Understanding Demonic Beings

A biblical subject that I get a lot of questions on, but we don't cover this subject very often. I mean, we'll mention it in sermons or sermonettes, but it's not something we usually spend an entire sermon covering. Part of the reason that I started thinking about this was at the home office this week. I happened to be involved in a meeting where there was discussion about ministerial training and the continual education of ministers. One of the things that had come up with some of the younger ministers was, what do we do? How do we even determine and how do we deal with demonic problems? You know, problems with deacons.

Today we're talking about Tim Franke and Mad Pocket.

And of course, Andy, you know, yeah. But the problems with demons.

And it's something that, you know, many of them said, well, we don't know. We've never been faced with it before. We don't even how to determine it. How did what, you know, how do you even define it?

And I started to think about we don't talk about it a lot in sermons. It's not something that we deal with because it's not something we deal with every day. And yet it is important. And another reason why we sometimes don't talk about it is because there's a fear factor. And that fear factor can be very deep in some people, and it can be in children, especially, you know, this fear of these beings I can't see. And let's face it, I mean, it's the center message of horror movies, you know, the thing you can't kill that possesses you, that takes over you, that causes you to do terrible things, or that you're trying to wait run away from and you can't. And it's, there's this whole genre of television shows and movies that is, that's based on this idea of these, these demonic figures, these demonic beings that human beings have this fear of. Well, one of the things we're going to look at today is why we don't have to be in fear only. We should not have, we should not live in fear of demonic beings. And yet we need to understand that they do exist. They do exist.

And they attempt to interact in human lives. That was all, they're going to come and be involved in my life. But we're going to talk about that, about what it means to have God's spirit and face those kinds of things. So let's talk about where they came from. We understand that God made angels.

We understand that God made an angel that was named Lucifer. I won't go to that scripture right now. But Lucifer rebelled against God. Lucifer was one of the three caribs, the caribbean, brilliant. It says he's beautiful. He had all kinds of talents, leadership abilities. It talks about having pipes. In other words, it talks about actually having like musical instruments as part of his being. He can make beautiful music. And at some point along the way, after God created the angels, he created the physical universe and Satan turned against God.

He became convinced that God doesn't know what he's doing. He became convinced he knew a better way.

And he convinced, as we know, for Revelation, one-third of the angels to follow him.

So one-third of all the angels created by God, hundreds of millions, followed Satan.

Those are the beings we call demons today. They are angelic beings that have rebelled against God, and in doing so have become evil. They have... I don't want to get into this because, I mean, there's a limit to what we know. We shouldn't want to know. They have different levels of intelligence and different abilities and different personalities, just like angels do.

They are real beings. But at the core of who they are, they have become evil. Understand.

They are evil. Any good they do is only to try to see people to become evil.

So they interact with us. They're attempting to interact with human beings. How do they do that?

So we're going to talk about ways that demons attempt to interact with human beings. We're going to look at some of them and say, well, I don't even do that. No, you don't.

But a majority of the world does. And throughout history, a majority of the world has interacted with demonic spirits in certain ways. So let's look at some of the ways in which demons will try to interact with human beings or get us to interact with them. The first one is one that no one here has probably ever done. If you did, it was long before you were called by God. It's something you've never seen. It's something you hardly even hear of. And yet, it's very common in the ancient world. We're removed from ancient paganism enough that we don't realize that the way the average pagan lived, the way the average pagan thought and believed, and they believed you could contact the spirits of the dead or just contact spirits.

And all pagan religions had that element to it, that you can contact and interact with the spirit world. There's beings out there, and you can interact with them. You know, it's where they get the idea of multiple gods. There's all these gods, and you can interact with these gods through different ways. So the first way that throughout history, people have actually tried to interact with demons is through mediums. In other words, it is a person who claims to tell you, I can interact with the spirit world. Not only many times a spirit being like a god, but can interact with the dead. They do that through seances. I haven't seen that here much, but in Texas, it seems like there were quite a few. You'd be driving down the road, you'd see, there are always run-down shacks. But you have this run-down shack that can contact the dead seances, you know, cheap. And it was whatever the money they were charging, you know, they come in and contact the dead. Of course, the famous magician, Harry Houdini, tried to contact the dead through seances over and over and over again his whole life and said that not one of them, because he was a magician. He figured out the tricks. He couldn't find one that was real. All the ones he participated in, which were many throughout his life, he could figure out what they were doing, and it was nothing but a trick. But there are those who have some direct connection to a spirit being, a demonic being. Let's look at Deuteronomy chapter 18.

