#50 UNDERSTANDING DEMONS + Paul Lyndon Burtwell Reasonable Faith UK

Welcome to Biblically Speaking. My name is Cassie Mbellino, and I'm your host. In this podcast, we talk about the

Bible in simple terms with experts, PhDs, and scholarly theologians to make understanding

God easier. These conversations have transformed my relationship with Christ and understanding of religion.

Now, I'm sharing these recorded conversations with you. On this podcast, we talk about the facts, the history, and the translations to make the

Bible make sense, so we can get to know God, our Creator, better. Hello, welcome to Biblically Speaking.

I'm your host, Cassie Mbellino, and I am so happy to invite a new guest, Paul Birtwell, from Reasonable Faith UK to the

Biblically Speaking sphere, where we get to talk about something that we've discussed a few times, but it's always good to revisit because we always should know what we're up against.

Today, we're going to be talking about diabolical demons. Just to get us started, Paul, I would love to introduce you in a second, but just a little icebreaker is have you ever had a demonic encounter?

Is there any time that we're speaking from a place of experiential wisdom versus just biblical?

Absolutely, yeah. Here in the UK, we come across demonic encounters all the time, but a little bit of background.

I became a Christian at the age of 16 from, I would say, kind of an agnostic atheist background.

It depends on the day, depending on what I was. Yeah, and so my sister came to a saving faith in Christ first because a

Canadian missionary team flew over and began to share the gospel message in my sister's school.

My sister came then to faith in Christ, and then over the next few years, she shared the gospel with me. I was a very reluctant convert to the

Christian faith, but eventually, I came to a saving faith in Jesus, and some of that was through apologetics.

When I became a follower of Jesus, I began to hear a lot of, what I would say, kind of like fear in the church.

A lot of Christians were more scared of Satan than they were of God or of Jesus. I really didn't know anything about the spiritual realm.

I didn't really know anything about Christianity. I was about 16 years of age, 17 years of age, when

I decided I was going to go to an occult shop in the city where I live. Like a crystal shop? Yeah, so it's a shop that sells kind of dream catchers, crystals,

Ouija boards, tarot cards, that type of thing because I didn't know anything about this topic, and Christians were always talking about this stuff.

I thought, hey, let's go to one of these shops. There's one in the city, or there's at least one in the city, and let's go and see what they kind of sell there and what they do.

I jumped on a bus, went to the city, and fully prayed up. I went into the shop to have a look around at the articles and the artifacts that they were selling.

As I was looking around the shop, I began to hear this growling, and it sounded like a dog. I'm looking around thinking, where's this growling coming from?

As I look up, it's the shopkeeper. He's behind the counter staring at me. His eyes are absolutely transfixed on me, and he's just growling, and he's snarling, and he's showing his teeth to me.

At the time, I thought, what on earth is going on here? Obviously, the presence of Christ in me was causing a reaction in this gentleman.

That was the first encounter with demons. I didn't really know at that time what was going on, but looking back, it was definitely a manifestation of a demon.

That is powerful. Oh my gosh, the presence of Christ in you was that powerful that you didn't even say

Jesus' name. You didn't even mention anything. He could just sense it. What did you do? Did you leave?

Did you buy something? Yeah, I left. I didn't feel very welcome in that shop for some reason. No, it just kind of freaked me out.

I thought, why is this guy staring at me and growling and showing me his teeth? It was kind of odd. It was a very odd situation.

I was a very young man at the time, and so I kind of got out there as quickly as I could, but that was the first encounter with a demon that I ever had as a

Christian. Wow. Wow. You just left. I'm trying to think of what I would do in that situation.

I'd probably be like, are you okay? I'd probably try to normalize what's going on. Surely, let's make this normal, but you just left.

You didn't clarify. Yeah, I didn't want him to bite me. Fair. Fair. Well, that is very powerful.

I feel like I've encountered a few ghosts as well in my time. Never to that extent, but looking back at a few houses that I lived in,

I mean, you kind of mentioned where you're from, has a lot of paganism and demonic spirits there. I was living in California for a bit, and we had a house in Lake Sherwood, which is a pretty affluent gated community, but it's very historical.

Who knows what role ghosts and demons and possession played there, but again, it's California, so that huge idolatry within that state.

I remember we stayed in this house, and I don't know how old it was, but there definitely was an entity within it because I had a girlfriend sleepover, and she said she woke up seeing some sort of entity in the room that we were sleeping in.

