Is Exorcism a Standing Order? Acts 16:16-18

There are a lot of Christians who believe that casting out demons or performing an "exorcism", as it is commonly called, is something essential to spiritual warfare and commanded by God today.

Let me say at the outset, there may be times when the Holy Spirit may direct a believer to cast out a demon from an afflicted person. I also acknowledge that our Lord on certain occasions such as the one recorded in Matthew 10:8, commanded His disciples to cast out demons. But I believe that exorcisms are no longer a standing order for us. Why? First of all, we have no command in the New Testament epistles to do so. Zero. But even if we go back to the book of Acts, clearly by the time of Acts 16:16-18, the command to cast out a demon is no longer a standing order in spiritual warfare.

In Acts 16:16-18 we read about Paul's ministry in Philippi.

And it happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a certain slave-girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune-telling. Following after Paul and us, she kept crying out, saying, "These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation." And she continued doing this for many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!" And it came out at that very moment.

Now if Paul was under a standing order from Christ, our commander-in-chief, to exorcise any demon he came in contact with, why didn't he do this the first day? In fact, He didn't exorcise the demon until "many days" had passed and he became "greatly annoyed" with the demon. Apparently, in religious indignation and prompted by the Holy Spirit, he finally cast out the "spirit of divination". The point is, he didn't feel compelled to do so at first meeting because the order to exorcise demons was no longer in effect even at that early point in church history.

As I said earlier, there may be times when the Holy Spirit prompts us to cast out a demon, but clearly this is no longer something that we are required to do in any or every situation of spiritual warfare. What do we have a standing order to do everyday in spiritual warfare? Let's talk about that soon.