish Highlands outside the window. you can see that the black mountains because it's night and I see with my eyes again 1415 I see this light start to come down the mountain and I'm just kind of looking at it this crazy stuff is going on over here but after you do like an hour you're sort of desensitized to it and you're tired and you're just like okay what is happening you know so anyway long story short

I can tell as it gets closer that it's it's fire coming out from a horse and I see on the horse is what I believe to be Jesus in the picture that I could recognize him to be and it looks like Jesus riding on a white horse fire coming out of the horse like it like the dust in an old Western instead of dust it was fire and so I'm sitting here seeing Jesus writing directly with my eyes not like in the spirit or whatever as a kid right so I I'm not trying and I have no frame of reference no good for this stuff at all does anyone else say this no So what happens is, so I'm sitting here.

So then I'm starting to think like, here is apparently evil, right? Here is apparently good. I'm afraid if these two things collide, there's going to be like a nuclear reaction or something in this room. I started getting a little bit freaked out. What is this, what is that? What else is going to go on, you know, in this spooky castle in Scotland? And so I kind of look over and I'm like, hey, you got to get out of here. Jesus is coming.

and you know you're on a mission trip with kids. I'm like, yes, Jesus is coming. And I was like, no, no, he's coming through the freaking window. Yeah. You know, and so I look over and then he jumps. And it was like a Ghostbusters scene where the spirit sort of dissipates as he jumps into the room. She screams out and then it's over. And so I couldn't sleep the rest of the night.

I was scared to death. And what I didn't know is that that was like, the Lord does this sometimes I've found. you see it in the scriptures, but he'll sort of give a flashpoint in a person's life, and then things will begin to lead to that. And so it's like my only experience with it. All right, every week on the show, we talk about ancient giants, secret societies, and creatures lurking in the shadows. But what's been lurking in your life, Luke?

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And it's not a substitute or alternative for care from a health care provider. When I kind of walked away from the Lord, I couldn't walk away from things like that. You know what I mean? Like, either I was crazy or that happened. Yeah. And they say if you think you might be crazy, you probably aren't, right? Right. So I was like, true, right?

I was like, okay. So I didn't know what to do with that. I just kind of checked out of the game for a bit. I went on with my career. Nobody else saw the Jesus on the horse. Nobody else saw Jesus on the horse. Just me. So I went on with my career.

I became corporate finance and got an MBA and all that sort of stuff. Came back to the Lord with my first, firstborn. kind of having to make a decision of what do I actually believe, you know. That led to us feeling like we're supposed to plant a church. The Lord, we felt it was clear that we were supposed to do that in Nashville. We were living in Chattanooga at the time. And moved over here, went to the Franklin Vineyard that I now, pastor. They planted us out.

We planted in Nashville, downtown Nashville, over in east. And I continued on in my career. I was full-time on both on purpose because we were young church, poor church, and we were in a pretty poor part of town. And that's when things started kind of coming back around. I still didn't have a framework for a lot of supernatural stuff. The Lord was really starting to show off, like in our little home groups, you know, and people were getting healed, and we were getting prophetic words of knowledge that were just, like, super right. and like it was like the Lord was backing his act.

Then all of a sudden people started coming in that I now know, or demonized. I didn't know at the time. And, you know, just the first time it happened, this guy, he'd been going to our church for a while, started what I now know is manifest. I didn't know at the time came in, started screaming the F word.

We're just singing this little song, oh, the blood of Jesus, right? I mean, this is just on acoustic, no big deal. We're not screaming at anybody. He starts screaming the F word about the blood, F the blood, all of these sort of things. I don't know what this is. I just know that my kids are right here. And we were a young church, and I was kind of the only grown up, honestly.

Like, I was the only one that, you know. It was point, like, he's in charge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, for sure. And I was just like, it was a scary moment. So all I knew was I needed to neutralize. the scene. So I go up. And I'm having,

again, I'm not, I'm not like a, I think go to school to be a pastor. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just figuring out as we go. So I'm going through like,

okay, can a pastor kick someone out of church? Like, is this going to make the news? What is happening? You know what are the rules? Yeah. You know,

what are the rules? And, and so yeah, I just, I go up to him, I'm like, hey, really glad that you feel comfortable

screaming out. That's awesome, you know, but, Because I'm just trying to think, like, what do I do? And I'm like, yeah, I'm like, what a cool thing. You feel so at home here with our family to do this. I was like, however, you can't do this anymore.

Like, you can't, you can't scream anymore. You certainly can't yell the F. We're the kids right here. And I don't know how it is with you guys, but when my adrenaline spikes, I kind of get the shakes. And my adrenaline was certainly spiking there. And so he says, in this crazy voice, he says, I can see that you're shaking. I'm the one in charge now. Wow.

And so I said, no, no, I shake right before I beat someone to death. And I said, that's how I've always done it, you know, in my whole life. And so then I proceeded to physically pick him up and throw him out. And of the church, we had to block the entrance. He started trying to get back in. And not my finest moment. Called the cops on my way. So I'm holding the door to keep.

this guy from coming in to try, you know, I mean, you don't know what's going to have in church. Crazy things are, you know what I mean? Like, we didn't have security. We didn't have anything. And so my wife comes out and she says, she says, hey, you've got to preach. All right, right, okay. So I get composed somehow and preach the worst sermon I've ever preached in my life. I'm sure I have no memory of it.

And on my way down to the pulpit, one of our older ladies says, you know, did that young man get delivered? I said, deliver to what? And she said, of demons. And I was like, lady, I do not have time for this. Like, I got to go, you know, that started happening in an insane amount. But they were showing up at the church. And like people had tried to kill me. People with knives started running.

It was bizarre. And so I felt like I had to figure this out. What is this? And it's kind of sent me on a journey to try and figure out what in the world is going on. and the Lord's gracious and he he was sort of setting it up a bit that's why he gave you broad shoulders so you could duck and avoid the knife

yeah no it's it's uh I carried several people away um that's crazy I there you know there's a do you feel like you were being demonically attacked to prepare you to do your ministry to be directly almost like hey when this is a problem here we you know we got leaky pipes

and then you just become the plumber Yeah. What I've come to understand is, so last year I had to go and train some folks in New York at a church that doesn't know much about this stuff, pretty famous church. We had to train off-site because it's not cool. You know, people wouldn't necessarily want to know. And the reason was is because there was so many people coming into the church that were dealing with the demonization. And they were overrun and they needed help. So what I've come, to understand you see this when Jesus comes into the temple Jesus comes in the temple he reads the scrolls people start screaming manifesting all over the place wow when the

kingdom of God is present it is one of the things that happens all the time and so as as the Lord is continuing to extend his rule and reign his kingdom it's just it's just part and parcel what happens yeah well so let's get to the to you kind of fast but so you have this experience in East Nashville with this demonized person they start showing up because if we go forward and I can I can skip there and tell you like at this point grant you have you have a pretty big deliverance ministry out of out of Franklin vineyards this is a lot of things you're doing now people are flying and I know these things you might even you might even tell folks that but this is what this is what's happening and

so you go from being a a part-time pastor that has people showing up trying to kill you in East Nashville to now now running, at least a part of your ministry is heavy into delivering people from demonization, from generational stuff. You feel in all the things that sort of fall into that deliverance, what we call deliverance in the Protestant part of the church or exorcisms in the Catholic Church. That's where you are now. But how do you go from here, almost getting stabbed or yelled at to... Which is a normal occurrence in East Nashville. You know what I mean? Kind of true. I mean, you kind of, you mess with the bull, you get the horn sort of thing.

