Can Christians Be Possessed?

Can a believer, can a Christian be possessed by a demon?

I think that the primary textbook for possession and guidance in evil spirits is the scripture.

I don't believe it's our experience.

I don't believe it's the culture. I don't believe it's neo-charismatic movement,

new apostolic movement. Welcome to the Uncut Podcast.

I'm Pastor Luke. I am Pastor Cameron. And this is the Uncut Podcast where we

have uncut, honest conversations about faith, life, and ministry,

and other things occasionally.

Yes. Yeah. Welcome back. Yes. Welcome back.

I don't know actually how long long it

is since we posted last um yeah

but it had it seems like it's

been months yeah i think it's probably been almost

a month a month yeah we're probably maybe just

like one week over a month right so we posted like the

week new year same intro we should

switch spots

is what we we should do that we had an intention but definitely

just kind of

reflecting that the new year's been kind of like trying to

get everything back on normal rhythm has been

a bit of uh well then i got sick yeah you got sick like twice and so it has

been a little bit strange and yeah all of all of ministry seems to have been

a little herky-jerky yes so far this year but But the day is young as it goes.

Yeah. So we've got time. But anyway, we're eager to get back. Yeah.

Get back at the podcast. Yeah.

To essentially get our second year. We'll call it our second season.

Don't call it a comeback.

Our second season of podcasting out there.

We do have some topics still in queue to talk about, but as always,

we're happy to take any recommendations or anything like that from you all.

We may do some podcast episodes that maybe a little bit parallel some of our preaching.

Preaching some of our preaching topics yeah um and that maybe will be helpful for us,

but also be helpful for

those of you who listen who may go to conduit or who follow us online um and

we can maybe touch on some things here that we didn't touch on on a sunday morning

or on a wednesday night when we're yep teaching or whatever the case may be

but how about this um We can get into the topic.

We do have a topic we're going to talk about, kind of a theological topic.

And we decided to skip the what are your New Year's resolutions,

what are your goals or your vision or anything like that for the new year.

And instead, maybe ask the question,

is there something in ministry or not even in ministry, but in like your personal

life or anything like that, that excites you about 2024?

More books to read. You have more to read? Did you read all the ones you bought in 2023? No.

But those are, that's like, you know. We don't buy books to read them.

We don't buy books to read them.

We buy them to have them so that we can put them behind us when we are in Zoom calls.

That's true. No, I don't know.

Like, I'm always interested about new learning. like

that's something i always get interested in and so you

know a new year for me probably the thing i get most excited

about is like um you know

kind of some fresh energy to tackle oh i

want to finish that book or i want to start that book or um

you know john mark comer just released or

is releasing i don't know if it's out yet or not it is it is

practicing the way yeah i will probably get that here soon

um because i'm very interested in what

he has to say in that book um so um

really those learning opportunities are

are really really kind of excite me

um yeah so that's that's one of the things i'm excited about yeah yeah so new

learning well are you read are you reading any books right now yeah i've been

slowly been learning more about um Um,

uh, I've been reading a book called, uh, the dark night of the soul, right?

Yes. Dark night of the soul by the last name of the author is May.

He's a psychologist, um, who takes the writings of St. John of the cross.

Oh man. And I'm a terrible person for having forgotten, forgotten who else the

other writer the nun who is probably more responsible for the thought work than

saint john the cross but so forgive me i think it's i don't know i don't remember

her name so i won't butcher it by,

pretending i know her name but anyways there are

some of their spiritual writings and particularly about

the phenomenon that's called this dark night of the

soul and he is reflection on

it kind of bringing their very old writings

which are from like the 1500s and making them

contemporarily accessible to us modern day and

then offering his own thoughts and reflections as a

practicing clinical psychologist and counselor so

i've been slowly working my way through that book as

kind of more a reflective book and less um and less as a uh like a got to get

through it kind of book um and then i've been reading some other books just

about like learning about small businesses and what makes small businesses work

and um and things like that.

What about you well i yeah i'm

reading a few different books right now all of them are really good

um uh the one

a few so a few of them i'm reading

i'm reading um is god anti-gay by

sam allberry who is a

man that has same sex that's

how he self-defines as i mean that he has same sex attraction and is a christian

um and it uh it's been really interesting it's a really small little book and

really easily accessible in terms of like its language and so i'd recommend it um,

i don't i'm not gonna comment on what i what i agree with and what i don't agree

with right now in it because i'm not finished with it but i think in general

he talks a lot about how the um,

The modern tendency to create identity based off sexuality.

