People, including pastors, have rebuked me for saying that homosexuality is something that sometimes, maybe most times, the person is born with. I have reasons to believe that. Hear me out.
I was 5 months into my walk with the Lord. We were about to go to Boston to what would be the first Christian conference I ever attended. Just prior to that, I had read Don Basham's book "Deliver Us From Evil," which is an expose on the activity of demon spirits - both as presented in the Bible, and as experienced by many people even in this generation. I was a bit skeptical - I mean, DEMONS??? I wouldn't even have said the word out loud. I mean!!!
But after reading that book, I prayed. I asked the Lord to show me if this is true. I wasn't asking him to show me at the conference, it was just "coincidental" that I had read that book at that time just before we left.
It was a wonderful conference, one I'd never forget for the rest of my life. The worship was outstanding. The seminar teachings were tremendous. But at the end of one of the morning sessions, I stayed behind because I wanted to ask questions about the "Baptism in the Holy Spirit." So the people I was with left, and I approached one of the ministers, asking to further clarify this subject to me, and he was happy to further instruct me on it.
After maybe five minutes, I heard a sound, an unearthly sound such as I had never ever heard before. The hairs on my arms stood up. I thought an animal had come into the hall, and I turned around to look. It wasn't an animal. The minister speaking with me told me not to watch that, but how could I help it? There in the back of the hall were two ministers, one on each side of a young man of about 20 years old. The young man's hair and clothing were saturated and matted with sweat and he looked like a piece of limp spaghetti. The ministers on each side of him were commanding an evil spirit to leave him, and each time they made the command, the spirit within the young man screeched out in a voice that sounded like an animal and said "this is my home, I've been in him since before he was born, and I am NOT going to leave." And then it would shake the boy up in what looked like a convulsion. But the ministers continued to command the spirit to leave saying, "you may have been here since before he was born, but he has stated with his own mouth that he is no longer in agreement with you, and wants you OUT. So you most certainly ARE going to leave, because we are commanding you in the Name of Jesus Christ to leave him. It was a spirit of homosexuality.
This went on, back and forth, for several minutes. It was the most awful thing I'd ever seen in my life. I lost all interest in the minister who I had asked questions of, and just watched this spectacle taking place right before my eyes. Finally, the Name of Jesus prevailed, and after convulsing the young man down onto the floor, the spirit left him. The young man was so overcome that I wouldn't have been surprised if they found he was dead, he sure looked dead. But he wasn't, and finally they got him up and seated him in the chair. The ordeal was over with.
The next morning, I saw that same young man in the hall, and his entire countenance had changed. It was almost as though he shined, and I knew I had witnessed the power of God. And after musing on that for awhile, I suddenly remembered the questions I had asked of the Lord before going to the conference, "Are these things real? Are there actual demon spirits in the world today? Can they take over a part of a person's personality??? Even a believer's personality?" I never expected such a demonstration as an answer, but boy, now I knew for sure! And as the years went by, I would see more and more of this and I learned beyond the shadow of any doubt that this is real, it happens today, and furthermore, it is NOT uncommon.
In the following years I learned that you can’t change a person with a demonic spirit, you can’t reason with it, you can’t subdue it, you can’t improve the situation. I chafe when I hear people say to an afflicted person that they need to just get over it, or try harder. There is only ONE remedy for the afflicted person and that is to cast the spirit out. Nothing else will work, no matter what effort the afflicted person makes to overcome it. It is impossible, because that spirit has control over that part of the person’s personality and you can’t improve a demonic spirit.
There are many, MANY other conditions caused by demonic spirits and the afflicted person will try every which way to cope with it. They’ll go to counselors, they’ll make every effort to overcome it, all to no avail.
But there IS an answer, and that is the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.
"The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.
I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."
Jesus, in John 10:10
"…He has anointed me
to preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed;"
Jesus, in Luke 4:18
The gospel of Mark is the gospel that speaks the most of Christ's ministry in this area. The same spirits who were around in those days, where are they? They're still here - afflicting, destroying, causing inexpressible pain. But they cannot remain when the Lord Jesus Christ commands them to leave. He came TO heal and TO set the captive free.
And that is sad.