I never seen, I never seen open gunfire in the middle of the day until I was at Turnup Truck one day, two guys in Main Street shooting at each other. Bro, our church was right across the street for Turnstrap. Okay. Yeah. I literally saw two guys shooting. I'm like, I've been in downtown Detroit. I've been all over playing music and then until I was in East Nashville that I see two

people shooting each other. It's crazy. I mean, I've got stories, bro. Oh, I bet. All I could do is sit here and tell you stories of, guys that have gotten, I mean, one of them, you know, got delivered, came in and started manifesting, pulled the gun, grabbed the gun out of his hand. I broke the gun down. My team hopped on him, started getting the things out. He gets delivered. Yeah. I give him back a broken apart gun

and empty, empty magazine. Well, there's that also, you know, that Christian he's saying of like, God doesn't qualify, he doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Like, you kind of realize there's a problem. Like someone needs to know how to do this. I guess it might as well be me, right? Well, I didn't have a choice. And I've come to understand, and this is sort of what we've been talking about, Luke, is that I believe we're actually all called to do this.

Yeah. I don't think that it's a special thing for special people. I think that we all have the same spirit of God that if you're a believer. And we're called to be like Jesus. We're called to live like Jesus, to believe like Jesus, and to act like Jesus. Yeah. And so I believe part of my call is, yeah, we have like a lot of deliverance happening, but it's within the context of people getting healed and getting set free and all of that sort of stuff.

And I don't do as much of it as I have before because I feel like the job is to train everybody to do it. And honestly, I believe if every believer was equipped to do this, you would begin to see dramatic societal change, systemic change. Because I ran into that guy who brought the gun a year later. I'd forgotten about it, honestly.

And a completely different guy. And he was like, man, it's so embarrassing. Like, I can't even believe that. And here he is, like, his whole, now his family has changed. And so I think, my view is that we're all supposed to be active in this. The gifts of the spirit that are given,

and we read about it in 1st Corinthians, for everybody. And, you know, Jesus in Luke 9, in Luke 10, he sends out the disciples to cast out demons. He sends out the 72 to cast out demons. He says that, you know, part of his mission that he reads is to set captives free. And so my goal is to try and demystify it.

and take it from like this. Let's break that down. How do we do that? How do we as Christians begin to do this or identify a need and then be able to pull it off? Yeah, because I would say a lot of people listening are probably think that like the idea of a demonization is a rare occurrence, right?

These are things you see. It's the exorcist. It's, you know, the exorcist of Emily Rose. You have these sort of, we have these things in media that make, I think, make this feel like these are extreme. outliers and they are fantastical and they don't occur very often right um that's why i really wanted to have this conversation grant because i know that as you're saying like i wanted to be in a space where we could demystify some of this and say this this is a problem and um yeah and have you

kind of just just walk us into that like what and i don't know where you yeah as nixen i don't know where you want to start with this like as far as demystifying yeah your cranky neighbor might not be demonized you don't know. Right. So here's the deal, right? So like this is the, this is the pushback. When you start talking about this, is that not everything's a demon. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Of course. Of course. Sometimes it feels like when you get that phone bill, it's like the crash site document. You can't read it. There's a bunch of numbers, random fees, vague language, stuff's blacked out. You're like, what am I actually paying for? I don't know about you, but I like keeping my money where I can see it. I like to be simple. I like to be easy. I'm going to be thrown away money on big wireless carriers.

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then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See MintMobile for details. However, Jesus calls Satan the ruler of this world. You know, if we think about things that Heiser and Albarino, these guys that you guys have had on have said, you can kind of begin to understand that there's a war between two kingdoms. And Jesus, over 61 times in the Gospels,

talks about the pronouncement of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. And so he says the rule of this world is coming. But he has nothing in me is what Jesus says. And so, yes, not everything's a demon. However, until you bow your need of Jesus and come into the kingdom of God, you're playing underneath the rule and reign of what Paul says is the powers and principalities and rulers of the heir. And same sort of thing that Heiser talks about in his work is, you know,

I had a whole hippie friend that said it like this. He said, you know, we've been marinating in the devil's stew. You know, think about original sin. Think about all of the things that we are born with. We're born into sin, right? Yeah. So it's bizarre to think that this isn't more of a problem. Yeah.

It doesn't really make sense logically. And so we, Hollywood has helped us to sort of like put this in a weird bucket. but my goodness you see it all throughout jesus ministry um and and so i think it's it's not not everything's caused by a demon for sure yeah um but you know we don't really actually even focus on deliverance we focus on healing uh and so we have like a healing prayer ministry over 50 people and and all of these people are coming from inside outside the church uh getting dramatically healed of emotional wounds physical things we had someone recently that got healed of a rare blood disease medically confirmed she getting medically

confirmed that she had for 10 years almost killed her wow and so as we're doing that we don't go looking for demons I mean I'm not paid per demon I get out or anything like that right but as we're looking to to see people healed we're bumping up against these things And honestly, the demon part is the easiest part. So, yeah, I mean, do you think sicknesses and demonic oppression, possession kind of go hand in hand? Well, yeah. Yeah.

Not always. Yeah. You know, not always, but sometimes. Is there, like, classes of, like, you would put categories? Like, this is a very, obviously, this one is Legion. There's many demons in this guy, but this guy is just getting bugged by a demon. Yeah, levels of demonization. Yeah.

I suppose. again the demon stuff this is what so this is what I like I want to demystify they have to go there we have authority God Jesus in Matthew 28 yeah all authority he took back from from right death hell in the graves what he'd read in Revelation and he and then he delegated that authority to us and he's restoring Adam right he's restoring the dominion mandate in the garden in Matthew 28 and so they just have to go. And there's like this new wave of people that want to be delivered.

You know, and we have people that come up and say, I need deliverance. And my first question is like, why do you think you need deliverance? A lot of times people want deliverance instead of discipleship. You know, because it'd be much easier to get the demon cast out than to actually like change my habits, change my life. It's like, I want a pill and I don't want to work out. I want to die a pill or I want to take a shot. So we don't go demon hunting. We don't look for it.

they do seem to crop up. I mean, Jesus says what you seek you'll find, what you're focused on, what you make room for in your life, you will find. That's a biblical kingdom principle. And so when people actually begin to come awake to the idea, I mean, just like with you guys, right,

as you guys have come into this journey, as you guys have been, you know, however people talk about it in this realm, you know, if you've been red-pilled or blue-pilled or however people, I don't, I can never remember which one's which. A red pill. Or the black pill.