So this isn't something that, you know, no one here is involved in. Yet we have to understand that this does happen.

Deuteronomy 18 verse 10. There shall be not found, God is telling ancient Israel, shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire. In other words, child sacrifice to him is abhorrent. Or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or spirit, or a spirit. Or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all those who do these things are an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations, the Lord your God drives them out from before you. So they were literally told, if you come across people like soothsayers, or people who practice witchcraft, who conjure spells or mediums, you know, they can connect you to the spirit realm. Or those who call up the dead. He says, basically you were to kill them or drive them out of the land. They were totally unacceptable to God. Remember that word abomination is a powerful word. It literally means something you abhor. You hate it. It is disgusting to you. So that's God's response to this, because it's an attempt to connect our spiritual nature to other spiritual beings who aren't God. That's what it is. It's an attempt to take our spiritual needs, our spiritual desires, and connect them to someone who's not God. And he says it's an abomination. It is important that we understand that there are certain things that we have to look at and say, how do we deal with the fact that these kinds of things are sort of mixed into our lives? And it's really mixed into entertainment. You think about how many movies have witches in them or sorcery in them as just part of the entertainment value. There was a television show, I don't think it's on anymore. It's in the last couple years, because I saw an advertise. I never saw it.

There was supposed to be an interaction between some demons and angels who were fighting for the souls of people. And it was a whole story of these angels and demons who looked like human beings. And I don't remember it was on Netflix, I don't remember. Because I never saw it. And they were interacting with each other. I guess, I don't know, but they were fighting for people's souls. Of course, there's been lots of movies like that. And there's an attempt to make this into an entertainment value, which we have to wonder why. Why are we absorbing through that sometimes? You know, I just bring up this movie because I think it's one of the most amazing movies ever made. But there's an element in it that really bothers me. The Wizard of Oz, technically, was most of the most astounding movies ever made in 1939 because they have no computers. It's an amazing movie. But there are no good witches. Understand it. The concept of witchcraft is to connect to the spirit world. To connect to the spirit world. A good witch is just you're trying to connect to the spirit world, not to God, through a good witch instead of a bad witch. This is just in everything we do. I'm not saying if you watch this, you know, okay, you've watched the Wizard of Oz, you're now demon-possessed. That's not what I'm saying, okay? What I'm saying is there are times, especially with children, if we're going to watch something, we better explain it.

I mean, the whole Star Wars movies are all based on what? Connecting to the Force, which is a spiritual sort of non-personal entity that we interact with. Yes, it's called Hinduism. It's all it is. It's all it is. It's Hinduism.

And karma saves you, you know. So the only reason I bring that out is we have to be careful. And that's why, you know, I'm not going to give you a list of movies to see and not see. You and I have to work through this and think about it. What is damaging? What's not? And who's watching it? And is it damaging to them or not? Especially with our children.

Because this permeates so much of what we watch on television and in movies. It's why, you know, I've had people say that Harry Potter is one of the most fascinating fantasies that they've ever had their children read their books and their children would read them and they were wonderful.

And I've never read a Harry Potter book. I do know this, though, from an interview with the writer.

And I like fantasy books and movies and stuff. I've actually watched Star Wars, okay?

But I have to say, that book, she did research.

Every spell in there, every conjuring thing they do, conjuring spells, is actually from a book on witchcraft.

So you have to wonder where the danger is there.

Now, I'm not saying if you repeat, you know, if you're reading Harry Potter and you read this spell, suddenly a spirit's going to appear before you. Okay, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, understand, it's like this, all the things in Deuteronomy is like salt. It's sprinkled over everything in our world. It's just sprinkled over everything. It makes it taste sort of good.

But we need to be aware of it. We need to be aware of it.

You know, there is a case in the Bible where someone did go to one of these mediums to conjure up somebody from the dead. It's not a very good story. Let's go to 1 Samuel 28.

1 Samuel 28. Now, remember I gave a series of sermons here over the last couple of months on, you know, we don't have an immortal soul. We talked about you don't die and go to hell, you know. And so there's no doubt in both the Old and New Testaments that death is sleep and that you're not conscious. And it is especially strong in many of the Old Testament passages because there's just no other option that you can even draw from it.