And how that has made it almost impossible for people to separate their attraction from their identity.

Pretty good. Yeah. Pretty good thought process. I'm reading Elders in the Life

of the Church by Alexander Strauch. That's very good.

Pretty comprehensive book. Just talking about the kind of the theological foundation

of the role or the office calling of elder in the church.

You know as we've been talking here about you know

whether or not an elder structure would be is is good for

us here at conduit um i am

reading kind of at a more from

like a more personal semi-professional but really more personal

interest those lines are blurry they are well they

are for me sometimes really yeah um

but this is a book called transforming trauma

through jiu-jitsu book that i

asked for for christmas and got which is a kind

of a case study in the use of brazilian jiu-jitsu

for the treatment of um

significant trauma people's lives so while

you're preparing to give someone head trauma you're healing

your own emotional trauma or theirs but no

i i say that jokingly but i know that that's like a yeah it's

a really cool you've told me about that yeah yeah so i'm pretty i'm pretty

pretty interested in that and then i

ordered a book just this past week that's

a pre-order that i'm really pre-ordering books

yeah all i mean it doesn't even come until may i already ordered it's by john

tyson and jefferson bethke okay uh john is a pastor um whose ministry and work

i really really respect he pastored Church of the City in New York.

And he and Jefferson wrote a book called Fighting,

Fighting Shadows. It's a book written for those who are in men's ministry.

Spent like five or six years researching some of the issues that men fight.

And they're both pastors.

And then wrote a book about it. So, because one of the things that I'm really

excited about in 2024 is men's ministry here at Conduit.

I've been thinking a lot about that and praying in it, praying through it.

And I think it's stuff like that that's really going to be in books like that

that will be really helpful to get some orientation around. Yeah.

That sounds awesome. Yeah. So, yeah, I ordered that. I wish it was coming out sooner.

Yes. I sent him a Facebook or Instagram message knowing he probably is not going

to see it or respond or probably can't be like, is there any way I can get like

an advanced copy or something like that?

Like I will buy the PDF from you.

Tell me what I can do to get an advanced copy because I want to start digesting

some of it right now. now.

But I guess for right now, we'll just kind of do our own thing here from a ministry

perspective with men and, and that will be maybe that'll be just the right timing.

Yeah, I am really excited about that, too. We just had our first men's breakfast.

Last Saturday. Last Saturday. Two Saturdays ago. Wow. Feels like.

The 13th, whatever that was. Yeah. Last Saturday. Yeah.

So feeling really, that was a really good time. I'm encouraged and I think that's

going to go in a fantastic direction.

Me too. Me too. Yeah. So if you're listening and you're a man and you are in

the Jamestown, New York area, or you're not and you want to show up for a man's

breakfast, we meet every other Saturday morning at 8 a.m. here at the church. church.

So our next one will be on the 27th, January 27th.

So pop in and we'd love to have you join us. Yeah.

I'm excited about that. So yeah, that's one of the things that I'm really excited about in 2024.

One of the reasons

reasons that I'm reading the book by Albury right now is God

anti-gay is because I'm rereading some

material that I have on my shelf already and

picking up some newer material as well and then rereading through specifically

through the specifically rereading through the New Testament with the eye or

searching for looking for how like this kind of dynamic between how Jesus.

Jesus interacted with different people whom he either did or didn't necessarily

agree with their lifestyle or their practice of faith.

Yeah. So like what was the way that Jesus interacted with those who were not

expressing faith in him? Yep.

And their sin was just like before everyone. Before him. Yeah. Yeah.

And then the same with how did he interact with those who were expressing faith? Yeah.

But we're doing so in such a way as to create hypocrisy. Yeah.

And. Man, I just, I don't know. That's an interesting. I feel like he had meals with everybody. He did.

Yep. There's multiple stories where he's sitting down with Pharisees.

There's multiple stories where there's maybe less stories about specific incidences

where he's eating with sinners,

but it's mentioned many times that he eats with sinners yeah um but he does

like zacchaeus and people who were not necessarily religious yeah yeah but even

in times of like where he ate with.

Pharisees um there's either

like there's comment like there's like even just

like kind of intertextual commentary about the posture

of the people that he was eating with it wasn't really

so much their title although we associate pharisees

and sadducees with you know a negative connotation in

terms of jesus ministry but it was more about their

posture towards him yeah right if we were to call someone a pharisee today it's

typically considered an insult yeah but it wasn't at the time that was more

of a title and so right getting past kind of like whether or not they were a

Pharisee or not, but their relationship to Jesus.