Yeah, I don't know. So, but you start seeing it everywhere, right? You start like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And that can go in the wrong direction, right? You see the people that can't even function because of possession with conspiracy theories and all that. But essentially, once you start to actually, because it's all, Jesus has always moved out of compassion for people. And so our goal is just to love people, right? It's just to see them.

I mean, Satan roams around like a roaring lion, trying to. trying to kill, seeking whom he may devour. And he's doing a pretty dang good job. And so it's part of the joy of being a follower of Jesus to go alongside of him and set captives free. Great. I was going to say, can you break down, like, people come for healing?

Can you talk a little bit about the process of that? Because you said, what you said, I wanted to kind of just assess out a little bit. Like, people will come for healing, and then you sort of bump into a demon or something demonic needs to be removed. moved. But what does that process look like? Because I think this is part of the demystifying process,

is that like, not, as you said, not every, not everything is, is a possession or an oppression of a demon. But how does that process work? And then, you know, what happens when, essentially, when that does happen, but how do you get to that point? So the process is completely guided by the Holy Spirit. I think that's kind of, you know,

I've listened to other people that have been on here, and we don't really do formulas. You know, we don't read from a thing or whatever. we just ask the Lord. We believe that we can hear from God. We believe that he hasn't stopped speaking since he wrote the Bible. And so we teach people how to hear the Lord, how to hear the voice of the Lord, how to recognize his voice. That's a whole thing.

And then we're engaging with the Holy Spirit whose job is to lead us into all truth, right? And as we're engaging with the Holy Spirit, we're someone sitting here in front of us. you know if they've if they've made it to this stage man they're at their end they're at the end of the rope yeah you know and and so we're sitting in front of this person that god desperately loves john 316 right and we're asking the holy spirit help us what do we need to do what are we missing because we'll start with hey be healed and sometimes that works we have what we call an integrated healing model. And so there's times where when we pray for someone that's sick, we start with be healed. And it works. That's awesome. Be healed in Jesus' name. Healing comes.

Question becomes, when the healing doesn't come right away, what is it that is preventing the healing to come? And now we base this off a premise that God actually does want to heal. that when Jesus gives us the mandate to heal the sick, preach the gospel, cast out demons, he wouldn't do that if he didn't actually want it done. And so now we're sitting here saying, okay, so the be healed in Jesus' name didn't work. What else could it be?

What's going on? We have a process that we go through. It's called a five-step. It's an old vineyard model. I'm a vineyard pastor. It's called a five-step healing prayer model. and we've walked people through this process and it's just like, hey, when did this start?

When did this come in? When did you've noticed that this became a problem? It doesn't always have to be physical sickness. It can be emotional. It can be people stuck in this rut, this cycle and all of that sort. There's so many reasons that people need prayer. And so we start with where does it hurt is the question. It could be emotional wounds.

It could be physical, spiritual. And then we start with, okay, when did that start? Through that process, you can start to zero in on some things. Because we'll say, well, now, what was happening in your life at this time? And you can't believe how many people have, you know, they'll say, well, actually, my parents just got divorced. That just right around then. Okay. And you start, you know, other things are going on.

And so then you're like, you can start to sort of like create this picture in your head. again the Holy Spirit is is constantly leading you in this process and so sometimes it's like they actually need inner healing sometimes there's there's trauma that that needs to be healed there's forgiveness that needs to be released there's um it could be repentance of a sin that needs to happen it could be all kinds of things and there in within those things sometimes there can be some sort of a demonic entity that's tangled up and there. But basically, once you untangle it, the demon goes real quick. It's not a big deal. You know, I mean, people do. Some people throw up. Some people, whatever. We don't talk to demons.

Their father is like the father of lies. So I don't believe anything that they say. Yeah. And I really need to hear from them at all because I have the Holy Spirit. So they don't clue me in on anything or anything like that. And so it's, it's less about, being a deliverance ministry more about loving people and healing the people yeah deliverance is a part of that it's just a tool in the tool belt inner healing is a part of that it's a tool in the tool belt generational things yeah but the goal is to love the people jesus was moved out of compassion so we teach people like the goal of the prayer is not for them to get healed or delivered the goal of the prayer is for them to feel loved and if if that's the goal you know you know

You win. It seems like, you know, when we've interviewed some more, like, traditional old school ways of getting demons out, it does feel more like a long, drawn-out process, almost like interview, and then we've got to figure it out, and it's almost like trying to fix a modern car with all the computer systems, and they're trying to go through it versus the old school Toyota where it's like, one or two things that's wrong with this truck, you know? In some ways you can, there's, it seems like if you go down the legal route and you dive, diagnose it and you and you figure out the legal way that the demon got into somebody you can get it out that way but it seems like a long drawn-out process it sometimes takes some people say weeks months yeah and that seems like it's not as fun well is that is that what you experience or is it yeah okay so it can take a while it can take a while are your ad campaigns lighting up the dashboard but not the pipeline that's bullsbend and marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions My boss asks for results, so I opened my dashboard for the only positive-sounding metric I had.

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It's not necessarily because the demon is so complicated. It's more because their life is so complicated. Okay. And, you know, what has happened to them. People, man, they suffer some unbelievable, horrific things. Yeah. And each one of those things demands honor, honoring the person, walking them through the healing of that, sitting with them. Sometimes you just cry for an hour with them.

You weep with those who weep. And so it's not because the demons are complex. It's because the trauma that they've suffered, the abuse that they've suffered, the abuse that they've suffered the whatever it sort of demands more than just a quick fix because Jesus is pretty clear if you if you don't fill the house if you don't if you don't restore the person the soul he'll come back and so that's part of the deal is like we got to make sure they're healed we got to make sure that those footholds those wound in this those cracks however you want to think about it are actually healed up so that

way when they do come back and they will you can you can cut it off and and and and as paul says in ephosians and stand is that the discipleship portion of this like i always wonder partly yeah because like it seems like that some of the things that feel missing and maybe we don't get to on the show and maybe that's just our we just talk about sort of the process and the action of the of the exorcism of the removal but it feels like as you're saying i wanted to ask you about that like is is that next step then in discipleship because once you've ejected the spirits then that person just can't be sent back out in the world right you just lord no no you know they they desperately need to be pastored to be walked through to be in community that's one of our like you know if if we do they go

through this it's like okay if we could write your prescription it's like get in a home group get some friends get whatever it doesn't have to be in our church somewhere that you're plugged in with a group of believers because we're not supposed to do this alone yeah and and and then In the process of it, yeah, there's so much discipleship that's taking place because you're learning how to forgive someone. You're learning how to walk in forgiveness. You're learning how to love your enemy. I mean, there's nothing more supernatural than that.

