Sid Roth - He Casts DEMONS Out Of CHRISTIANS!
My guest has a master's from a Baptist seminary, doctorate from a Methodist seminary. And would you believe, he loves to cast demons out of Christians!
Sid Roth: I'm seated here with Rodney Hogue. Rodney, you're just going to a nice Baptist seminary, and there's a guest lecturer, and he's going along, you like what he's saying. And all of a sudden, he starts talking about demons. Why did you get so rattled?
Rodney Hogue: Well, actually, it was all over with, the class was over, and I'm just talking with this individual was a pastor. And he was just telling us about his day. And he said, "You know, today we ministered to three people who had demons". And first of all, I got pretty excited, because I'm thinking, oh my goodness. I mean, here we are, this is New Testament stuff. So I'm thinking, we're going to do something here, and I'm going to learn something. And then he said, he said, "You know, and two of them were Christians". I go, "Oh, no". The first thought to my head, I don't believe in this this. I just don't believe this. Now in reality, I never had really thought this thing through. I mean, I didn't really have a developed theology, because it just never crossed my mind. But I just had this strong thought that I just don't believe in this. Now I realize, those thoughts, they weren't my thoughts. But at that time, I thought those were my thoughts.
Sid Roth: Sure. Someone has a thought, you think it's your thought, not necessarily coming from you. But go ahead.
Rodney Hogue: Yeah. So I said, "I don't believe in this". But the next thing, I had to get out of there. I'm, like, "I've got to get out of this place," I made an excuse. "Oh my goodness, I need to go home". I'm in my car, and I'm driving home, and I'm thinking, how does this happen? How does a Christian have a demon? I'm just kind of wondering how this is happening. And then the Holy Spirit, like, invades my thinking and speaks to me so clearly. It wasn't, you know, audible, but it was pretty close. And He says, "Rodney, that's what you have".
Sid Roth: I say, anyone want to hear from God, anyone want to hear that?
Rodney Hogue: Well, I mean, I just got mad. I mean, I wasn't even thinking at that time. I just got mad. And I said, "You can't have me. You don't belong to me. In the Name of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave me"! And I felt this thing leave me.
Sid Roth: The thing you don't believe that this thing can happen.
Rodney Hogue: Yeah. And that's what I thought, I go, "Oh no, I've just had an experience I don't believe in! But I wasn't telling anybody, I didn't tell my wife. And I certainly wasn't going to tell this guy. You, I had to think this thing through.
Sid Roth: Well, it was a big debate. So let me address the question, you know, head on. Can a Christian have a demon?
Rodney Hogue: Well, I did. And I'm a Christian. But one of the things I had to work through is really the language that's in the New Testament, because that word demon "possession" that word "possession" is really not a very good translation from the original Greek.
Sid Roth: What should it be?
Rodney Hogue: It should be, a person has a demon. It is the word, like the subject, the verb echo, and then really, the demon. So a person has a demon. That...
Sid Roth: So it could be a Christian has a sickness.
Rodney Hogue: Yeah, a person, in fact, it's used like that. Christian has a sickness. John the Baptist had a camel hair coat. You know, Mary had a child. It's like a person has this...
Sid Roth: Uh-huh?
Rodney Hogue: Or a person has an offense. It's not that a demon has a person. The other time that it's used, it's a verb. It's a very general verb. Daimonizomai, so it's a very, it could talk about, you know, they got the Gadarene, or it could talk about, listen, I just have a spirit that's harassing me. So the word "oppressed" probably better describes about a person having a demon, because a Christian cannot be owned by a demon, but they can be oppressed by one.
Sid Roth: Well, it's a fine line. Some say a Christian could not have a demon in their spirit. But they for sure could have one in their flesh, just as you could be sick in your flesh.
Rodney Hogue: Yeah.
Sid Roth: Is that a sin? No, it's a sin if you could get rid of it, and not get rid of it.
Rodney Hogue: Yeah.
Sid Roth: And you just keep it the rest of your life.
Rodney Hogue: Yeah.
Sid Roth: But, okay. Tell me about, real briefly, your first deliverance.
Rodney Hogue: My deliverance happened about seven months earlier, and by this time I'd moved to Washington State, and I'm pastoring a church. My wife set up an appointment for me to minister to one of our young ladies that she thought had a demon. By this time, my wife and I were talking about this. She invites her over, and I asked my wife, like, when did you do this? I've never done this before. I don't really know what I'm doing, you know? And but she knows, she said, "You are her pastor, so you should be the one". So she pulled the pastor card out on me, and I had to do it. So she came over. And I got a little bit of phone instruction, but I really didn't know, so I didn't know how to start this thing. So I mean, like, I had never seen one. So I thought, well, I'll just read scripture. You know, maybe I can stir them up. So I read scripture, but that didn't work. So then I said, "Well, let's pray". So we all bowed our head and closed our eyes and prayed, which, by the way, do not close your eyes when you're ministering in this area.
Sid Roth: Why?
Rodney Hogue: Well, because you want to see what's going on.
Sid Roth: Okay.