The next day, she kind of told us, she's like, I saw a dark figure in the middle of the night, kind of standing in the middle of the room, and we were like, you're crazy.

No, you're just a weird friend. You would say something like that, and we wrote it off, and then a few weeks later, maybe a few months, my sister had a friend come over, and these two women do not know each other at all.

They live in different states, and she was sleeping over. She's like, yeah, I slept well last night because we're at breakfast, but I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I was being choked, and then

I woke up, and there was a dark figure standing in the middle of the room, and then it walked over to where Cas was sleeping, and it leaned over her, and we were like,

I think there's something in this house, and my mom was always the strong Christian woman of like, absolutely not.

I rebuke that. I'm not going to acknowledge those ghost stories, but even she said when we were moving out and she was cleaning up the house, she's like, it felt like something was pushing me out, like your time here is done, and yeah, if something was growling at me,

I would freak out as well, but there's definitely presence there. My sister had the exact same experience in her bedroom, and if you know my sister, she's not one to exaggerate.

She was sitting up in bed one evening. The light was off, and then all of a sudden, this figure stood to the right of her bed, and she could see the silhouette against the window, and she lives by herself, and she looked up and said, in the name of Jesus, go away, and it disappeared.

I said, what did it look like him? She said, well, you know what Spider -Man looks like. She said like that, but taller and black, so she had the exact same experience as what your friends had.

Yeah. It's so unnerving because it's so unfamiliar that you have no idea what it is, and I think that unknown is what makes it scary, which is why

I think that discussing what demons are, what they aren't, what they can, what they cannot do, this is how we remove that fear by proclaiming the power of Jesus Christ over it because you have that power within you to proclaim

Jesus's name and make them vanish. You have something that protects you. Let's lean into it rather than see something we don't know and be afraid.

Absolutely, and we must always kind of keep in mind that these demons, these spirits, these unclean spirits, they are creations.

They're not the creator, and if you belong to the creator and the creator lives inside of you, you are far more powerful than what they are, and their primary weapon really is fear, is to make you afraid.

Yeah. Yeah. I used to tremble with fear, but now whenever I kind of get that inkling like I'm that crazy girl, my neighbors probably hate me, but I'm like, eh,

Jesus, you know, just anointing my house and casting them out, but let's get into the episode a little bit about you and your qualifications to speak on this subject.

Right now, you are the pastor of Clear Spring Church in Chettleham, UK. Also, apologies if I'm going to butcher any of these

UK names. Okay, we're just going to be gentle and have grace with me on that one, but more importantly, you also have worked as a certified apologist with Reasonable Faith, which is the ministry of Dr.

William Lane Craig. Very big. You've also written books. You've been on Revelation TV, and then your education, your background, you've served as head of religious education at Bishop's College.

You have an honors degree in Christian theology, and you've also trained under esteemed theologians like Professor Gordon Wenham, so I appreciate you being here.

Leveraging all of your scholarly wisdom and actually speaking to this topic, not just from a place of experience or Hollywood vibes as me, the

Sunday school Christian, that's all I really know because it's not like we talk about this at church. It's so scary, but you're coming from a place of actually educated wisdom, so I'm really excited to jump into this.

I think the first thing that we should start with is what are demons? You know, what are they? What aren't they? Where do they come from?

Right, so we have kind of three options on the table that are banded around within church and within seminaries.

The first are spirits of dead people, but I think we can rule that out quite quickly because the

Bible teaches that – oh, carry on. Yeah, no, I mean, I agree with you.

I'm on the same team as you, but that just – it is shocking because I'm like, oh yeah, my grandma ghost, like I felt her there with me.

Only one of my grandmas are dead, but you know, I think that is very common to be like, oh yeah, like there's definitely a spirit in this room, but it's okay.

It's just a war veteran. It's just, you know, this house is haunted by – because this house is, you know, it's from the 1800s, you know, so it's probably just a – it's a friendly ghost.

That's definitely like what I was taught. That's definitely what Hollywood teaches, so go on. Yeah, because, you know, the

Bible teaches that, you know, it's destined for, you know, people to live once and then to face judgment. So, you know, spirits of deceased people are not kind of hanging around on the earth.

They go one place or the other, and they face their own personal judgment of God at that time. So I think we can rule out that it's not spirits of deceased people that what these kind of demons are, and I think if you come across somebody who encounters perhaps a loved one after they've passed away, you've probably got something like a familiar spirit, a spirit that is imitating the voice or the visage or the personality of the person who's passed away in order to deceive and to get a foothold in that person's life or in their family.