And so, yeah, you have to. It has to be discipleship. You feel like because our modern healthcare system is kind of like slap a band-aid on things, that maybe some exorcism, it's just like just trying to get the demon out, next demon out, and it's not like, your doctor's not crying with you when you have a health problem. In a way, they can't because they can't emotionally go through every single patient like that, you know, and we have a wide range of people from like holistic practitioners to traditional pharmaceutical doctors, and then we have like the organic, you know, hold this and, you know,

go walk on the grass and you'll be healed type of Christian, you know, healers. There's this wide range of people who can heal you. And it seems like in the exorcism, deliverance, there's a lot of schools of thought too. But I think that you're trying to humanize the person mostly. 100%. Deliverance has to be centered on the personal work of Jesus. Yeah.

You don't move past Jesus. It has to be centered on the personal work of Jesus. And the personal work of Jesus is so involved in the love and restoration of people. And so, you know, it's his preeminence. the reason that we can cast out demons is because he's given us the authority. Sure. The reason he gave us the authority wasn't for the demons, to the people. And I just think you can miss it.

And I've, I've volunteered that as well because, man, it's exhausting work. You know, it can be overwhelming, right? And I mean, most of the time, you know, the first meeting for like the first hour that I sit with someone, they have, these people that came to me asking the questions,

all that sort of stuff, they want me to convince them why they actually might have a demon. And I'm like, man, I'm not getting paid for this. Like, if you don't want to be here,

I could be at home. Yeah. I have a wonderful wife, Sarah, shout out, and kids, Jackson and Caleb, shout out,

that I would love to be with. Yeah. But I've been called, like I think we all have, to love people and to see them set free and to see them, the whole.

And it's a beautiful part of the ministry. What about this idea that Christians, what about the idea of the Christians play in this demonic things? Like in either oppression, possession. This is always a hot button. And I think it's Christians can't be possessed because they're the Holy Spirit. But then we have these situations

where Christians are dealing with demons. Maybe we'll call it oppression. I wanted to get your take on this because it's something that comes up all the time, I'm like, oh, we don't need to talk about this. Christians don't need to see deliverance, you know, ministries or go to deliverance ministries because there's no space for that

with the Holy Spirit indwelling. That's because most Christians are Gnostics. Most Christians have delineated and separated the body, soul, spirit thing. They don't quite understand. Your spirits are saved immediately. Boom. You're seated with Christ in heavenly places, currently, right?

Yeah. We're actually here in this basement. beautiful basement because it's a basement right yeah yeah uh oh it is oh it is yeah it's a basement um you know your your souls are in the process of being saved that's called sanctification yeah your body will be saved at the resurrection so most of the time it's because there's there's a bit of a myopic understanding of how it works um can they be possessed no i don't think so are there levels of demonization, oppression, probably. Do the scriptures parse this out now?

So it's all opinion, you know? And you have a lot of people that are really sure about their opinions. The more I sit with Jesus, the more I'm aware of how little I know. So I'm pretty hesitant to actually say, this is that and this is that. My question is like, where does it hurt? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I don't, we can argue about it if you want.

I'd rather not and again my whole point is like I'm not getting paid for this so it's like it's not my job it's just I believe this is the job of the believer and so if you there's times where I'm like can I just try something

you know can I like they're saying well I don't believe this and I'm like okay that's fine but can I try something and sure enough they'll manifest and I'm like I told you it's right there can we get it out I've been told no. And I'm like, bro, you just were barking like a dog.

Yeah. Yeah. So they like switch. Yeah. And so I'm like, I mean, okay, if you want to, again, like, what about generational stuff and like things they don't know that are there? Yeah. Yeah.

So I don't, again, like, we don't go demon hunting. I don't try and, you know, figure out all the things. I do know that there are certain maladies and illnesses that are more close. aligned with things like the Masonic that you guys have talked about. Yeah. You know, all of that sort of stuff. So I do know that there's, I call them best practices because I kind of come from the corporate world.

So you can't find these in the scripture necessarily. But it's like, yeah, nine times out of ten, this is kind of related to that, in my experience. What are those things? Yeah. Come on now. Okay. Don't hold back. Well, I'll tell you one.

We've talked about them. This one's becoming one that's almost 10 out of 10. Okay. But I can't say that. So, almost. High proportion. You got to put in a big league chaw if you're going to drop that on us. Is it real? Yeah, it's real.

It's real. It's real. I mean, but is it like stale? It's new. No, it's new. My wife paints it with when I chew gum. Oh, you're free here. You're the Lord's here. It's freedom. Thanks, Brian. Shout out. Here we all. I'll just keep it right here.

Yeah, yeah, here go. It's so delicious. A little purple juice to keep you going. RFK Jr. would have. have a problem with all that. I think. There's a lot of dies. A lot of die.

Our audio listeners are like, what is happening? Yeah. So I just ate some gum. Big and it's a big deal. Big deal. It's gone. So, 10 out of 10? Let's call it 9 out of 10 times at this point.

All right. A man comes to me with an issue with his stomach, digestion, pain, something like that. Almost every time. And again, this route, we'll talk through all this. It's related to his unforgiveness. issues that he has towards his mother. So I'll say they'll come up for prayer because we just have prayer. Hey, if you need prayer for anything, come on up at church or whatever. All kinds of

people come up with all kinds of different things. So this time, you know, I mean, it happens now so frequently. It's funny. But they'll come up. You know, I need prayer for my stomach. I'm like, cool, what's going on with the stomach? I, you know, I've got digestive issues. Okay. You know, all that. So then I'll say, hey, how's your relationship with your mom? And they'll just start breaking down and crying. They'll think I'm some sort of magic prophet or something like that. But really, I just know the correlation of like, the last 20 times this happened, it was this. So I'm just going to start there. And we deal with the unforgiveness. I walk them through how to walk in forgiveness. Jesus talks about this a lot. And then we do that.

And then I pray for the stomach and in the pain, the healing comes immediately. So what is that? Yeah. Is that a demon? Maybe. Is it an affliction? Maybe. Is it a problem?

Yeah, it's a problem. And so I just, I think God actually cares about our problems. Yeah. I think he really wants to solve them and help us. And I think he, he's very intimate with us. And most of the time, people don't think or pray. that way. And I, even myself, it's like, why don't want to bother God with that? It's just a small little thing. But he's so kind and he cares so much. He's a father. And you guys both have kids.

I have kids. Is there anything that your kids would ask you for that you would say, that's beneath me? No, absolutely not. Now, you might answer it in a way that they don't like. But so oftentimes I mean, a huffy bicycle. No, no. No. We don't do huffy. We got mongoose. give her Mungo's family. Listen, I get you better buy a kid. But I think I think that's kind of the issue is that we have not because we ask not.

What about when what about when God doesn't heal? It sucks. I've prayed for people that have died. I've prayed for people that have come back from death. they've been I've seen people raised from the dead

the people that I prayed for that died I loved a lot more they were closer it hurt it sucked some of the people that came back to life I didn't even know them

it's like man if I could trade I would totally have traded you know yeah there are people that I love dearly that I still pray for that haven't gotten healed yet. I operate with the premise that the lack is not on God's end. I operate with a premise

that says, we have to keep going back and figure this out. We have to sit with the Holy Spirit. We have to keep pressing in. We like the persistent widow towards the evil judge that Jesus talks about in the parable. Like, we keep going back, we keep going back, we keep going back. And And we keep trying. And I don't believe it's because he doesn't want to heal. Again, he's our father. I don't believe it's because he's trying to teach us something. That would be abuse in the natural world.