Right, yeah, or how they just like, how they, the manner in which they came.

I'm thinking, in particular, I'm thinking of John chapter 3. Yeah.

Where Nicodemus, who is a Pharisee, comes to Jesus at night.

At least the way that I read it and the way that I hear it is there's humility there.

Yeah. I think there's fear until he comes to him at night.

Yep. Yeah, there's always that question of how much emphasis do we put onto

the detail of night? Yeah.

The fact that it's included and not just left out does make it seem to be somewhat important.

Otherwise, it wouldn't have been included. But I think that,

My take on that is that Nicodemus was probably feeling the pressure from the

rest of the Pharisees to align himself with their mob think against Jesus.

Yeah. And so couldn't ask the questions in the open air without fear of reprisal.

And so he went to Jesus at night because probably sensed in his spirit that

there was something to who he was, right?

And so Jesus' interaction with Nicodemus, while still like a little bit,

I don't want to say harsh, but it's pretty straightforward.

Yeah. Like, what do you mean I need to be born again? And he's like,

you're the teacher of the Jews. You don't know these things. Yep.

I still think that his, Jesus' interaction with Nicodemus is a lot different

because Nicodemus comes to him in humility than it is those who come,

the Pharisees that come to Jesus.

And the text already clarifies, kind of like in the background of the text,

they asked this to trap him. Yeah.

Or Jesus knew that they were trying to set a trap for him. Yeah.

So, and then part of the like reading and I'm reading all these things in order

because I feel like I need both need to and want to do some writing on it,

both for personal and professional reasons.

But is like how, what is the.

What is the most biblically informed way that Christians are,

can, should be in relationship with those who,

one, are professing faith in Jesus Christ, but there is no fruit of repentance

or sin is like being flaunted?

And second, how does our relationship with the person change when there has

never been any, like, profession of faith in Jesus Christ?

Yeah. You know, like, is it a wise evangelistic strategy to bludgeon them with

the Bible when they have not received conviction of the Holy Spirit's presence

in their life to begin with? Right.

You know? know and what does the what does the like depth of relationship between

me as the christian person and the other person whether they're christian or

not what is the depth of that relationship.

Like how does that affect,

what i should shouldn't can or can't speak into their life yeah so So, um, um,

But anyway, so yeah, that was a long answer to say, you know,

what am I reading and what am I excited for in the new year?

I am excited to maybe to hopefully write some more.

Although I don't really have very specific goals in writing.

So I will probably need to do that if I actually am going to sit down and put

pen to the proverbial paper.

But yeah i have a lot to think i i have a lot on the brain that needs to hit

the paper yeah whether or not it actually does is.

That time circumstantial yeah i don't know can we

get it to happen so right so well do

we want to dive into the topic we

kind of floated before we started so um

cameron you mentioned that you'd

maybe seen a couple the same reel or a couple different

reels a couple different different ones i found yeah a

couple different things i even saw i saw one

uh it was just a little strange um but you know these different because we're

on social media and so it's one way of seeing what people were kind of talking

about in larger larger church but you saw a couple of you know videos talking about this question of,

can a believer,

can a Christian be possessed by a demon?

Yeah. I don't know if I just hit a weird stream of the algorithms or what,

but it seems like over the last few days, I've seen a few of these where it

was either a pastor or someone in in a fake podcast studio talking like they're looking at someone,

but you know, they're not talking about,

you know, what.

Happens when a believer is possessed by

a demon and i i'll say first off i'm not an expert in demon possession sure

although i'm also going to say that i think maybe i am.

Um and i'm also going to say like i i do believe that demon demons exist yeah

i do believe that people are possessed

by demons i have seen it and experienced it in in ministry before,

um not a lot but enough to say like it's a thing it's a thing and i believe

it um and the reason i say you know maybe i am a expert is not necessarily because i,

um you know had a previous life as

an exorcist in the catholic church or anything

like that but because i you know

i think that the i think that the primary

textbook for um possession

possession and like guidance in evil spirits is the scripture yeah i don't believe

it's our experience i don't believe it's the culture i don't believe it's any um type of like.

Um neo-charismatic yeah movement

new apostolic movement type of like special revelation

right on we demon possession

yeah no like there's not a you know

i'm pretty wary of if you

were to find like a book and you're like this is the book that knows

everything about like demon possession exorcism and

demonic spiritual warfare and stuff like that and

you're holding a book other than the bible i'm gonna

take that with whole lots of salt yeah

so much salt that it'd be unhealthy um um yeah the

whole plow truck full of salt on that one yeah yeah um

and like we were even just laughing um

because we saw i shared a video with

you that was like i don't know the i don't know the preacher don't know the

context clip obviously but it someone preaching saying something along the lines

of and i asked the demon and the demon and he was using what the demon's response

as As kind of his... Own affirmation.

Yeah, as his own affirmation of the exegesis of the scripture he was giving. Yeah. And...

That'd be wonky in my book. Yeah, red flag. Red flag.

Like, I don't, you know, I don't, you know, I wouldn't, that doesn't add any

credence that the demon agreed with what was literally just in the Bible verse.

I would rather you just read the Bible verse and not mention your potential

conversation with a demon.

Yeah, I mean, even Jesus really only asked a demon questions twice.

Yes. And there were two types of questions. It was, what is your name? Uh-huh.

And the other question, not even really Jesus asked, but we are,

that we, like, that there's allusions to being able to ask in scripture is,

you know, to essentially inquire

with the evil spirit if they confess the name of Jesus Christ as Lord.

Right. Or not. Yes. Right. Those are kind of like two questions. What is your name?

Do you confess Jesus as Lord? Yeah. Yeah. I would not ask them for their interpretation

of the Bible. Yeah. Are my sermon notes correct? Yeah.

So, you know, when you start getting into things like that, people having...

I would not have a conversation. If I had the opportunity to have a conversation

with a demon, I would say, no, thank you.

Because I don't really think I want to open the can of worms of dealing with

somebody or something that is primarily meant to lie and be deceptive.

Yeah. I mean, the Word of God says that lying is the native tongue of our enemy.

He can only speak in lies and deception.

Yeah so yeah and granted to say like i agreed generally

with the point the preacher was making um

i just thought that he was him referencing a

demon as having agreed with what he's saying is really

weird and odd and very odd

but anyway suffice it to say there's this there has been this idea and yes several

of these things that you know okay i am a believer of jesus christ And we're

assuming here that my conversion from death to life is legitimate,

that I repented of my sin, I have confessed Him before the Lord,

I have received and asked for His forgiveness, I have received the righteousness

of Jesus Christ via my faith in Him,

I have been sealed.

With the Holy Spirit and the spirit of the Holy Spirit in me is the deposit

guaranteeing my inheritance until the final redemption. Yeah. Right.

That's the assumption when I say I'm a Christian, right? Yeah.

Is that all those things are true.

But there is also a demon inside of me. I am possessed.

Yeah. By a demon, meaning that

there is, I am enslaved to the presence of evil outside of my control.

Yeah. Outside of my control. Well, because that's what we, I guess,

I'm thinking like that is a little bit of the hallmark of like,

at least even from like the biblical examples, right?

We think about like the slave that was tossing themselves into the fire. Yeah.

And things like that. The Garrisonian demoniac was chained outside of the city.

Demonic possession seems to have one of the things.

I think there's a couple different other things too.

But there seems to be some sort of lack of control to some extent of oneself.

So some element of not having full autonomy of one's behavior at all times,

necessarily, to some degree.

Seems to be a thing. And so if you're saying that you're demonically possessed.

You're, you know, like there's something involuntary even maybe happening.

Or we say, you know, like it's kind of like there's a...

Spatial terms is helpful, both helpful and unhelpful, right?

Because we would say, look, there's a demon in them.

Well, I don't know if that's actually metaphysically correct.

But it's the best way we know, too, how to, like, functionally conceptualize it.

They're not just being a demon near them or affecting their situation or whispering

to them or doing something, you know, to them.

The demon is somehow inside of them in all the connotations that that requires.

Which is why we have, like, let's just say that, like,

as the metaphysical example, yeah like the demon actually possesses the inside

of your being yeah right well as a person who has faith in jesus christ and

has been filled with and sealed by the holy spirit all right that,

we're you're making then the affirmation that this the holy spirit is in me

right which we believe right because it's in the scripture i believe that yes

i believe that the holy spirit is in me.

So then the question then becomes, can I simultaneously be filled to the fullness

of the measure of God with the Holy Spirit and also be filled with.

Um a demon and my answer

to that is no you cannot yeah you

you you cannot right that in the in

the presence of ineffable light of

holiness there can be no darkness all right so

if i am filled with the holy spirit there

is no metaphysical spiritual

actual room for the presence

of yeah darkness the presence of

evil the presence of a demon right so that

would be kind of like the most classic my most classic answer to that right

is that no that you know you're not possessed by a demon but i do think that

there is then there there becomes the question is all right well i have two

questions that i want to throw out here okay,

Do demons possess other things? Okay.

Non-living. Non-living. This house plant. Right. Whatever. Right. The house. Yeah. Right.

Yeah, the house. You know, whatever the case may be. Yeah. All right.

My car won't start on cold days. I must have a demon.

I'm not saying that mockingly. i'm just i'm i'm just also saying that like there

i just there tends to be this,

people tend to run into extremes yes either

either they don't give the demonic they

don't give demonic activity any thought whatsoever which

i think is wrong yeah you know

or there's a demon behind every corner

and every bush and every doorway and like um

you know we're just constantly running the gauntlet of demons and everything

that we do and i drop my toothbrush on the bathroom floor oh demon made me do

it and like it's a demon of toothbrush dropping and um you know like it's it's

laughable but it's not at the same time because there's literally,

people out there who'd be like oh it's the demon of anxiety it's the demon of

depression it's the demon of toothbrush dropping it's the demon of sickness

it's the demon of like you know like Guys,

really, this is just Cameron's pitch for a horror movie. Can we not? Can we not?

So one, can demons...

Be in non like living spaces kind of okay however the question second question second question,

what is the difference between demonic possession

and demonic oppression you

knew that one was coming because that's a big yeah so how

do you what do you what are your thoughts i think you can

probably tell by the snarkiness of the way in which i went about the demon of

toothbrush brush dropping what i think about all of that but i'm interested

to have at least have the conversation yeah well let's talk about that one first

um yes i agree that also like um.

Like there is this tendency to um to call everything kind of a demon and there is this like Like,

I want to be careful and I want to be gentle here,

but I also want to be really realistic with people.

When we read the Bible, the Bible covers a significant swath of God's interaction

with humanity, and it covers, you know, both big and small things,

but they're all part of the story, right?

They're all part of, like, the major story of God.

And so I think there is a tendency when we're reading about the story of Moses

or of David or of anyone who made it into the Bible,

and then we look at our life to make some sort of one-to-one equation and say, well,

my life surely will be at least as dramatic as Paul's life was.

And so we see the level

of dramatic supernatural spiritual

miraculous things that happen

in their lives and we make

the assumption that that must be the frequency and degree to which it happens

in all people's lives and i don't think that that is necessarily a wise conclusion

to draw and so by that I mean.

You're not that important and I'm not that important and like not to say that

God is not the God of like unimportant people and things I think that's a really big truth but,

just simply to say that like I'm not Moses I'm not King David I'm not Paul and

for me to expect to experience the the,

dramatic, divine, and spiritual, like, events that I see portrayed in the Bible,

in condensed story format to see them be happening on a daily,

weekly, monthly, yearly basis in my life is, I think, a little bit of a,

maybe an unfair stretch to put an expectation on ourselves.

So, but again, like what I just said there could be taken to that other extreme of saying,

well, nothing there's no you know not giving the spiritual

realm it's due because we do have things

about like where paul says our um we wage

not against physical enemies but against uh princes and principalities and king

of the air and so um you know like that's his exhortation to the church and

to us and to us now so i don't want to say that that's not a thing but i do think that um.

Sometimes we're just confronting ordinary evil, if there's such a theological

category for that, or human evil and brokenness, and not necessarily demonic evil and brokenness.

Yeah, that'd be kind of how I – because, you know, like –,

I don't know. That just tends to be my kind of thing.

Like a little bit of Occam's razor to, you know, just like, what is the simplest

conclusion I can make here?

Well, the simplest conclusion I could make is that I dropped my toothbrush because

I'm clumsy sometimes or that, you know, but that's just the enemy trying to

make you believe that he's not really real.

And there he, he he's there

i just don't even really want to give him that much credit um

i just yeah i you know i you

know i i do think that is unhealthy i

will like because you did mention like you know there's a

spirit of depression spirit of anxiety spirit of whatever

mental health thing a spirit of

addiction i'm very

very very uncomfortable with

leveraging and using those types of terms yeah

and why are we uncomfortable with that um because

a lot of times um it's not a spirit

and sometimes what happens is

is by by

by making a diagnosis to say

that like you've got a spirit of mental unhealth in

this degree that means you

should pray about it or you should go you know whatever spiritual

answer we should give and then you should not seek any other form of help intervention

or health and what that does is that leave often will leave people into a place of like like of bad,

bad things happening and things really kind of like being, coming undone.

