Big Healing Book - Acts 16:16-18

Acts 16:16-18:

And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying:
The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation.
And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.

Notes on Acts 16:16-18:

The girl was right in what she said, but who wants the devil advertising his ministry?

Why would the devil advertise Jesus Christ? In this case, at least part of the reason would seem to be that he knew Paul would be greatly annoyed by it. Paul wanted nothing to do with the works of the devil, and surely he did not want to legitimize the actions of a psychic. (As a side note, that is how real psychics operate – evil spirits give them their revelations. It is not some innate power they have. Other fake psychics are just good at reading people and psychology. Needless to say, you have no business going to ANY psychic, real or fake. Believers are to be led by the Holy Spirit, not by some other spirit!)

This passage also disproves the popular statement by preachers, “All the devil can do is lie.” No, as with the temptation of Jesus, the devil will sometimes mix truth and lies together. He gives you some meat along with his poison so that you’ll be tempted to eat it.

Notice that Paul did not ask the slave girl for permission to cast out the demon. This shows that if a demon manifests in front of you, it’s fair game to be cast out regardless of what the person with the demon wants.

Paul did not require a lot of time to cast the demon out. There was no special deliverance ceremony; he just ordered it to come out in the name of Jesus Christ. That’s all you need to do.