Rodney Hogue: You know? You want to observe this stuff. You don't want to close your eyes to a demon, you know. So but nobody told me the rules, so I didn't know. So I got her eyes closed, and I'm praying. And as soon as we finished praying, I'm looking up, my wife's looking up, and she couldn't open her eyes. I go, "What do you mean, you can't open your eyes"? She goes, "I can't open my eyes"! I looked at my wife and I said, "What did you get us into"? You know, I'm thinking. But I said, "In the Name of Jesus, I command those eyes to open". And boom, they open. I go, "Whoa, it worked"! And then she couldn't hear me. She was deaf! And then I said the same thing, "In the Name of Jesus"...
Sid Roth: Was she naturally deaf?
Rodney Hogue: No.
Sid Roth: It was just all the demons were...
Rodney Hogue: All of a sudden she sees my lips moving, but she can't hear a thing.
Sid Roth: Huh.
Rodney Hogue: So then I said, "I command those ears to open"! And boom. They opened up. Yeah. And for the next several hours, several hours, that was like the worst experience of my life. But you know, and I don't know if they left because we drove them out or we wore them out, but they ended up leaving. But by the end of the night, I look at that face, and I saw a face of freedom. And I said, "Lord, I don't like the mess, but I love the face". I'll do it for that.
Sid Roth: And in that glory, what happened?
Rodney Hogue: Well, in that glory, she got set free.
Sid Roth: You told me something else that's very important. As this gift developed in you to set people free, you began to, well, I had a thousand people that got set free tonight, you began to look at them as individuals, not a corporate or just a job to do, I'll put a Band Aid, goodbye, tell me that difference.
Rodney Hogue: When I first started ministering in this area, I was just, I had a job to do. And I didn't see the person as a person. I had a job. I'm going to cast a demon out, and so that was my agenda. I would even sacrifice you on the altar of my agenda to get that thing out. And then the Lord began to show me people as He sees them. So there's a heart of compassion that began to rise up within me, that I really, I shifted from just having an agenda to see the person is the priority. The person is what's important. So their freedom needs to be a love encounter with Jesus. And so I had to shift how I did it, and the Lord did it by letting me see the person as He would see them. Every person has value. Everyone has significance.
Sid Roth: Well, I'll tell you what. Many believers have, and it's through ignorance, opened doors to the demonic. Rodney will expose the open doors when we return.
Sid Roth: You know Rodney, are you afraid of demons? You've prayed for thousands to be set free. Are you afraid of demons?
Rodney Hogue: You know, the demonic uses the same strategy. It's fear, it's intimidation, and it's deception. They want you to fear them. They actually do things so that you'll be afraid. For example, if somebody manifests, that thing is simply manifesting so you'll back off, so you'll be afraid. So the people are coming to an agreement with that. Often times that fear that that person is feeling is not their own fear, it's a fear that's being projected on them by that spirit.
Sid Roth: Huh.
Rodney Hogue: So they're feeling this sense, I've got to get out of here, I've got to run, I mean, this is scaring me, because they don't recognize they're not experiencing God's authority. They're actually experiencing that. One of the things I think that's important is, when we're ministering in this area here, that we need to pull out the authority that's inside that believer. In the Book of Acts, and in the Gospels, there's a process in which a deliverance happens where I have the authority of Jesus, and I'm bringing the Kingdom of God into a place. So therefore, the way that this modality is me, with the authority of Jesus, advancing the Kingdom, bringing His Kingdom to a place, demons manifest, and we're casting them out.
Sid Roth: So what do you do when you feel fearful?
Rodney Hogue: Well, basically, that to me, that's a sign that you're history. Because you just showed me that you just played your cards, you're there. And now I know you're there.
Sid Roth: Many Christians, through ignorance, have opened doors.
Rodney Hogue: Yeah. Yes.
Sid Roth: Tell me about these open doors.
Rodney Hogue: Well, the Ephesians, Chapter 4, Verse 27 says, "Do not give the devil an opportunity," and he's talking to believers there. That word "opportunity" sometime is translated as a foothold or a place. Do not open the door to the enemy. So what happens is that the enemy is looking for legal loopholes for legal rights, for legal inroads into a person's life. So he just can't jump on you any time he wants to. He's got to have a legal right. And he will stretch it, if he can. Even though it's not quite a legal right, he will simply go for that. And when he comes in, he comes in usually in one place, not the whole person. So you're not going to get the Gadarene. He's going to move in the block, he's going to go in, like, one house. And if he can get in that one house and establish something in that one house, then he's going to go for the next house, and to the next house, and the next house. What happened with me, I just had some places that I kept in the dark, places that were in secret, the place I was ashamed of. And I wasn't bringing that place to the light. So there was an inroad into my life. Now he didn't have me completely, because I'm walking with Jesus, I'm on staff in churches, I'm leading people to Jesus and all this stuff, so I'm doing a lot of the things I should be doing. But that dark place, I had an open door. And that's where he was wreaking havoc in my life.
Sid Roth: Well, give me some specific areas that are open doors.
Rodney Hogue: For example, habitual sin. You're in control at first, but then it controls you. If you're in the occult, like you're actually calling on demons, you're opening yourself up to that. Maybe it's a cult, which is like you're just worshipping another god, or other gods, or maybe a diversion, perversion of Jesus. It could be like involuntary exposure to evil. It could be like...