I mean, you're dead, you sleep, and the Lord calls your name and you wake up. Okay, so that's what is taught. That's what makes this so such an interesting passage. I've seen a few people try to use this as some teaching of the immortal soul. Even most biblical commentators, it might be Protestants, don't try to do this. They realize what this really is because it doesn't fit the rest of the Old Testament unless you really read it and see what's happening.

Of course, we know that Saul had turned against God and God withdrew from him. And it says that God took his spirit away from him. So Saul had God's spirit. And when God withdrew his spirit from him, what you read from that point on is a man slowly sliding into insanity. He's sliding into insanity. So now he's going to go to war with the Philistines, but Samuel has died. Samuel was the only one that would continue to interact with him.

And he goes to the priests and the priests say, we're sorry. God has nothing to do with you. But I need to know how to go fight the Philistines. God won't answer. We pray. He's not going to talk to you. So he goes to the prophets and the prophets say, no.

He was coming to us. God will not interact with you. You have turned against him. So what he decides to do here in verse 7, Saul says to his servants, Find me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her. And his servant said to him, in fact, there is a woman who is a medium at Endor.

Wasn't that one of the planets in the Star Wars? Was it Endor? So Saul disguised himself and put on other clothes. And he went and two met with him, and they came to the woman by night. And he said, please conduct a seance for me and bring up for me the one that I shall name for you. And the woman says, oh, I can't do that. Saul has announced that that's against God. I mean, he shut down my business.

If I do a seance and try to call up a spirit for you, Saul will send soldiers to kill me. So Saul says there in verse 10, Saul swore to her by the Lord, saying, as the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing. Then the woman said, who shall I bring up? And he says, bring up Samuel. Now verse 12 is very interesting because if we stop here, we think something amazing happened. When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice, and she says to Saul, why have you deceived me for you are Saul?

Now, I want you to stop for a minute and think. The entire Old Testament teaches that you die, you go into the grave, you are there, there is no thought, no consciousness, and only God can wake you up. So we have a problem here.

She does a seance. It scares her. She screams out because she sees something, and it says she sees Samuel. Now, either this woman, through demonic powers, had the ability to resurrect somebody, which the Bible says only Jesus Christ says that power, or what's happening here is not a resurrection. What is happening here is a deception. You understand? It can't be a resurrection. There's no demon that has the power to resurrect a human being. Satan doesn't have the power to resurrect a human being. None of us have the power to resurrect a human being.

Only God has the power to resurrect human beings. Right? So if we all agree with that, and that's what the Bible says, then what's happening here is a demonic deception. And this is where you begin to see how they work. Demons deceive. They lead people to believe things that aren't true for the self-destruction of the person. And the king said to her, do not be afraid what you see. The woman said to Saul, I saw a spirit ascending out of the earth. What is his form, he says. And she says, it's an old man coming up, and it's covered with a mantle. Now she doesn't say it's Samuel.

She's probably never met Samuel. She perceives it's Samuel. She screams out, and she says, what I'm seeing is a spirit coming out of the earth, and it's an old man. And Saul perceived. He's now decided. He has a perception. Perception doesn't always mean truth, does it? He perceives that it was Samuel, swooped down to his face to the ground, and bowed down.

Now Samuel said to Saul, why have you disturbed me by bringing me up? It can't be really Samuel, or the rest of the Old Testament is wrong. It can't be. So he's having a conversation with someone he believes is Samuel. And this is the demonic power, where a demon manifests himself in this form that looks sort of like an old man, and he's Samuel.

And Samuel talks back to him in his mind, and that's what's happening. Of course, it doesn't end well. God has rejected you, and you're going to die. That's the message he gets. God has rejected you, and you're going to die, and he does. Right after that, he goes to battle, and he dies. So this is a very important understanding of how demons work. You see the deception. The woman believes it's Samuel because Saul says it's Samuel. Saul believes it's Samuel because he went to a demonic medium and asked to talk to Samuel. And against everything the Bible teaches, he thinks he's talking to Samuel.

So there's a powerful way. Now, once again, that's not something that's happened in our lives because we don't pursue that. Now, a second way is also something you and I don't do, and that is what's called through divination. It's called fortune-telling, where people will tell their fortunes. Now, just like mediums, most fortune-tellers are not real. It's a hoax.

Every time you see a fortune-teller, oh, that person must be in contact with demons. No. The great overwhelming number is just someone making some quick bucks. I remember Chris was a little guy, and we were walking through a flea market, and we came up to a stall, and there was a fortune-telling. And she had this weird garb on and all these weird symbols, and he stopped, and he's just staring at her. She's sitting there like she's in some kind of trance, you know, and he's looking. He says, what's that? I said, oh, it's a fortune-teller. Oh, can she tell your fortune? She knows ours. Really? I said, yep. She knows we're not going in there.

The look on her face was priceless, okay? She wasn't in a trance anymore. She was not a happy woman, so we walked on.

The Greek word that's translated divination is poothon. Poothon is actually where we get the word python. The snake, the python. Poothon was a snake in Greek mythology who could tell fortunes.

And Apollo killed him in some titanic battle. And so where he killed poothon was at Delphi. And Delphi is where the most famous of the temples was built, where people would go from all over Greece to go get their fortune told. And there were priestess there. And it's, I mean, it was a huge part of their religion.

Fortune tellers was a big part of Greek religion, but the one at Delphi, people came actually not just from the Greek world, but people came even during Roman times. They came from all over to Delphi. And these priestess would tell them. And it's just amazing, because they actually have inscriptions that these priestess would, you know, they would go into a trance and then they would mumble out some things, you know.

Should I, should I become, you know, should I invest all that I have in sheep, you know, and it'll be, you know, something like wool produces money. Oh! But, you know, it doesn't say what you should actually do. In fact, some of them are hilarious, because it's like, either way it goes, they're right, you know.

Should, kings would go, I'm going to go to battle, you know, if you win, the victory will be great. A loss will be a great loss.

What's that mean? Of course, they found out now there's a modern concept that, if you, where the Delphi temple was, was built over a fissure in the earth that's still there. And if you go down deep enough, it's filled with these, these really dangerous gases that'll kill you.

And it was leaking up, I mean, it's a big fissure, and it was, it's, they know the fissure is mentioned. I mean, it was there when they built it. So all these obnoxious fumes were coming up into the quarters of the, the priestesses. They probably were going into trances. They were all so high, they didn't know what was going on.

Probably killed them, too. So you have all these drugged-out priestesses coming out, and you ask them a question, and they give you an answer. And for hundreds and hundreds of years, many people made their life's decisions. Wars were fought. Governments rose and fell on a bunch of, of, you know, buzzed-out girls in a... So, you think our government's dysfunctional? I mean, no. Although sometimes I don't think it worked any worse. We won't go there. So, you know, this, this spirit of divination goes clear back to the snake and killed by Apollo. And, or people would go get their fortunes told. Look at Acts 16. Here we have an example of this in the Scripture. New Testament here. Paul, or not Paul, but Luke is actually with them here because he talks in the first person, which you see every once in a while in the book of Acts. Now, what happened is we went to prayer that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit. So this woman actually, this girl actually is possessed by a demon, possessed with a spirit of divination, met us. Who brought her master's much profit by fortune telling. This girl followed Paul and us and cried out, saying, these men are the servants of the Most High God who proclaim to us the way of salvation. And this she did for many days. So, I mean, the demons know who Jesus is. He created them. Remember, all things were created by him and for him. The Father had him create all these things.

They know who he was. They knew who he was and who he had been, and how he had become a human being. And this demon is walking around proclaiming who he is. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. He came out that very hour when her master saw that their hope for profit was gone. They seized Paul and Silas, dragged him to the marketplace to the authorities.

So they end up beat up over...they were making some money off of this. This girl that would go into a trance or start babbling and come up with some wild statement. And people would pay money to get their fortune told. So that's another way. Once again, no one in our society does this. I can't say that. There are fortune tellers that do have some connection to the spirit world.

They're dangerous. Although there is something that was popular when I was a kid, some of you remember it was the Ouija board. Ouija boards are not just fun and games. They can lead to a connection with the spirit. We have to be aware of that. Remember the eight ball? I don't remember the eight ball. You would shake it up, turn it upside down, and it would say yes or no.

Does Becky love me? No. Does Sarah love me? Yes. Oh, good. So as a 14-year-old, you're going to go talk to Sarah. But everybody knew, even the people doing it knew it was a party thing. It's not real. Ouija boards sometimes, I've talked to people when they were younger and said, suddenly they had answers coming that was not from them. Things being said about the people there, because it spells out answers that nobody knew, the person said nobody knew that but me.

And people had some pretty strange experiences. It was an attempt. Why? It wasn't just a game. The game said, by doing this, you can connect to the spirits. Now most of the people who use the Ouija board, they were just giggling and moving around themselves. It was just silliness. Boy, the few times it wasn't, it wasn't. And there's no way we should let our children, like I said, I know you can still buy them because I've seen them advertised. But there's no way that should be used. That should be avoided completely because of the possibilities. Okay, well, those two things don't happen in my life. True. And remember, these are based on direct attempts to contact the spirits, and this has been common throughout history.

This is one of the core things of paganism. How do I connect to the gods, the spirits? That brings us to the next point. 1 Corinthians 10. 1 Corinthians 10. I'm going to mark where I am. This morning I was reading this, I looked up, and my wife saw it happen. She said it was hilarious. Suddenly there was a fan, and it blew the page over. So I turned down and continued reading, and I read about three verses, and I thought, well, this has nothing to do with what I was talking about.

I got sort of confused. Everybody's looking at me confused, you know, and it's like, oh, no, the spirit didn't move the page. The fan moved the page. So I'm going to mark it here so I can't get lost. He says some things here about the Passover, but then it seems to be in a strange context. But let's start with the context so we understand why he says it and where he's going. Verse 14, Therefore my beloved flee from idolatry. And in the church of Corinth, he was having a lot of problems with people.

They'd come out of this paganism, and they had one foot in the church and one foot in paganism. And he dealt with that a lot in 1 Corinthians, which is a real problem in the church. It was predominantly a Greek church. It was not predominantly a Jewish church. And so they'd come right out of paganism into the church. He says, I speak to you. I speak as to wise men. Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?

So he's talking about the Passover here. The bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body. For we all partake of that one bread. So he's saying, look, are we not, when we partake of the symbol of Christ's blood and His body, are we not at one? We're in a state of oneness with Jesus Christ. But doesn't that mean we're also in a state of oneness with each other?

So this is important. He's drawing out how important the Passover is. And how important these symbols are because they are symbolizing this oneness we have with Christ and this oneness we have with each other. Observe Israel after the flesh, verse 18, are not those who eat of the sacrifices or takers of the altar. What am I saying, then? That an idol is anything or what is offered to the idol is anything.

He says, look, idols are just physical things. They're meaningless. They have no power. Rather, he says, here's the point I'm trying to make. That the things with the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.

You cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Now, the idea here is very clear. Paul believed that there is a power in the pagan world. There is, too. You know, when you study pagan religions, there are weird, strange things that happen. There are miracles that happen. There are things that happen that are beyond human explanation. And it doesn't matter whether you're dealing with, you know, some primitive religion from a thousand years ago to the Aztecs and the Mayans to modern religions, the Buddhism, which isn't modern, but it's still a large new Shinduism, Hinduism.

There are things that happen that are not explainable. And if you've ever walked into a Hindu temple, you know, you know there's something there that is not God. You know what? It's not of God. Demons are, there are demon influences in idolatry. They're the power behind the idol. You know, when people sacrifice to an idol, even today in Hinduism, they don't sacrifice animals, but they sacrifice vegetables to animals, I mean to idols. They don't believe the idol blesses them. They believe there is a power behind the idol. There's a being that that idol represents. That's why the argument that I don't pray to Mary, I use the statue as a way to visualize her to get to her because she's really the power behind the statue, is no different than Hinduism.

Understand it's so different. They didn't believe that there were, you know, every place they went in Greece or Rome, you're going to find a statue to Zeus. There's 3,000 statues of Zeus and every one of them is Zeus. Of course not! Where did Zeus live? Mount Olympus? But there is special power in that statue because that power represents Zeus.

In Catholicism, statues of Mary or Jesus or Peter or Paul or Stephen or, you know, the saint dedicated to beer makers, there's thousands of saints. Every one of those statues is not the saint, but it has virtue from the saint, which is power. There's a virtue in that statue from the saint. It is the exact same thing. So we're looking at this, we're saying, wow, I guess Hindus still do that. It's more than them, okay? There is a reality that the demonic world interacts with human beings through false religions. And this is why there's a lie that we have to make sure we don't buy into.