You know, I know of an individual who felt like, you know, that was like a thing.

Anyways, it's just not helpful, not helpful generally.

And I would say even as the ground upon which that is built is the reality that

that when we see Jesus casting out and addressing demons in Scripture,

he's not addressing them according to the infirmity that they bring upon a person. Right.

So he's not categorizing demons of addiction, demons of anxiety, demons of depression.

Did we see any? I'm trying to think.

Were there any specific exorcisms in Scripture that are tied to an infirmity? Thank you.

There's like kind of the, shoot, you just said it, the demoniac that was like.

The garrisonian. No, but he's.

He's not necessarily debilitated.

No, he was chained up because the, I'm sure he was, I'm sure it made him appear

to be mentally ill. Sure. Because he would cut himself.

Yeah. Right? And was chained. No one could control him is what the scripture says. Right.

He was chained up outside. side but it wasn't like jesus went

up to him like you their spirit of insanity

right come out from him you know

um any more than we

see like jesus making comment

about like oh there's um this

individual demon and then there's this demon

that's over this city and then there's this this bigger demon that's over this

region as if there's like a defined chain of command right in scripture um that

we can like oh we need to pray against the demon of this city right like,

yeah i don't i just i i think that we we so yearn for like in some cases we so yearn for.

Or like, I don't know, I put it in the category of being like a spiritual busybody.

Like, don't just, what is the point of making stuff up?

Like, what's the point of creating like huge systematic scaffolding of spiritual

life when it's just not there?

Can't we just say it's really clear in Scripture, both in Jesus' words,

in Paul's words, in John's words, in the Revelation,

that there is a extraordinary spiritual battle that is being waged around us even now.

We see Jesus confront it face-to-face in the Gospels, and he encourages his

disciples to do the same.

We see Paul face it a little bit in the book of Acts.

We see the presence of evil in various symbolic forms in Revelation.

But we're not given complex explanations. explanations of you need to say this

to a demon and then this to a demon and then this to a demon and there's a demon

of this and there's a demon of that and there's a demon over these regions and

there's a demon over this region.

And I just kind of scratch my head with like, why do we do this?

Why is this?

Why are we obsessed with this? I think it, like, I don't know.

I think there's a little bit of a power thing to it.

Because, like, we're, you know, we're command, like, we're given all authority

in heaven and on earth, you know?

And so, like, there's also a little bit of simplicity to it, right?

Because, and by all means, don't mishear me to say that there is no spiritual

component to mental illness.

Um or that there you know couldn't potentially

be something going on there but in my

experience mental my own experience it

with mental illness there are parts of it

that maybe we'll get to in this episode and i'll talk about

maybe um that i think definitely had

some demonic influence and some places where it was kind of touching it but

then also a significant portion of my My mental health journey has not had much

to do with demons and has had more to do with my own brokenness and my own just like sin,

the way in which sin has uniquely touched my life, my heart, my soul, and my mind.

And working with God to try and restore that.

And that doesn't have to do, like, demon didn't do that to me.

The world did it. you know i

don't it doesn't have to be that but i do

think that it it's overly it's really

comforting to think that well i just need to pray hard enough

and i could make this problem go away and it wouldn't

require me doing really difficult work for years

to see health in my

heart-minded in spirit yeah okay so

let's talk then about demonic oppression

yeah um which is

i think for me it feels like a broad term but that's okay i'm comfortable with

the term yeah it's fine yeah um and talk a little bit about how we might anticipate

seeing that kind of manifested Invested in life,

the world and in the life of a believer. Yeah.

I think that's a, you know, again, the broadness of it.

That's partly the helpfulness of it is that it's so broad because it can be

used to describe things that seem to not be easily explained otherwise.

Otherwise or seem to lend themselves to being like the enemy in some,

some form, um, but are not possession, um.

So it's not the controlling, the being on the inside of an individual.

Yeah, I think. But it's an acting towards the person or in the environment or something.

Yeah, or like even just flat. I mean, I think like very simply is that there

are times in life where I have certainly experienced walking into a place,

being in a room, being around a person or another person or just being by myself

and getting a very distinct.

Awareness of the presence of evil yeah like darkness yes um and not a kind of benign,

type of evil but like the evil that i would describe as being demonic right

Like there is the oppressive presence of darkness that seeks to stir up fear in that moment,

stir up confusion or chaos to make what the Lord wants to be clear,

very confusing.

