A missionary to China in the middle of the previous century, John L. Nevius, wrote a classic book on this subject, “Demon Possession.” He pointed out that demon possession (or demonization) reveals itself clearly by destructive personality changes which may often be related to a supernatural ability to heal sicknesses and speak foreign languages. If an ability to heal and speak in tongues is linked to a destructive personality, then, it is, according to the experience of Nevius, a sign of demon possession. He sees it as being clearly linked to the worship of idols.
According to Nevius, demon possession is not a question of psychiatric sicknesses and personality problems, or general sins, but he thinks it is clearly linked to supernatural phenomena and worship of idols. It would have been a totally foreign idea to Nevius that every Christian is supposed to be inhabited by demons (as Whaley taught us).
According to Nevius, exorcising demons depends first and foremost on the person surrendering their life to Jesus and keeping close to Him. This will make the evil spirits lose their grip on the person. Sometimes, it may be necessary for a person to be helped by prayer, at other times, the demons will disappear without any special problems; but on some occasions, there may be a severe battle.
When Jesus was casting out demons, it was very obvious that the cases really concerned evil spirits and not something else. Jesus did not diagnose people psychologically in order to determine whether their personality problems might be caused by demons. Jesus never searched for demons! Neither did He just automatically assume that people were normally possessed by demons. If a person who was demonised was in the presence of Jesus, the demons clearly showed their presence when they got too close to Him. Then, was the time Jesus commanded the evil spirits to leave the people concerned. The result was that people were genuinely delivered from their torments, and they bore good fruit in the form of being faithful to the Lord and showing love to their fellowmen. Afterwards, there was an immediate and positive change to be seen.
Casting out demons was an important part of the ministry of Jesus as it is described in the Gospels. However, the Epistles that were written to the Christians in the New Testament have very little to say about demons and the relationship of the Christians to the evil spirits. The content of the New Testament Epistles is almost entirely concerned with our relationship to God and to our fellowmen. This should be the central point of the Christian message that is preached.