It's part of the New Age secular humanist viewpoint that blankets our country, that's absorbing our country, and that is all religions lead to God. All real opus argued that to the point I've seen her yelling at people. I'm a Christian and I know all religions lead to God. One of the basic rules of logic. A, if A is true and B is the exact opposite, B cannot be true.

If I am an animal and someone says, oh, that's a cow and someone else says, no, it's not, it's a cat. It's possible both are wrong. It is not possible one is right and one is wrong. It is not possible. It's either a cat or a cow, or they're both wrong. You see what I mean? The rule of logic does not allow you to say, this is right and this is right, and they're the exact opposite, and they're right. Either salvation only comes through Jesus Christ or it does not.

So anything that says that salvation can come through anything other than Jesus Christ is wrong. Don't buy into the New Age idea that all religions are equal before the Almighty God they're not. Now we're getting into demons as the gods of this world. See, that's the third point. Demons are the gods of this world. They're the ones that they worship in these other religions. Or Christianity isn't right. You can't say Jesus is the only way, but there's other ways.

That means Jesus isn't the only way. Or you have no reason or no logic. All you have is... Well, then Jesus can't be the way. He can't be any... Because he said he was the only way, and if there's more than one way, he's a liar. Now we make Jesus a liar. So the idea that all religions lead to God is a demonic lie. So yes, people are influenced by demons today because they are the gods of this age.

They're the power behind things that are going on in religious circles. Okay, well, that doesn't necessarily affect you directly, but you see, well, I can see where that's going on. Now I won't go there, but you have the story of Simon Magus. Here's a man who said he had demonic powers. I mean, the Bible clearly says in the book of Acts that the man was the leader of the Samaritan religion, and he had demonic powers. And Philip comes along, he's baptizing people, and the man says, I confess Jesus Christ will repent of my sins, and he gets baptized.

He is now part of the church, but he hasn't given up his connection to the spirit world. He likes that connection. He enjoys it. I'm not going to share a lot of stories here because there's no something to share, but I'll just bring out that not for many years, fortunately, but years ago, there just seemed to be a lot of more demonic influence coming into the church. And one of the things that you hear is, and there's little things that you hear all the time, and one of them is, but don't you understand, I've been there.

I've been to God's throne, and I can tell you what it's like, and I can tell you things you don't know. There's always secret knowledge. Just let me tell you. There's always secret knowledge that needs to be shared. God isn't enough. I know something you don't have, and I can give it to you. And that's what Simon had. I don't want to give up my demonic influences. I'm in touch with the spirit world, but I'd like to be in touch with that God, too. And remember Peter and the apostles come down, they start laying hands on people, and they start receiving God's spirit, and he says, I'll give you money for that. How much you want to get that spirit? And Peter said, we won't give you that. Sorry, you're not part of us. Get out of here. But it's very interesting. He was under demon influence. He liked connecting to the… it doesn't say he was possessed. He had demonic powers. He had under demon influence. He knew he was in contact with the spirit world. He liked being in contact with the spirit world. And he saw this new Christian religion as a way to get, wow, that's like a super connection there. I want to be part of that connection. The idea that all this is just contact with the spirit world, so all these different religions are good. My religion, your religion, your religion, whatever can get me more power from the spirit world is good. Welcome to the new age. It's not so new. It's not so new. So yes, that is a way that people are influenced today, and we have to be careful not to be influenced. A fourth way is that they influence people in the same way that Satan does, and that is through emotions. You think about what it's like to be in contact with another human being who's happy. Just smile at somebody, and most of the time they'll smile back at you, right? They can't help it. But you've been around somebody that's like down, and after all, you feel down. You can be around somebody that's angry, and you're just angry too. I don't even want to be around you. You're just angry. We feel each other's emotions, and we sort of can absorb them. That doesn't mean the other person has control over us. It doesn't mean that they're reading our minds. Okay, that's not what's happening. It's just we as human beings can sometimes sort of feel what other people are feeling. Well, remember, these are real beings with different personalities, and they experience emotions, and they will try to get us to feel their emotions.

That's what it says when it talks about Satan being the power of the air.

Look at 1 Timothy 4.

1 Timothy 4.

Here Paul says in verse 1, Now the Spirit... Okay, so this is the Spirit of God. So he says, I am in touch with the Spirit world because I have God's Spirit, and I have His Word, and He guides us through His Spirit. He guides us into His Word. Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times, Son will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons speaking lies in hypocrisy.

Deceiving spirits. Most of the time we are deceived by emotions.