Yeah um to um to stir up fear that leads people to do things that they normally wouldn't,

wouldn't do or don't want to do christians and non-christians alike um and.

And so like there is for sure a, this reality of the, when I say demonic oppression,

what I mean is like the, the presence of the demonic in life.

Yes. Around people in places.

Places i still don't know exactly what i think or believe about like demons

being attached to places,

you know i don't know yeah it's not

it doesn't it's not clear in scripture for

me no not necessarily but there are

also i've also had experiences where

it's like every time i walk into a place i'm like yeah places

definitely like like okay lord

i hear you yeah and i like i sense

it yes um i i don't know i don't know if it's just that places carry like man

this song's so woo woo um and it's not biblical so if don't necessarily take

this as like but the way it feels like is sometimes you you can walk into a

place and it is a little bit like.

You know, after like a loud gunshot or something in close proximity that's really

loud and there's just that ringing,

it's like walking into a place and like hearing the ringing or the echo of what was there.

And it's not always clear to me

when I've experienced that if if

that is a like something is

still here or if just something was

here or something happened here

at some point and so and i've had that experience sometimes knowing sometimes

very much not knowing but knowing that this ain't not not vibing with this um

and so and so what what What I think is that I think that there,

when we have Christians who are talking about what they're perceiving as like the strong, like.

Demonic work in their life i think they're

talking about the the like

demonic oppression yeah you know like

the the presence of evil around them stirring

up fear and confusion and yeah i'm

trying to conceal truth yep and when

when we're fearful and when we're confused confused

and when the the truth is cloudy we

do end up doing things and making decisions that

are out of character for the life of christ and so

we may think that like oh i didn't have a

choice i must be possessed and

i just i don't believe that yeah um because i

think that in in moments of demonic oppression there

are ways to bring clarity yeah there are

ways to dispel fear yeah and that there are there are ways to have the truth

of god elevated to the point where darkness flees at the presence of light yeah right so um Um.

Uh, so that's kind of where I stand.

Like I said, I've, I'm not, I'm

not sure where I stand on like the demonic presence in physical spaces.

Although I, based on my experience, I would lean towards a, yeah,

I think that happens, but I, I can't say I, I would not hold very tightly onto

that because it's not clear in scripture.

Yeah. I have had experience with individuals, people who are demonically,

not just oppressed, that happens a lot, but possessed,

like voice changing, body going into like spastic convulsions, even like...

Call it woo or call it not the smell of their breath changing like being very very vividly,

controlled by something other than themselves but also still having a little bit of agency,

yeah at the same time yeah well because uh

there's new testament

was it paul they were mad at him because they cast out

a demon from someone who was telling the future or

fortune teller yep right you know so not not

seemingly possessed like the the demoniac uh but seems seeming to be able to

function in some capacity um with some level of volition um right that gets

really fuzzy yeah and And what,

what I, what I experienced in the, the one most significant,

and this is when I was at conduit North.

What, cause I won't tell this to people because I think it's important for them to hear it.

If they haven't experienced that, there can be a lot of fear that can come with

like the, Oh my gosh, I hope I never see or encounter someone who is possessed.

I will be so scared. and i will tell you there's a part of me that thought that

a little bit yeah um like oh i'm sure that that was really scary or really frightening

and i want to say that like,

there's a lot of things that i remember about that day and i remember about that experience,

um one thing that i remember very very very distinctly is just a tremendous

sense of peace peace, a tremendous sense of like, I am not afraid at all.

Like I am not, there is nothing in me that is afraid in this moment.

Um, um, because even demons know the name of Jesus and the power that it holds.

All right. And they, they cannot, they cannot stir up fear when there is no place to,

like, there's no foundation to put your foot. Yeah. Right. right? A fear.

There is no fear because in this moment, it's not I who am showing up.

It is the spirit of the living God, Jesus Christ in me who is speaking here

to this demon, not me, right?

There's nothing power. Demons are not afraid of us.

They're not afraid of me, right? They're afraid of Christ in me, the hope of glory.

And so it was like there was no fear.

There was no, I still see the man fairly regularly here in Jamestown and don't

know if he's gotten freedom or not.

When I say that there's still some agency, even in the midst of their possession,

it was he did not want to be free from the possession of the demon at that point.

He stopped us from praying, did not want us to pray any longer over him.