If you made your kids sick to prove a point to teach them something. He's not an abuse of God. I believe that he uses all things and works all things together for good, for sure. I don't think he causes all things. That's one of the key point. doesn't cause all things. We live in a, as you said, we live in the devil's stew, right? We're in this place of a fallen, broken world under the yoke of sin.

And even when we're saved and redeemed from that, it's not. Still fighting. Yeah, it's still a battle. Yeah. Still in this battle. You're going to lose some battles. Yeah. The war is won.

What's the difference between the woman who touches Jesus's garment and the crowd? Like, what's the element there that's different? Oh, that's interesting. that was that was a fun one i don't know yeah let's start off with that right so nobody really knows because it doesn't quite say right um was it her faith faith is a really interesting component when it when it comes to healing um and it's very divisive people use it in a weird way because sometimes it's the person that receives the prayers faith Lazarus was dead he didn't have many faith.

Sometimes it's the friend's faith that bring him and lower him through the ceiling. Centurion. Sometimes it's the Ceturian's faith. His faith was actually, the centurion actually was one of two places where Jesus is recording as marveling. Marvelling with the faith. And he marveled at the lack of faith in the hometown where he couldn't do any big miracles, it says, but only heal those that he laid his hands on.

which is really interesting. You can spend a lot of time thinking about that. Yeah. And then the other time is the centurion who, what he was marveling at is the centurion's understanding of authority. And authority is a key issue in the kingdom. It's a key issue to Jesus. And authority has what's been given to us.

And it's by the authority that we're able to drive out the demons. and Jesus talks about if I drive out demons, the finger of God comes, and we drive out demons, because obviously God's the one that does it. We don't have any authority. It's his. And so those were, that was the two.

But I think with a woman with the issue of blood, it could have been the faith. It could have been, I mean, I've seen people with a lot come in with high faith, and they get it. I've seen people that when faith is built in the room. So we, you know, every Sunday, we ask the Lord, what do you want to do? And he gives us pretty specific maladies, things that he wants to heal.

We call him out and say, if this is you, raise your hand. And so then you have like this demonstration of like, oh, a word of not. came in prayer for something that you're dealing with, right? Well, faith starts to rise at that point because you're like, whoa, maybe this is real after all. And see, people get healed. And we just, we don't do anything weird. You know, we actually tell people, don't be weird. Just put your hands towards them. God heals them. It's not us. You don't have to yell. And people get, people get healed, you know. What do you think about, I mean, I think it's such an important, important conversation because

there is this narrative that exists in this space grant that says it like, you didn't get healed because you don't have enough faith. Yeah, that's BS. Right. I mean,

because I go back and I think we just had an interview before this and we talked about Dr. Michael Heiser. Like, you tell me that Mike didn't get healed from his cancer because he didn't believe enough.

It's horrible, horrible theology. It's bad theology, but this is a, it's a lot of prevalence in sort of in circles. Because there are, and here's the deal.

It all, bad theology starts from, from the biology. Bible. You know, people will pull things from the Bible and create bad theology. This conversation. Oh, she believed and she touched the hymn of the garment. That's all he'd do is believe. That's right. So it could have been that. It could have been, I mean, it's Jesus carrying an an anointing, carrying a power. I mean, I mean, we read about an axe where the shadows of Peter

and John fell on people as they were just walking and they were getting healed. Right? So there's something about like the presence of God coming on and resting in and all of that sort of stuff. all of the power of God is found in the presence of God. So anytime you want to operate in any sort of power, it's only because his presence is there in some sort of manifestation. And so it could have been that element. A lot of people were touching him, right? Yeah, they had faith.

Yeah. But almost like faith coupled with like pure desperation, end of the rope. Could be. The very end. Because I think a lot of times, you know, the hard stuff helps us. understand when we finally do need something. Like you said, when people show up to you, they're at the end, right? I think oftentimes we just think, oh, I feel good, I'm going to go down, pop down at

CVS, get something, and I'll be fine. There's no humility in that. There's no, like, desperation in that. It's just kind of the American way of dealing with problems. Then there's times when nothing works. Probably this woman's crawling across the ground. She's at the end. I might die.

If I don't reach out and touch this, it's Messiah, you know. I don't know, maybe there's some element of our own process. We need to go through the process and only God knows how much of the process we've gone through. Hunger is a big deal.

Sure. Desperation's a big deal. You know, what I love about that story, there's maybe 10 possible reasons. Yeah. You know? And so what you can't do

is build a theology. on one of those possibilities. And then that turns into a praxis. Because again, Lazarus had no faith. He was dead. Right? And so, but faith plays a key part into it. When Jesus, you know, the disciples are,

Jesus on the mountain of Transfiguration, it comes back down. The disciples are having, they're running a healing meeting at this point. People are getting healed at the foot of the mountain of transfiguration. He comes back down. Guy brings his son. he's like, your morons couldn't get this guy healed. My son, Jesus says, tell me about it, what's going on?

He's been afflicted by the spirit and it throws him down into the fire, all of that sort of stuff. He chastised the ones praying for not having faith. So there is an element of like, I need to have some faith. Not you, the sick person? What kind of faith can you ever have? Like, I need to have some faith in order to, you know. So there's all these different elements of faith.

that are in the mix, but apparently, according to Jesus is marveling, faith does place some kind of a key now in miracles. Yeah. Right? And so it's really interesting. And the sovereignty of God plays into that too, because God is going to do what God is going to do, right? Yep. So what's the difference between faith and humility then?

What do you mean, like the definition? Well, I just like, is there a way to have faith? faith, but be a little more on the pride side, or just as faith and humility go together? Well, your faith isn't God. Yeah. Right? Not me. Sure.

You know what I mean? Like, it's really, it's my, the faith that God is all powerful, he's all knowing. He has decreed and declared this thing that he said, heal the sick. So my faith is actually in his ability, not my own. Where it gets weird is when they think that they're the healer. I've got the gift of healing. And so now come to me. and by the way, it's going to be $25.

You know, that sort of thing, that's where it really gets weird. The problem is, and this is what we don't like, I don't like it at least, is that Jesus loves the people getting healed more than he's upset by the people that are manipulating the healing. And so he will use broken vessels to get his way. Thank God, because we all are, right?

Sure. But when we see it in this certain level, it's pretty easy to demonize, for lack of a better term. Yeah. The, that kind of a thing. I love that. Do you have some, like, I always loved, like, to cap all these conversations with some hope. Like, do you have a couple stories?

I mean, you're going to hear the ministry. I would love, just a couple stories. I mean, you talked about people who have been raised from the dead, for one. And everyone listening is going to chastise me for not asking about some of these things. But what are some of the more miraculous things you've seen God do in this, in this ministry that you. I'll tell you some of the world called to, but you're doing, you're really doing this intentionally. Well, I could tell you as many stories of just normal people, quote unquote, that have done this as I can of my own personal, but they would sound a little less authentic. I want to see the things that you've seen.

Right. But, and again, this is all the Lord, can I spit this come out? This is awful. It is just. You want to eat it for seven years later? No. And now intermission. Okay, there we go. The removal of the big league chew. It feels like it is actually chewed because it's just, the sugar is eating away at my gum. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's alivate. Just off the sandlot. You know, where they put the, uh, do you need some healing. I do. Um, too much big league chew. Too much big league chew. What's the problem, pastor?

Yeah. It's like, that might be diabetes, actually. Just only eating diabetes. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say something real quick, though, that, you know, I didn't watch a lot of the chosen, but the beginning of it, you know, he's really torn. Um, I can't remember the guy.

name but ahead of the fair never seen it okay nicodemus nicademus yeah because he can't cast the demon out and then and then he's he's he knows he doesn't have any of the power and it's almost like this juxtaposition of like these people are supposed to know they're supposed to have access to god and a relationship with god and then he sees the you know jesus casts out the demons and he's like almost angry slash afraid like wait how come he can do it and i can Well, yeah. I mean, that's what they were accusing him. Sure. If he's actually possessed.

And he's like, no, no, no. Satan can't cast out Satan. He has that whole conversation. So, I mean, bigger conversation. But like, the whole reason, I mean, Jesus pops on the scene. We don't see any sort of demons in the Old Testament, do we? Nobody's, nobody's, we're not seeing any exorcisms. Probably in a different context.

We see the Witch of Indoor, summoning, uh, unclean spirits. Summing, summoning Samuel. Yeah. We don't necessarily see anyone that is like. I wonder if they knew what they were. They did. Yeah. Okay.

And so, because we know about that from like, where the theory of what actual demons are. Sure. Disembodied spirits of the nephew. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that came from ancient. That's what we think anyway. Ancient rabbis thought that too. Yeah.

Right. I don't know again on that. Right. You know what I mean? Seems like a neat story. They'll be a test at the end. Yeah. Right.

Unfortunately, most of my answers are, I don't know. Same with ours. It's above my pay grade. But, but yeah, I mean, so Jesus comes. and it starts happening as soon as he steps in, right? And so we see this whole beginning in his ministry of being baptized, and he comes out of the river. The dove ascends.

Holy Spirit comes on him. He goes into the wilderness, driven by the Holy Spirit, it says. He comes out of the wilderness, it says, full of the power of the Holy Spirit. And that's when he begins to pronounce the kingdom of God is at hand. And that's when all of the things begin to happen. And so we have this divine moment of now the game has changed. The second Adam has now come, born of a virgin, usurping the fallen bloodline, so to speak.

And now he has the authority because he just conquered the temptation of sin. So he had to go through the same kind of things that the first Adam did in order to remain. So he said later on in John, here comes the rule of this world. And he's got nothing in me. And so he comes conquering that, conquering the temptations. And full of the powers, what it says. And he began to go about and do mighty works all over the place. And he would say, you know, repent, which means change the way that you think about the world, metanoia.

The kingdom of God is at hand. There's a new sheriff in town. There is a new authority. There is something more powerful. And this is why the disciples are like, when he stills the wind and the waves and all of these sort of things, they're just like, he even has authority over the storm. and he's showing the restoration of the authority that was lost in the garden. And so you have this thing.

So Nicodemus here is going like, who's this, how all of a sudden, you know. Yeah, there's this complete lack of humility in a way. There were exorcisms taking place. Sure, sure. Before, but it was probably a lot more work. Well, yeah, I mean, it seems like you can figure out a way to make it happen. We can get this thing out, but it's like, it's like old Doc Brown in the old West, you know,

trying to get the Dolorian to run again versus He's just got a big machine to make an ice cube. You know what I mean? It's like you can duct tape all these things together. Maybe we can get this demon out of there. But then there's... Jesus would just stroll in. Yeah.

And they'd start popping off. Maybe a shadow just cast on this dude. And it's like, oh, he's... What's different? Yeah. But it's just immense... You know where the power is coming from and there's a totally different posture involved,

it seems, with some people doing the Lord's work. and others where it's like, I'm doing the work. It's me, look at me, I'm the big deal here. And I don't know, I never really liked those kind of people. Yeah, same. Myself. You know, it's just like, you can smell it on. You can smell it.

And when I'm that way, too, I'm like, I don't like myself right now. Well, Jesus gives away all of his ministry. We're supposed to give it away. Yeah. We're supposed to teach other people and give it away. And I remember the first time that someone, I felt like I was supposed to pray for someone, I had the Lord had been using me I had been like you know

having really clear accurate words of knowledge seeing seeing people healed you know it was wild cancers were getting healed tumors were shrinking all kinds of stuff and I remember the very first time I felt like the Lord say hey pray for this person to move more in the things

than you do and I actually stopped and I thought well now if that happens that means I'm not going to be the guy and then I thought oh God What are these thoughts? And then I was like, do triple. Triple whatever you've done on me.

Like, do it to him. You know, because I, but I remember being confronted with that of like, you know, right now I'm the guy. And if I lose that, what am I? I'm a son, you know. And so he was teaching me about sonship, you know, he's all of that sort of stuff. But there is a danger of, of the draw of fame, the draw of importance to draw. Power, right?

There's a certain amount of power. Do you think that's a big part of why Jesus withdrew a lot just to kind of, remember and remind himself of what he was doing. Because even it seemed like all of a sudden, you're a rock star. Everywhere you go, you got crowds. Everyone wants to know who you are and touch you. How does it not, I mean, if he's fully human too, he's going to be experiencing the same.

100% feelings of. Yeah. I mean, there's nothing. Which is kind of weird because he is. He's fully got a fully minute. We're going to solve that in the next five minutes. No one's ever solved that. But, I mean, there's nothing like it when you're moving in the power of the Holy Spirit

and you're seeing the Lord work in people and you're seeing them get delivered and healed and set free and all of the things. There's nothing like it. And it can become addictive and a stumbling block for the person that's moving in it. And so all God actually wants is intimacy. That's all he wants. So then you have to, you do have to leave and go back to him and realize that he's actually the sustainer of everything, that he's actually the one that is inviting you into this, that he doesn't need you at all to accomplish any of these things. Yeah. So back to Luke's question, I kind of derailed us. What are this couple stories?

Cool stories? Yeah. Okay. I've got, I've got a couple. I'll tell a couple. That's okay. I don't know the time. Oh, we're good. Okay. You got take another cha. I'll walk you through sort of the process. Yeah, we love that. So you can kind of see, okay? Yeah. So we're at a small group, and I'm noticing there's a guy over here.

I'm like, I feel prompted by the Lord that I should like ask him to go, you know, grab a beer afterwards and just spend some time. And I just kind of see what's going on. I just feel like that. You know what I mean? I don't have necessarily like a right word of knowledge or whatever. I get a sense, right? And he's not crying or anything like that. He seems normal.

