The Exorcist's Bestiary

“I’m really hoping this baptism helps me overcome some things,” they told me as we drove to the lake.

“I can’t promise that,” I responded. “It takes a lot of time and effort to overcome our problems. But baptism is a good step forward.”

Three weeks later they found me and reported something interesting. “I had a dream the other night that was so real, I thought it was actually happening. I was fighting with a demon, but I wasn’t scared at all—I was totally at peace. In the end I overcame it and won and then the dream ended. What do you make of that? Do you think something came after me because of my baptism?”

I raised an eyebrow in surprise. “If you feel like that thing left at the end of the dream, then yeah, maybe your baptism loosened that particular demon’s bond. Usually there’s some issues to work through before they go, but maybe that one didn’t have any. I’ve had surreal dreams like that before, and that’s often a sign of something spiritual happening.”

My old mentor used to point out that whenever we try to get better, suddenly it feels like everything is against us. That’s how spiritual warfare works. Demons are not that worried about apathetic Christians. Indeed, such Christians often serve their agendas. But when a Christian decides to get better, demons go on high alert and go to whatever lengths they can to keep us bound.

If you want to draw a demon out into the open, then you must seek out inner healing. Eventually the culprits will expose themselves in an attempt to stop you from moving forward. Then they can be profiled, planned against, and removed in God’s timing.