Um which uh is a i mean that's a whole another reality we could go into but

um yeah so i just i think that it's important that we have a conversation like this because,

i don't i think more

than just sharing our opinion on um

spiritual warfare or the demonic or

anything like that i think is the encouragement to

let the bible say what

the bible says without feeling the

pressure to create a really complex system on top of it so that it reads more

like a hollywood movie yeah than it does just what the word yep says And kind

of let the fact that we don't know be okay a little bit.

You know, maybe this will upset people, maybe it won't.

But I think about like...

As you were kind of talking, and I was kind of thinking about how this plays

out in routine church and spiritual life of people,

I want to say that it's kind of maybe from a conservative Christian standpoint,

if you're very conservative, right? right?

You might be a little bit, it might feel really easy to be kind of self-righteous

or critical of people who don't manage their triggers very well,

right? So they're like, oh, I'm triggered.

You can't, you know, can't bring that up, topic up, or that's a really upsetting

topic or thing that you said or situation I found myself in.

And then they completely just, you know, because they were triggered.

They give a justification for whatever behavior comes

after because they were triggered right and it's really

easy just because i know our audience you know

like if you're in a really conservative mindset to be

really critical of like of

people who are like you know oh that's just so silly that's so

like you know snowflake ish of

like maybe the younger generation or of whatever you

know other person that you think is on the other side of

you to kind of be critical of that um that

is sometimes how demonic activity and

oppression is used i think is like

a well that like that was

demonic oppression or that was and and so

that's why that happened or that's why i just you

know can't seem to get my life because satan's called

like i'm really i

like i guess like it's okay

to acknowledge that like yep satan

and evil is having an impact

on you perhaps in some way um but.

By golly let us not just like use that as like the rubber stamp excuse for me

to behave sinfully to um to not deal with my stuff to not deal with my stuff

yeah um you know and so that's uh.

You know, I don't know. I feel like I don't, I, you know, I just kind of feel

like that's a thing that happens sometimes.

And I don't think that that's healthy.

I think we need to kind of own what's ours, you know, and, and,

and if there is like some sort of demonic thing going on, let's not just like

freak out and throw our hands up.

Um, I will share a piece of my story in that kind of intersection with this

topic because it may be helpful for some people.

I at one point was experiencing, this was many, many years ago,

but I was experiencing consistent, like to call them nightmares is not correct.

They're not, they weren't night terrors necessarily, but I was having dreams

that were immensely upsetting on like a, not nightly, but like multiple times a week basis.

It was like my first semester at Bible college.

I was really trying to pursue the Lord in several areas, and I was having very

upsetting dreams and were really impacting me significantly.

I was upset each day when I woke up. I didn't really know what to do about it.

And so over the course of that semester, I was spending intentional...

I was fasting my lunches, And I was during that time, I was spending time in

prayer, reading the word and singing some worship songs.

And so I eventually, once this became like happened enough to the point where

I was like, I was like, I, this is weird.

Like, this isn't just me having like a couple of bad dreams one week.

This was like, it started to happen for at months. It was a month long thing.

I, you know spent some significant concerted prayer towards it.

I I think I involved at least one other person to be in prayer about it. Um.

And then had a experience where I felt like that was,

I woke up from a disturbing dream and had to kind of have a prayer with Jesus

and very much felt whatever it was that was affecting that or affecting my sleep leave.

And never since have I had one of those dreams.

And so that was my experience. I've never shared that like majorly publicly

because it's a, I don't know. No, I don't want to, I don't think it's super

helpful to fixate on that, on those types of things.

But simply to say, like, I devoted myself to prayer and fasting and it went

away and I called out in the name of Christ and it wasn't, you know,

like, like it doesn't have to be this like Hollywood thing.

It doesn't, it doesn't have to be that. and you

know and it was sometimes and

i still have bad dreams but this was different

you know and it felt really you know

over a season it really felt very tested and

was affecting my spiritual life in a significant way so i

don't know hopefully that's a helpful story to

share to some degree so um yeah

is that

it are we done yeah i don't know uh is that

i if you have questions about demonic possession

um yeah i mean write them in the comments or send

them to us on our text line yeah uh 716-201-0507 oh

my gosh i still got it you got it um we won't

promise to have the answers because no like i said we

you know we'll only have answers as it

pertains to what we see in scripture yeah i

don't know i don't remember tend to know anything else other than that um the

solution seems to seek seems to be to seek jesus always so yes even the demons

know his name yeah and they shudder yeah um so um yeah lord build our faith in that.

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Thanks for listening it's good to be back and we'll see you on the next episode.

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