So I go up to him and I'm like, hey, do you want to go hang on after this? So we do, we go. And it turns out, man, he starts opening up to me. I mean, I was a pastor, so that's what people typically do. And he's telling me about all of his problems. And he's married, he's got kids, but he can't beat the lust porn thing, right? He's just like, it's just killing him. It's killing his marriage, killing his sex life.

He's killing everything. And, you know, so I'm sitting here and I'm like, okay, Lord, you wanted me to sit with this guy and, you know, you started church in East Nashville with a bunch of young dudes. I mean, I felt like every coffee I was hearing stories about or an addiction, you know. I got, you know, just to the point of just saying, okay, I'm just going to cut your hand off at this point. If we have to have this conversation one more time. I didn't do that, by the way, just for the record. But I you know sometimes the answer for something like that is to stop it, right? Just stop it.

Stop looking at the crap. Throw your computer away. Whatever you got to do, man. Just stop it, right? We all agree we should stop it. There are, and for some people that's enough, right? It's breaking a habit, whatever. There are sometimes that there's more.

There's like, you can tell like, man, this person is like in bondage to this stuff. Like this stuff is like ruling their life. I mean, they're just constantly afraid. that they're going to give in to this, like an addiction type of it. You know, whatever. And so he was, we were talking and I said, okay. And I said, well, I think it'd be great if you get some prayer for this. And he was like, okay, I mean, yeah, sure, I've gotten prayer for it, you know, but sure, you know.

And it was like, well, I think there might be something more going on. I think it might be a spiritual thing. So then he just like proceeds to, you know, tell me why he doesn't believe in that. And I was like, okay, that's fine. again, I don't get paid for this. But I think this would help, you know. And so eventually, you know, we're sitting there and he's like, so what would you do? You know, what would it look like?

So I kind of said, I said, well, and so then I looked in it in the eye and I said, I would tell this thing. And I named, I named, you know, just lust, spirit of lust, to come out, you know. And I would tell this thing, pornography, to come out, you know. well he starts manifesting and almost passes out right in the middle of the bar and so he stands back up and he's like what you know what was that and i said i said well that's what i was talking about and let's let's schedule a time because i don't well it'll be a little bit more involved in what we can do right here and let's take care of this we came back and um and so we're we're in the process you know beautifully delivered, you know, all of that sort of stuff.

And he got fully free. And he, the way I know that is that about four months later, five months later, I get a text message. Wife and I just went on our second honeymoon. First time ever when we were in the marital act. I didn't have any other images in my mind. I didn't have any other people in my mind. I was fully present with my wife

for the first time that I can ever remember. And he said, and in that moment, like, the love of God, just like, it was just wild, you know? He was weeping. They were weeping, you know. And, you know, they've been in a lot of counseling. They've been a lot of things.

There was this thing that was there that needed to come out. And, you know, their marriage was improved and and the Lord was glorified, you know, in that. And that was a really cool one. That was a long way. There was a lot of things. The lust was just the beginning.

And that was amazing. And then, you know, there was this one time we were, I'll tell this story and I'll tell, I'll tell, I'll tell, after. So we were praying for this guy who had just been released. from medical watch evaluation, mental health for his, I don't know, multiple suicide attempt. I mean, he'd done it multiple times, young guy. And we're praying for him. We're asking the Lord, I mean, feeling totally unqualified in all of this, by the way. I mean, like, what do I know about this stuff, you know?

And so then he, you know, we start kind of getting to it. We start doing, we're like, okay, there's. there's this and there's that, you know, and we're finding it. And he gets delivered. It's a beautiful thing. He's weeping. He's crying. And then he starts, like, freaking out because he looks down and he was a cutter.

And he looks down in his arms and all of the scars were gone. And we didn't pray for the scars to be gone. The Lord just healed his scars. He took away the whole history of his self-harm, of his self-hatred. of his depression, of all of that sorts, of his suicide. And the scars were literally healed. We didn't even ask the Lord for that. He's so good.

He just did it extra. And he was just freaking out and like, I mean, all over, you know, and all of this sort of stuff. I mean, just imagine the hope. Imagine believing that God cares that much about restoration and wholeness and health, that he would even remove the outside stains of the sin. You know, he's that good? The craziest thing about that stuff,

story is I've told that story a lot. I've told it in church services and giant conferences that have been broadcast all over the world in home groups. Every time I tell the story, I say, okay, now check your scars. And every time people's scars disappear from telling that story, Cesarian scars have disappeared from telling that story. Just telling it. Just releasing the testimony of Jesus and his goodness. Wow. The testimony of Jesus is what it's all about, how good he is.

And I've had people that have sent pictures from across the world in a conference where I told that story. I said, now check. And they've sent pictures saying, oh, my gosh, they're in Australia or whatever. And just a scar on their thumb was healed or whatever. I've every time I released that testimony. And so I would, you know, if you're listening, check your scars. Pull over, you know, if you need to, if you need to. Make sure that it's an appropriate place to check appropriate scars.

I've had to say that a few times. Like, ah, ah, don't check that one here right now, you know, go in the bathroom. But, um, yeah, just the Lord is that good. And that's the whole thing. It's like the evil, the demons, the bad stuff, witches, man, I've had so many confrontations with which all of the things he wince it is no contest it's no contest and the same spirit of god that is that that that was in elijah is in you the same spirit that raised jesus from the dead is in you and so that's the message to everyone is to say like you know we're all called to do

this are you saying like this the scars that they've they've hurt themselves with like just any scar. Any scars, a cesarian scar from a C-section. You're not giving that to yourself. Weird. I mean, I mean, a scar that they've, so, so yeah, it started as someone being healed of self-harm. Now it's like just random any scars. Well, I mean, just think about a cesarean scar. That could have been a really traumatic thing for that lady, right? Sure. And so isn't it so kind that the Lord takes that away? It's just, he's so good, guys. Well, yeah, I mean, a lot of trauma is like, is an emotional scar. Then you have physical, you know, it's like a reminder.

And it's cool how God cares of, we, he knows as humans, we forgive ourselves, but then we look down and we continue to see almost like a tattoo of this other time. Yep. Or shame. Yeah. We're shame. God is like, I'll take this shame away. One of my last questions would be, you know, do these spirits ever just leave people on their own?

Or does it always, you know, where they start to have faith themselves and believe? Ian? Yeah. Well, like you see someone manifesting and then all of a sudden they've changed and you didn't know anything happened or? I mean, you really have to be. I mean, yeah, I would say, I would never say never. Yeah. And I do think that through a cruciform life, through a life that is coming more and more under the alignment of King Jesus and we're, you know, killing more and more and more sin and we're uprooting more and more things. Yeah, you're going to get free of all kinds of stuff.

You know, where I think it helps is when things are tricky. It's so hard for me to see my blind spots. Yeah. It's like impossible. Yeah. And we've so personalized Jesus. The way that we think about Jesus and the spirit and our personal relationship with God would be very foreign to Paul. He wouldn't understand it.