So you have... I'm always talking about something, a blog I read this week, because sometimes I'll spend a little time every week just searching through blogs on Christianity. And one was a woman who said that she was... she wasn't a Bible Christian, but she was a follower of Jesus. Because the more she understood what Jesus was all about, the more she realized that much of the Bible wasn't true. And the more she studied Jesus, the more she came to the conclusion that even some of the stories about Jesus aren't true, because that's not really what Jesus would be.

Now, we think, how could she do that? Well, you know, it was what? 20, 25 years ago, that a group of some of the most well-known Christian scholars got together and they went through the teachings of Jesus and throughout everything they thought wasn't really what he taught.

Well, Thomas Jefferson did that. I mean, everybody's been doing that for a long time. I'm going to go pick and choose what I wanted from Jesus, and then he's my Jesus. And my Jesus would not worship a father who killed people in Sodom, so God really didn't kill people in Sodom. That's a made-up story. You see how it works?

The deception is, a lot of times, I love people. Therefore, God would not do this if he loved, and this feeling means he wouldn't do it. Or I hate people because there are good people, and therefore, because there's been a lot of people killed, there's a lot of violence done over the years in the name of the God of the Bible.

So we have to understand there is demonic influence, and all of us fight Satan's influence directly, don't we? I mean, all of us know there's times it's like, man, I don't know why that thought, that feeling, that was just, I had to get rid of it. Some of that isn't generated by us, some of it is, because we're just all messed up, but some of it isn't. Some of it comes from Satan. It comes in and we have to throw it out.

And then the last reason, and this is the reason that most, or way that demons will interact with people, is what most people are fearful about the most, and that is what is called demon possession. Okay, influence is one thing. Possession means you lose your will, and you're now under the control. There's actually the demonic personality that is inside your mind controlling you, many times telling you, people who are demon possessed sometimes are aware, and they will say, but it's telling me to.

But I'm being told to.

So you know it's there. Yeah? He's telling me to. He's also telling me not to listen to you. I've heard that one, which is interesting.

When you deal with a demon possessed person, all I can tell you is, the feeling of evil is terrifying more than anything you can imagine. When you realize what you're dealing with. But here's what we need to remember. James, you see, oh, it's all about fear now. I have to fear demons. No. James 4, 7, here's the key. Therefore, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. The closer we are to God, the less there can be interaction between Satan and demons in us. The closer you are to God, the less interaction there can even be.

And any interaction is there, you're going to know what it is. You're going to see what it is.

So we don't have to worry. We have God's Spirit. We don't have to worry that we can become demon possessed.

Now, there's a lot of questions that come up here with demon possession.

Let me just say this. A healthy spiritual mind is not a place where a demon is going to come and have influence.

We have to have a troubled mind that is spiritually sick.

We have to have a troubled mind that is spiritually sick.

Also, mental illness does not equal demon possession. And I've seen people think that, and it is not true. People can be mentally ill for a hundred reasons. A lot of it has to do with chemical imbalances in the body. It has to do with brain damage. It has to do with genetic damage.

It has to do with... I mean, there's a lot of reasons why. I tell you a reason that I have found that has surprised me in the sheer numbers is mental illness caused from extensive abuse of drugs and extensive abuse of alcohol.

Alcohol abuse can destroy parts of the brain that, unless God heals, doesn't come back. Understand? Extensive drug use can destroy parts of your brain that, unless God heals, it doesn't come back.

I've just seen people develop paranoia from cocaine use that they just don't come back. I've watched people I've counseled for years trying to get them off that edge and had them commit suicide, too.

Understand the damage that is done. That doesn't mean they're demon-possessed. But the more damage you have to your cognitive ability to control your will, the more open you can become to demon influence. Or even demon possession.

But that doesn't mean they haven't. But a demon doesn't... I mean, if demons just look for people that didn't believe in God, wouldn't every atheist be demon-possessed? But they're not. Right? They're looking for troubled minds, because that's who they are. Understand there's an insanity in them.

Satan's insane. So they look for troubled minds. Mark 9 verse 17.

So, yeah, I haven't given a sermon on this in 10 years. So I won't for a while again.

But we need to remember there is a spirit world out there. We talk about Satan a lot, but we forget there's a third of the angels that followed him. Mark 9 verse 17.

