Free So Much More: Moving Beyond Kingdom Principles to Kingdom Power by Todd Hudson Page B

strength.
    As I said, I had been in ministry for over twenty years but I had never been trained in my conservative Bible college background or in my years of experience for an encounter like this. So, I did the only thing I knew to do. I went to the hallway outside the room where this was all going on and called a Pentecostal pastor friend. I was pretty sure she had dealt with this before. Over the phone, she gave us a crash course in taking authority over the demons. So we commanded the demons in Jesus’ name to stop tormenting this young man and to leave him alone. Immediately the young man became calm.
    Now I am not one to believe there is a demon behind every bush, but from that time on, I began to encounter demons regularly. Another of my early experiences with the demonic realm took place in a deliverance session with a man who came from an America Indian background. He had come to me in desperation because he couldn’t sleep at night. He heard voices and felt constantly tormented and found himself doing things that seemed beyond his control. As we talked that day, we discovered that he had an uncle who was the medicine man of their tribe. The medicine man’s role is basically to bring the spirit world to assist people in the tribe with things like healing. This was a connection to the demonic spirit world, and as a result this man became exposed to many evil spirits. In the course of that meeting, as we called out several demons, several spoke to us and identified themselves by name and the man at times began to sweat profusely and become violent and physically ill. We took authority over the demons one by one, bound them up, and cast them out of this man; and they stopped abusing him. After multiple demons left, the man’s countenance changed drastically as he began to radiate with joy and peace. This is the kingdom!
    Another young lady I encountered came into our church one year just before Christmas. She looked exhausted and disheveled. Her fiancé, who was with her, told us that she had been acting really weird and talking in this strange deep voice that was not hers. I tried to get her to read from the Bible and she couldn’t. Her countenance would change and she became violent and a deep voice, definitely not the voice of this sweet young lady, came out of her swearing profusely. Again, I took authority over the demons in Jesus name and cast them out and she left a much happier, much freer young lady. I saw her in church in the coming weeks and she didn’t even look like the same girl. She was beautiful, radiant, and free. This is the kingdom!
    These were just a few of my beginning experiences with the demonic, and I have encountered this on a more regular basis ever since then. For over twenty years of ministry I had never witnessed this, but now I seem to see it regularly. Why? Because now I’m aware that there is a real clash of kingdoms going on and we have been given authority as believers over the kingdom of darkness. We shouldn’t be surprised because Jesus told us, “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you” (Luke 10:19). We are called to take authority over the kingdom of darkness because we live in the kingdom of light. He has delegated to us His authority over the enemy.

Chapter 5

HEALING POWER
    J ESUS ALSO DEMONSTRATED the kingdom was at hand through the healing of disease. It was important for Jesus to demonstrate the kingdom through healing. In order to understand why healing is a demonstration of the kingdom, we first must understand why disease is a part of this world. It is almost impossible for you and me to imagine a world that does not include sickness and disease. It’s almost impossible for us to comprehend a world that doesn’t include hospitals, pharmacies, doctors’ offices, surgery centers, cancer treatment centers, radiation, and chemotherapy. And while it is almost impossible for us