He writes in the context of the collective faith to the church with the understanding that, you and I come together are now building points of the new temple. So we coming together form a resting place for the Spirit of God. It's all about the temple and the return of the presence of the temple. But now we're the temple being built together. He says when he came in your hearts collectively. And so there's so much that's required from humility that's required from getting prayer for someone, from feeling love and all of that sort of thing.

And so could it happen? sure, I think the bigger point is like when it happens, man, it's such a beautiful thing. And I've seen relationships cement for life of like, oh my gosh, we shared this thing together. You know, so I do think there's something really important about the together factor of it. But God can do whatever he wants to do. And so, I love it. Yeah. Where can our listeners, like, get help if they need help and find you. Find you. So I'm working on a book that's a podcast. We started with a podcast, and it's just some advice somebody gave me,

but basically it's called Everyday Exorcist. And the point is that we're all supposed to do this. It's demystifying this whole thing. It's everything. Some of these stories are on there. A lot more stories are on there. So if you just go to Everydayexorcist.com, that'll point you to the podcast that is really focused on this,

just a lot of stories. My friend and the worship pastor, Catherine Michael, she and I talk about this. So she's the worship pastor at Franklin Vineyard. And she's seen, you know,

we're constantly praying for people and just bumping into people that are needing this. Happened, mutual friend. Yeah. Just a week ago. It's a fun story.

But so she and I kind of talk through some basic theology of why, this works, how this works. I kind of get into the nitty gritty a little bit more. Take it, you know, subject by subject, kingdom of God, how to pray for the sick. And so you can go in there and find that. We have a little PDF thing that's just sort of like, you know, basic.

I mean, it's like two or three pages of how to pray for someone. And sometimes it involves demonization and sometimes it involves inner healing that you can get. You can find the stuff at the church as well. We have an incredible healing ministry that is, it meets all throughout the week, all different times, and people are getting healed at an extreme rate. And so we believe that that's God's mandate is to go forth and preach the gospel. And with that, there's healing of the sick that happens. There's freedom to the captives that happens.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Franklinner. Don't bring a knife for a gun. He will take you down. I will. Like a linebacker?

I promise. I promise you. The office linebacker commercial? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, come see us. I will point you to people that know. And then if you're not living in Franklin,

we do talk about some different options of people that I trust that I kind of learn from as well, that have more of an online type thing or something like that. Or I might know someone that knows how to do pretty effectively. Nice, Grant. Appreciate it. This is fun, man. Dude, this was really fun.

Glad you're a friend. Yeah. This was so cool. Yeah. You know, we had a fun time where we were talking about it. I know. And the dudes started manifesting right there. Yeah.

We were talking about it. Wow. For another time. Oh, bro. Hey, I've got some wild stories. Yeah. Wild stories. I can't.

We'll have it. I think what I love about this is, in closing, is that I think it takes a very, like, as you say, domesticifying, but it just takes a, like, a very normative approach to the idea that, like, that you just said this is what we're supposed to do. and maybe we're supposed to do that. And there's not a lot, there's not a lot of, you know,

quote, magic, I guess, or methodology other than understanding, you know, your authority and walking in authority. And so, can I end with the story about that? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. All right. This is, this is one of my favorites. So this kid comes in, and he is just out of his mind on drugs. We have a word of knowledge. It comes into the church.

I had a word of knowledge about somebody's elbow, left elbow needs to be healed. That's him. And so he kind of raises, like, is that, so we're like, cool. Everybody just kind of point your hands to him. Don't touch him, you know, we don't be weird. It's God that heals. We walk everybody through that.

Pray. He gets healed and then drops to the floor the whole time, okay? So I'm thinking, geez, Louise, what's going on with this kid? You know, he's in the very back. I'm still having to preach. And the whole time, as I'm preaching, I'm like, okay, is he, is he okay? You know,

what is happening? The medical situation going on. And I see people moving around in the back, you know, it's, so anyway, so long story short, that kid is on fire. He gets, all of, he gets, we baptize him and, you know, he gets, he was a mess and he gets, he gets delivered all of that sort of stuff. And he's so on fire, man, he just, all he wants to do is pray for people. And he, I'm kind of discipling him.

And so he's like, what do I do? And I'm like, well, let's, let's just walk through the book of John, you know. and he ends up memorizing almost the book of John because he's just so hungry, right? He was a really cool kid too. Like he was in the music world and all this sort of stuff. So he's praying for all kinds of people all the time, right? And I don't know if he knows what he's doing. I don't know if he's if it's cool, you know what I mean?

Because there's protocol of like, you know, if you're praying for a lady and you're a man, like don't put your hands all over him. Like, you know, basic stuff. Like he doesn't know yet, right? Nobody told me that. So, right, that's, it's key. It's key. So we're sitting off, it was actually on Easter one year,

and I'm having this conversation with another pastor and associate pastor. And we're asking, the conversation is around like, should we stop him and just kind of say, hey look, just chill out for a little bit, and then we'll work some more and then we'll release you into this, whatever. And so as soon as we're literally in the middle of that conversation, and this kid walks up with another guy who's like sitting there dumbfounded

because he just got healed of deafness in his ear by this other kid who stuck his freaking finger in the guy's ear and water came out of his ear, which I don't even know what that is. I don't know what that means. And now the kid can heal. I mean, here. And so we're sitting there in the middle of this conversation about should this kid pray for people right now.

He brings a deaf guy to us who can hear it. The deaf guy is obviously just like freaking out, you know, and just crying and like, oh my God, you know, he wasn't completely, he was deaf in one ear right. So, and, and so, so we said, we decided to let him keep praying for people. Yeah, it doesn't know for me, though. Maybe you can keep going. So, you know, Jesus released the Gatarian Domaniac in a matter of hours. And it was like, yeah, no, don't come with us.

You go, go be an evangelist. Awesome. Yeah, it's, wow. Those stories are interesting. Like, there's some sort of physical thing that can happen sometimes with a spirit leaving. you know, we interviewed a couple. One episode that hasn't come out yet, but like, people coughing up nails and frogs

and other things that are like actual physical. Actual physical things, man. Yeah. I've been picking them up off the floor. Yeah, I've got some crazy stories. Well, he said you don't touch it. If anything comes out of somebody, don't touch it. Yeah, I don't care about it.

Well, I mean, I know. It's just funny. It's like, that's the whole, like, ancient Catholic protocol of what they tell people to do and not do. But I just, what I'm saying is that the spiritual healing and there's this weird physical thing that can, I mean, I have seen and heard things that constantly to steal from your intro breaks the paradigm. There we go.

I mean, constantly where I'm just like, I don't even know where to put this. All right for part two. That's the teaser. Exactly. Get into all that. You're like, is that 1988 TechMobile that just came out of your ear? I don't know. That's worth the E.T.

That's worth a lot on eBay. It's the E. It's the E. It's the E. No one has it. Appreciate it. Thanks, thank you. Thanks for having me on.

Yeah. This is fun. That is. Let's hang. Let's do it. Yeah. Cool. Let's get some photos.

Let's do it. Thanks, Dan. See.