Sid: I have a guest who’s been a guest previously on the Messianic Vision except he just received his doctorate, it’s Dr. Robert Heidler. I’m speaking to him at his office in Denton, Texas. He’s Senior Pastor of Glory of Zion Outreach Center, he also holds a Master’s Degree from Dallas Theological Seminary. But the subject that I’m talking to him about is perhaps the most misunderstood subject within all of Christianity. Why, the devil has a lot to lose, the subject is called deliverance. And I have in my hands and I’ve offered unpublished versions of manuscripts because they were so important by Dr. Heidler, but I have in my hands a published version of a book, its title is “Set Yourself Free” subtitled “Deliverance Manual.” And this is without a doubt the simplistic, the easiest to understand. I have questions all the time and one of the biggest questions I have Robert Heidler is “Can you recommend a deliverance ministry to me I just want to make sure?” And the truth of the matter is there are too few people that understand deliverance and most people think that well, if I can’t find some great expert I’m just stuck with the problems I have. But that’s not the way the New Covenant reads and I have to believe that one of the reasons you wrote this book is because there’s such a serious need. Would you agree?
Robert: Definitely Sid we have just found that there are so many people hungry and really feeling desperate to find a way to receive deliverance and there is really not enough deliverance ministers to really meet the need. But the good news is that people don’t always need a deliverance minister if they just understand some basic biblical principles they can walk through the steps of deliverance themselves.
Sid: You know I’m kind of chuckling about the very first time before you were I believe it was probably before you were even spirit filled, moving in the gifts of the Spirit you got involved in deliverance. If you had had the information in this manual back then I think that there would have been very different results.
Robert: Oh, definitely, yes.
Sid: Tell me how that happened.
Robert: Well it was about 1980 and it began with a phone call at 2 in the morning. There was a young woman on the other end of the line, someone I had never met, and she said “You don’t know me, but my boyfriend is acting very strange he’s talking in strange voices, he has a gun he says he’s gonna kill himself, and he said he’s gonna kill himself unless someone comes and casts a demon out of him.” I thought this is 2 in the morning and a strange person with a gun wants me to come and cast a demon out of him.
Sid: Now I’m gonna find out if you have a very famous word it’s called “Chutzpah.”
Robert: [Laughing]
Sid: Which means nerve, what did you do?
Robert: Well I had just barely enough chutzpah. What I did… first I tried to talk him into going to the Emergency Room at the local hospital, but he said “No I’ve got to go to a church and have the pastor cast a demon out.” So I agreed to meet him at church and I called all of my elders to come with me because I wasn’t going to go alone.
Sid: Oh they must have loved that called at about 2:30 in the morning.
Robert: So we met him at the church and it was this young girl and her boyfriend, and the demon. We got him inside it threw him down on the ground he was rolling his eyes talking in strange voices, and cursing, just putting on a big show. We had no idea what to do because I had been taught a lot of biblical theology, Greek and Hebrew in seminary; we were never taught very much about how to deal with demons. It was down on the floor, and the other elders and I were looking at him and saying “What do we do?” I remembered that in one of the biblical passages that Jesus asked the demon its name, so I looked at this demon and I said “Tell me your name?” and he laughed at me and said “I’m not gonna tell you my name.” I thought “Oh what do I do now?”
Sid: [Laughing]
Robert: For about 2 or 3 hours we recited scripture, we commanded, we argued then all the while the demon put on the show having a good time just toying with us because he knew we didn’t know what we were doing. Finally after about 3 or 4 hours the demon stopped manifesting. We all breathed a sigh of relief and told ourselves “Well it’s finally gone.” We went home, but we knew that we really hadn’t dealt with that demon. That was the first of many occasions of trying to deal with demons; after we got filled with the Holy Spirit they turned out a lot more positive…
Sid: But Robert from that very first experience, which was enough to stop anyone from praying for deliverance
Robert: [Laughing]
Sid: and that has probably happened to a lot of our listeners right now. From that first experience to where you are today, and I what I read in this wonderful deliverance manual; how did you learn all these things?
Robert: The Lord just took us step by step Sid. About 5 years ago the Lord just released a new deliverance mantle, and He just began to show us how deliverance works. Up until that time I would only do deliverance if there was a demon manifesting and it was usually long, it was messy, and frankly it didn’t produce much in the way of results.
Sid: I remember years ago I used to attend these mass deliverance meetings at a friend of mine who is now in heaven, Dr. Derek Prince would conduct. To be candid with you it would seem like there was lots of manifestations, but people didn’t stay free. I’m so pragmatic I said “Well what’s really going on?” but you actually address this in your book of how to stay free.
Robert: Well that’s sort of how… You know for a long time I used to say “Deliverance is like cleaning up the bathroom after the toilet overflows. It’s not much fun, but somebody’s got to do it.” That was… but I really didn’t see that it was all that effective. About 5 years ago God began to teach us how deliverance worked and since that time we have just seen testimony after testimony… I think we have more testimonies…
Sid: Tell me one person, one real person about their deliverance.
Robert: The clearest one that comes to mind right off; there’s a young woman I’ll call her Connie. She’s a Godly woman, she’s a wife, she’s a mother, she serves the Lord, but she had a problem; for over 3 years she had been having debilitating headaches every afternoon, and she would have to stop everything and lay down for 2 or 3 hours because of these severe headaches. The doctors could not do anything, no medicines would work, and it was just destroying her life. She came and said “Do you think this could be demonic?” In about 20 minutes of ministry we saw the root cause we cast out the demon, we prayed over her. Since that day on, this has been about 6 years now, from that day on she has not had one more headache.
Sid: Out of curiosity, do you distinguish with physical problems between more of natural causes, so to speak, from just the fallen nature of humanity than demons themselves? Do you distinguish between the two?
Robert: Well I think there are some physical problems that just have physical causes, but there are also demonic causes that can produce physical problems if we have left an opening for that.
Sid: What do you do with the person… I know there are people listening right now and say “Don’t you know Jesus paid the price, and the moment I said my prayer with Billy I was set free of everything demonic. Don’t you know a Christian can’t have a demon?”
What would your answer be?
Robert: [Laughing] I would say well you know we sure have seen a lot of Christians set free when we cast out demons. The Bible says “We need to be on guard…”
Sid: You know what my answer to that is, “Have you ever seen a Christian physically sick? Does that mean … Jesus paid the price for our healing, but there are a lot of Christians that have to have the manifestation of the healing.”
Robert: Exactly.
Sid: So just because a Christians sick doesn’t mean they’re not a Christian; just because a Christian has a demon doesn’t mean they’re not a Christian. I think the issue is demon-possessed versus demon-oppressed. To me that’s the distinguishing factor.
Robert: Well you know the word demon-possessed is not really even a biblical term. The Bible never talks about being owned or possessed by demons. The word in the New Testament is “daimonizomai” which literally means to be demonized, oppressed, or harassed by demonic forces.
Sid: I tell you what Robert, hold that thought.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth