After getting back from home visits, there was a man who sat on the floor in front of the lawn at our living quarters. I tried to say hi to him, but he didn’t speak. Philip told me that he was deaf and mute because he was demon possessed. The man couldn’t hear and when we asked him his name he didn’t respond. We gave him a slice of bread and a cup of water. The only thing he could understand was food. Philip told us that he doesn’t have a place to stay, but that he just roams around different parts of the town. He cuts himself and hurts himself. We gave him the name Peter since he didn’t have a name. We decided to pray for him even though really we had no idea what we were doing since none of us have been involved in deliverance ministry before except for Philip who has had to perform exorcisms several times. We all laid hands on him to pray for him and I felt the Spirit there, but then he started making these strange signs with his lands in a claw-like manner. He got up and started to walk away from us. Philip told us that when the Holy Spirit is present, the demons run away and so the man kept trying to get away from us. Philip who had studied demonology demonstrated to us the signs that people make when they are possessed. He told us that if we had prayed for him longer then the demons would start manifesting themselves and start speaking through this mute man and that we would need to hold the man down if we were to continue praying for him. In the last exorcism he did with members from different churches, they had to stay with the woman from 7am in the morning till evening.
31Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. 32There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. 33After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. 34He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!” ). 35At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.
Jesus delivered a man from his deafness and muteness. I realized how often times Satan tries to keep us deaf to the voice of God and mute from speaking what He wants us to say to others. I have experienced this in my own life when my fears and doubts kept from moving with the promptings from God to say things that I should have said. Jesus is saying to our ears and mouths “Be opened!” so that we may not be deaf to his promptings and mute to speak his words.