Then one of the crowd answered and said, Teacher, talking to Jesus, I brought you my son who is a mute spirit. And whenever it seizes him and throws him down, he foams at the mouth, gnashes at his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to your disciples, and they could not cast it out. So you see what happens here. Christ comes along, they bring the boy, and he heals him.

And the spirit cries out in verse 26, convulsed him greatly, came out of him, and he became what is dead. And people thought he was dead, but Jesus says, takes his hand, lifts him up. And when he'd come into the house, verse 28, the disciples asked him privately, why couldn't we cast him out? We said the right words. They had faith, right? They had faith. You don't stand there with a demon-possessed person and command them in the name of Lord Jesus Christ to come out unless you have the faith that's going to happen. I mean, you normally just run away. And he says something very important. So he said to them, verse 29, This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting. We have to remember something. It's just like healing. You go to be anointed. The elders do this because we're commanded by God to do it. You come and be anointed because you're commanded to do it. And we don't heal you. God does. Right? We don't heal you. No human being can cast out a demon. God cast out demons. And what he told them was, you guys aren't close. This was powerful. This was just not, you know, the normal demon you guys deal with. This was a powerful one, and you're not close enough to God. So God didn't do it. You have to be really close to God for God to do this one. So there's something to remember there, too. We can't just go around messing with the spirit world. You don't seek this at all, ever.

Ever. But there's times when confronted you have to pray and fast to be close to God.

Because it's God who protects us. There's the power. There's the power. One last scripture, Luke 11. Luke 11.

And here, Jesus is dealing with another demon possession issue.

In verse 24. He says in verse 24, when an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places seeking rest and finding none. He says, I will return to my house from which I came. And he comes and he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself. And they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first. So what does that mean?

What does that mean? That means God can cast out the demon. It's actually got control of the person's mind. And the person does it now, recognize what they need to do. They don't turn to God. They don't change their lives. They just sort of go through life. And I saw this happen with a drug addict, where he literally, the demon left, and he went back to drugs, and it came back.

And on the last times I talked to him, he's on the phone screaming, I can see them, I can see them, they're going to kill me. He walked all night one night because they told him, if you don't, the moment you stop walking, we're going to kill your children.

Of course they weren't going to, they didn't have the power, but he didn't know that. And I couldn't get him off the drugs long enough. And so he never crawled out of the insanity. That one of that, this was the next, the last time I talked to him, I said, where are you, McDonald's? He was out in the parking lot screaming. I said, just stand there for a minute. He said, I see the police coming. I said, yeah, just stand there for a minute. They're going to take you and they're going to sedate you, okay?

Okay, that's good. Yeah, that's good. So I got him to calmly stand there because he would just run around the parking lot screaming like, you know, insane. Just stand there. When he went back, he would see these beings, he would talk to these beings, and they would tell him things. I probably shouldn't say these things. They were like a long time ago, but I want you to understand how real this is. And I hope I never have to deal with anything like that again.

Was he on drugs? Yes. Was that the only problem? I don't believe so because of what they told him. There were issues there that was like they were telling about God and things, okay?

I just I don't think so. And because the level of evil was so high, it wasn't just the poor guy on drugs. The level of evil was very high. And that's what happened. You can sweep it out, but you can't keep going back. We end up in the worst place. This brings us to the question always comes up. Can demons hang around particular locations?

Yeah, just go into a Buddhist temple. You'll feel it. It's there. Yes, they can. Once again, that doesn't mean they're going to attack you. It doesn't mean they're going to possess you. That's not what's going to happen, but it's there because there was a power to idolatry. There was a power to paganism. The spirit world is real. Angels and demons exist. But you and I don't have to live in fear of that. God is with us, and He promises you submit to God and Satan will flee.

That's a promise. We have to just believe that. That's all. We have to hold on to that. And the more healthy our minds are, the less trouble we have anyways. That spirit, not a fear, but a law of power and a sound mind that I gave the sermon on two weeks ago, the more we have that kind of mind of Christ in us, the less Satan and the demons are going to influence us. Because it's going to be blocked.

It's going to be blocked by the power and spirit of God. But at the same time, there's no way of talking about this without a little bit talking about the evil of it and how it affects people. So just remember that. Understand there's a spirit world, but you have... And you say, well, I'm not baptized. God's spirit is with you. That's enough. God's spirit is with you to protect you. And with the spirit of God, Satan and the demons will... He says, he promises, they will flee from you.