Yes, yes, that was a big aspect of that movie that came out. I want to say in 2023 called

Talk to Me. Again, like Hollywood – Oh, I've not seen it. It's a good scary movie, but it's a scary movie, and it's about conjuring spirits.

So like, proceed with caution. But I do think that, you know, someone that does love a good thriller, I've watched it many times, and I think it does a good job of saying these kids get a haunted object, and it helps them, you know, once they say certain words and engage with it in a certain way, it conjures up a spirit that possesses the human, and then people get to engage with that spirit within that person who engaged with it.

So it's like, if you did it, you become possessed, and I get to talk to the spirit within you versus you itself.

And it's kind of this like Hollywood play on taking drugs for these kids that are playing with spirits. And I think it plays exactly into what you just said, because this woman, this girl in the movie, she loses her mother, and then one of the spirits start acting like her mother.

So she starts engaging with it more, and that leads to so much trouble. And again, like, it really ends up just being like a demonic spirit that was just like misleading her down this road of destruction and just like ruining these children's lives, because they decided to engage with it.

But even so, just to tap in on that, and to clarify, I think I know the answer, but just so it's said, is like mediums, psychics, you know, people that go to reconnect with their dead loved ones, you're saying that they're connecting with demons, not at all like a friendly spirit whatsoever, but like a demon trying to hide behind the facade of getting access to somebody, kind of taking hold of their mind, influencing them, exploiting their weakness and trauma.

Yeah, I would say that the vast majority of mediums and people who claim to contact the dead, they're charlatans.

They're using kind of cold reading techniques on their audience, and it's not genuine.

But for the very small percentage that really are connecting with spiritual forces, I would say that those spiritual forces are certainly demonic, and they're using familiar spirits that know the family or know the deceased person.

And they're very good at imitating their voices and their personas and the way they used to behave, even knowing kind of secret knowledge that the average person couldn't possibly know.

But once again, that's very few and far between. I think most cases are kind of charlatans really.

And you mean when you say familiar spirits, that just means like a demon that is aware of the manuals?

Of the family. Got it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So the first one, demons are not spirits of dead people.

The second one? So this is a view that's more popular within the church nowadays.

I think it's been brought to the fore by the late Michael Heiser when he talks about the spirits of the

Nephilim. Yes, and I have discussed with Dr. Josh Waltman on this. I love this discussion.

Oh my gosh. Go on. Yeah. So we read about in Genesis chapter six that the sons of God came down and intermarried with the daughters of men.

And they had children by them. And these children grew up to be gigante or giants.

Not necessarily big creatures, but they're like the gods of old, the men of renown that you read about in Greek literature, those ancient heroic figures like Hercules and people like that.

And these are half -human, half -demon creatures. And we're told in the book of Genesis that wickedness on the earth increased to such a degree that God called a man called

Noah to build an ark. And both Noah and his family were kept safe on the ark, and then

God deluged the world with a flood. And in so doing, he wiped out the Nephilim. And when we study the books of Peter and Jude, they talk about these fallen angels who did not keep their estate, who did not keep their position in heaven, but came down and interacted with strange flesh, i .e.

having intercourse with human women. And that these demons are now bound with chains of darkness in a place called

Tartarus, which is a permanent place of confinement up until the Great White Throne Judgment. So they're never coming out.

But some theologians have taught, and they get this from the book of Enoch, which I've actually got here.

I can read a section for you in just a moment, or the book of Jubilees, where it talks about the spirits of the

Nephilim that were drowned in the flood. These spirits remain on the earth, and they're still hungry, and they're still thirsty, and they roam about in arid places seeking rest.

And they seek to possess human bodies so they can have physicality again. And so this has become a very popular view in the church in recent times.

But again, I'm not really, I don't really buy into that, because I don't think the scriptural evidence is there to back that up.

Oh, I feel like what you just said as far as them wanting to be in arid places, and they're hungry, and they're thirsty, what about that kind of makes you think?

Sounds good, doesn't it? It just kind of sounds like the explanation. So where do you kind of say,

I think that they're still locked down, and they have not come up? Yeah, because when you go through the

Scriptures, and our faith must be based on Scripture, and Scripture alone is God's Word. Nothing else is

God's Word. And I love reading kind of apocryphal books like Enoch and Jubilees, and they're great for information and for understanding the mindset of the people in the kind of silent period between Malachi and the appearance of John the

Baptist. It's good for understanding the theology of the Jewish people. However, these books are not inspired by God.

