Thinking out loud, as it were, I was wondering this afternoon as I thought
about all that is being discussed on echurch, what the average Christian
counselor, psychologist, or psychiatrist would do if a demon manifested
itself during a normal every day counseling session?  If the demonic
infestation was due to a strong hold, he very likely would literally speak
through the person's own voice.  Sometimes they, the client, knows it and
sometimes they don't.  Would some form of medication be immediately
administered, if they were licensed to do so, or would they just consider
that it was a multiple personality manifesting itself in the person.  Would
they know, Christian or not, how to tell the difference between an alternate
personality or a real demon?  Do they even believe demons can do such a
thing?  What if the counselor is scared spitless and the demon is, in fact,
a real manifestation of evil?  Of course, at this point, the unclean spirit
would have the advantage over the counselor because demons work in the area
of fear and when they see it, they go for it.  What if, as happened to me
once, a demon manifests itself through the person's voice and says, My name
is Lucifer.  Or what, as happened to me, a demon speaks through a person and
says, we aren't leaving and you can't make us leave.  I wonder if the
average Christian counselor would know what was going on or what to do next.
I wonder if even a Christian psychologist or psychiatrist would know what
was going on and what to do next?  I know some who would but not because
they got their degree from a secular college, university, or even a
seminary.  To make the point even clearer, I wonder if the average pastor
was counseling someone in his church and this happened, what he would do?
In one of Neal Anderson's books, he had a pastor in his office with him with
a lady from the man's own church.  As soon as the demonic manifestation came
out, the pastor tried to run out the door but Neal stopped him and taught
him what to do.  Thank you Jesus for not leaving us defenseless against the
wiles of the devil.  Now the big question.  Can a Christian counselor, which
some say that I am, or a Christian psychologist, or a Christian psychiatrist
heal you?  They can help you and bless God they do help lots of people.
Most of what they do is help people cope and they even use the Bible to help
you cope.  Ok, that's fine, and there's nothing wrong with that.  What if
you could be healed, though?  What if your fear could be literally removed
by the Holy Spirit and your mind totally renewed.  Wouldn't that be better
than coping with life as a Christian?  What if Jesus could, through prayer,
lead you to a memory and the guilt and shame and terror of that memory be
totally obliterated to the point it never comes back again?  Yet you can
return to the very memory any time you wish and there is nothing there that
can hurt you any more?  Wouldn't that be better than coping with life as a
Christian?  How is it that a little girl who has been raped by her father
ever get over the fear and the terror and the anger?  Besides, isn't that
justifiable to have those emotions?  If so, why are they in the counselors
office at 40 trying to find answers?  Why are they on antidepressants?  What
if the Lord God could invade her memory and remove all, I said all, the pain
and doubt and fear and emotional pain and physical pain, and the screams of
that little girl, and the mother who didn't care because she was too drunk
to care, and the haunting  words of an evil father who threatened to kill
her if she told any one, and the nightmares she now has as an adult woman
because of what had been done to her 45 or 50 years ago, what if a loving
God could literally remove it all and replace it with love and holiness and
purity of mind and heart?  Wouldn't that be better than coping with life as
a Christian?  What if a little boy is made subject to a Satanic cult where
men in a room forced human male excretions down his throat and made him
swallow everything and if he spit it back up, they beat him so he couldn't
even walk.  Can God heal the broken emotions of that little boy or must he
live on drugs the rest of his life as a half of a human being?  If God could
heal his brokenness and fear and hatred for men and his homosexuality,
wouldn't that be better than just coping with life as a Christian?  Where is
God when we need Him?  Where is God when a girl is literally tied to a table
and raped repeatedly by grown men and if she cries, they literally turn on
electricity and shock her over and over again.  Doesn't God care about these
people?  Does God stop loving the woman who gets an abortion, as my daughter
did two years ago, because she is now a murderer and has slain her own flesh
and blood?  How does she cope with such excruciating emotional agony when
she is convicted about what she has done?  What about the little boy who
grows up with a father who repeatedly, all the time he is growing up, and
even into his adult life, telling him he is a failure, a looser, and not
worth spit?  Must he live the rest of his life thinking his father must be
right or is there a God who knows how to get to the root of this lie and
remove it once and for all?  I thought the cross meant something?  I thought
the cross of Christ saved and cured and healed our brokenness but maybe I
was misled.  Maybe you were misled, too?  Where is God in all of this and
why, pray tell, can't He do something about our pain?  The truth is, He can.
He will.  He does.  There are literally thousands of people all over this
country, and the world for that matter, doing exactly what I do every day
with people and that is pray.  With God, nothing shall be impossible.  Do
you really believe that verse or is it just ink on paper to you?  If God
cannot help us, then we are truly the most miserable people on earth who are
serving a God who cannot meet the needs of His people.  I, for one, won't
serve a helpless God like that.  If the best God can do is a doctor who
prescribes drugs and offers a list of affirmations for me to read every day
and a dozen Bible verses to memorize, that is a God of less than enough.  My
bible tells me that one of my God's names we serve is a God of more than
enough and more than we need.  If you aren't getting all that God offers,
keep what you have but find someone else who believes more than your
therapist believes about God and His miraculous abilities.  Finally, if you
have a pastor who falls into this same category, keep what you learned but
for your own sake, find some pastor who knows the God of the bible.

Phil.