Sid Roth: So such as, watching television or movies with the wrong stuff?
Rodney Hogue: Yeah. Or a mother minister to her child, who basically, you know, her husband, who wasn't a believer, years and years ago brought the movie The Exorcist home... not The Exorcist; Poltergeist. You know, and showed it to their four-year-old kid, and she ended up having to do ministry to that. So he didn't choose to do that, he was just exposed to that, you know?
Sid Roth: What about things like Ouija boards, and all of this mindreading and magic, and all those things.
Rodney Hogue: Yeah. That's the occult, because you're calling on a spirit other than the Holy Spirit, which you have no permission to do that.
Sid Roth: All right.
Rodney Hogue: Yeah. And there's things like drugs, and I'm not talking about taking stuff that your body needs, like an aspirin or blood pressure.
Sid Roth: No.
Rodney Hogue: It's something your body doesn't need. Unforgiveness, that's a door. Hurt, woundedness, trauma, I mean, anytime you're in a weakened state, the enemy wants to take advantage of that.
Sid Roth: I'll tell you what. I'm going to take a risk. You know I do that every once in a while. Rodney will pray for deliverance corporately when we return.
Sid Roth: Rodney, you ever bump into people that have demons that refuse to leave?
Rodney Hogue: Yeah. From time to time.
Sid Roth: But you have all this authority. How come?
Rodney Hogue: Well one of the things that happens with some people, is that there's an agreement, where there's a lie that they have believed that's embedded within them that actually manifests in their identity.
Sid Roth: Oh.
Rodney Hogue: For example, let's say a person has, like, a victim spirit. And it's just there, they just see them as a victim, so they have an identity as a victim. And there's a lot...
Sid Roth: I have met people that are deaf, and I say, "Can I pray to have your hearing restored," and they say, "No". Because they like their deaf community.
Rodney Hogue: Yeah. Yeah. You see, if I have a fly, a fly in this cup, I can either get that fly out by pulling it out, or I can stick this cup under the faucet and just turn on the faucet and let it flush out. So a lot of demons, we're able to get them out if we just pull them out. We're casting them out, we're driving them out. But ones that are stubborn, that are stuck in a person's identity, those are the ones we have to displace. We just have to bring truth, we have to bring to life, to come into and show light into the areas of their heart, and begin to expose all of those embedded lies, and bring them into the place of truth. And it just actually just forces and displaces the darkness when we do that.
Sid Roth: Give me an example, of a lie that people embrace.
Rodney Hogue: Well, it's like, I don't have any power. I don't have any authority. I'm a loser.
Sid Roth: Or, I can't be healed.
Rodney Hogue: That's a lie.
Sid Roth: They say other people can be healed, but I can't be healed.
Rodney Hogue: Yeah. And if I embrace that lie, then I basically impede healing, because I've embraced something that's not true. I can be healed, because God says I can be healed.
Sid Roth: Well, here's what I believe. There's such a presence of God in this studio, even before my guests come. But now it's even stronger. I believe you can pray corporately and set a lot of people free. Why don't you look in the camera, and pray as God directs.
Rodney Hogue: Well, the first step is this: Only Jesus is going to set you free. So first of all, you have to have a relationship with Jesus, because He is your deliverer. You may have learned coping skills, but only Jesus can set you free. So you're going to have to invite Jesus to come into your life, to be the Lord of your life, to forgive you of your sin. And you're going to have to make a decision that today, I'm going to follow Jesus completely. And if you would like to surrender your life completely to Him, I want you to repeat after me. Just say, "Dear Jesus come into my life. Forgive me of all my sin. Today I choose to follow You. I make You my Lord. I give You my heart. My mind. My desires. My future. All of me now belongs to You. Thank you, Jesus for coming into my life". Now, if you prayed that prayer, you know Jesus came into your life. Now, if Colossians Chapter 1, Verse 13 says this, that "Jesus delivered us from the domain of darkness and He transferred us to the Kingdom of His Son". So therefore, darkness no longer has authority over you. So if you prayed that prayer, or maybe you've known the Lord for some time, but you find yourself in bondage, I just want you to know that it is your birthright to be free. Because you're not in that domain anymore, you're actually in the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of His Son. So now that Christ is inside of you, it's time to exercise that authority. So I just want you to repeat after me: "I'm a child of the King. Everything Jesus bought and paid for is my inheritance. I'm united with Christ. I died with Him. I was buried with Him. I rose with Him. I'm seated at the right hand of the Father. Far above all rule all authority all power. Every name that is named. Not only in this age but in the one to come. Therefore I have authority over the flesh. I have authority over sin. I have authority over the demonic. I have authority over sickness. And because I have authority with Jesus I break every assignment of hell off of me. I break every curse of hell off of me. I break every curse that's come down from my ancestors. I break every curse that's come from the world around me. I break every curse that I've put upon myself. For the weapons of my warfare. They're not fleshly. They're divinely powerful. They pull down the strongholds of darkness. I can do all things through Christ. Because greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world. Amen"!