The Exorcist's Bestiary

“Really? You called Jamin over?” the manifested demon exclaimed as I came into the room. It then proceeded to list the names of my sponsors, though it screwed up one of their names (demons are not omniscient and have to work off of memory). I had never met this demon before this moment, but it had been to my church plenty of times. Just as demons knew who Paul was through some kind of spiritual or physical gossip or interaction (Acts 19:11-20), so this one knew me through physical interaction.

In an attempt to plant doubt in me and derail me from subduing its manifestation, it began to use what it knew of me to mock me. “You have such a tiny church Jamin! No one goes there!” It stayed on this note for quite a while.

An odd thing happened to me in that moment. If a human had mocked me in the same way, I would have festered over the insult for days. I would have been up at night thinking about it and seeking God out in a depressing form of prayer. But I have a general rule regarding demons: “Figure out what they want and do or think the opposite.”

As I applied my rule to this scenario, I had an interesting set of thoughts and questions. Why did this demon care so much about mocking my church? If it’s so tiny, why even address it? Obviously, it wants to derail me from doing ministry or see our church closed down, but why would that even matter to the demonic world if we’re such a tiny church?

In the reverse application, I felt the Holy Spirit strengthen me through the demon’s insults: My tiny little church matters to Jackson enough for demons to want to shut it down. My work as a pastor matters enough for demons to want to bring an end to my ministerial career. The size of our church doesn’t matter—we are a threat to the underworld as we install the Kingdom of Heaven in our city.

When you can discern demonic thoughts, be it obvious in a manifestation or less obvious when a person wields one of their thoughts at you, that’s a great moment to recognize the lies and proclaim the opposite.