And the inspired Word of God, I think, really does very clearly tell us exactly what demons are. And it does not mention in any place that they are the spirits of the deceased

Nephilim. So I think we need to be very, very careful with that belief, and stick to exactly what the Word of God says.

Got it. So since they're mentioned, these descriptions that people are pulling these like Heiser -like explanations, they're mentioned in books that aren't in the final biblical canon.

So it's hard for us to source that as truth. Yeah, and not only that, the biblical canon is very clear on what demons are.

And so we don't have to kind of result to speculation and extra canonical books to kind of root our theology in those.

Would you like to actually read from the Book of Enoch section about these Nephilim?

You'll see where kind of people are getting the idea from. Let's see if I can read actually. I have my glasses on me.

Okay, so Book of Enoch, Chapter 15, Verse 8 says, And now the giants who are produced from the spirits and the flesh shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling.

Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies, because they are born from men, and from the holy watchers is their beginning and primal origin.

They shall be evil spirits on earth, and evil spirits shall they be called. And we move down to Verse 11 that reads,

And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble.

They take no food, but nevertheless hunger, and thirst, and cause offenses.

And these spirits shall rise up against the children of men, and against the women, because they have proceeded from them.

And so this is where the idea comes from that these demons on the earth today are the deceased spirits of the

Nephilim. It comes from the Book of Enoch, and it comes from other Jewish apocryphal works. But once again, this is not scripture, so we cannot base our theology on these extra canonical books.

Got it. And you said that this isn't what the Bible says demons are.

What does the Bible say demons are? Okay, so we've got lots of places in the Bible to tell us that demons are actually angels.

They're fallen angels. And I can give some of the scriptures to you now if you like.

So Matthew 25, Verse 41, we're told that hell is prepared for the devil and his angels.

Revelation 12, 7 to 9, which I believe is a reference that you've got too, it talks about the dragon who is

Satan and his angels fight back against Michael, the archangel. 2

Peter 2, Verse 4, talks about God not sparing the angels when they sin, but locking them up in gloomy dungeons, which is

Tartarus. And then we've got Jude 1, 6, and the angels who did not keep their proper domain.

So over and over again, we've got Jesus saying it's angels, Revelation saying it's angels, Peter and Jude both saying that they're angels.

And so I think we need to stick with what scripture teaches that demons are actually fallen angels, and they're the ones that cause trouble upon the earth.

Wow. I love how straightforward this is. I love this, and I love the basis in scripture. You said that there was a third myth that demons are not?

Oh, so we've looked at number one, which are the spirits of deceased people, number two, the

Nephilim, and number three, that they are angels. So we've just covered the third option, the third option on the table, which is that demons are fallen angels.

Oh, are you saying that is what they are? That's not what they are? Yeah, I'm saying that is what they are. That's the third option. Well, what about aliens?

Because I've had a few discussions with people that worked in national security, and he's like, he's not making any hard claims.

He's saying like, based on the research for the couple UFO sightings and couple alien interactions that we have, they leave this interdimensional effect on the earth that is almost beyond this earth.

Maybe, just maybe, those are demons. And of course it's like, well, you made it made sense.

Who am I to deny it? I'm here learning. What do you have to say about that? Running my own podcast,

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Take a breath, slow down, and dwell in the good things. Now, back to the show. While the

Bible is silent on whether there are extraterrestrial life forms on other planets,

God may well have created other life forms on other planets within this universe. And they may very well be visiting us if they have the technology to do so.

So I'm not against the idea of God creating life elsewhere. It's a very, very big universe. And so God may have done that.

However, a lot of the cases where people encounter these demons, once again, a spirit like those spirits that appeared in the bedroom of my sister and of your friends, they're quite malevolent in the way that they treat people.

And often, if the person has a knowledge of Christianity and they rebuke these entities in the name of Jesus, they flee.

And so for me, that's a sure kind of fire sign that these are not creatures from another planet, but rather demonic spirits that may be pretending to be aliens.

And so that's kind of my take on it. You've had Hugh Ross on your program, haven't you? And he has spoken to me quite a lot about people that he's interviewed and encounters that they've had.

And again, generally speaking, when people have encounters of aliens, they're often involved in the occult at the same time.

And when they give up their occultic practices, the visitation stop. And so I think there's a very clear connection between alien visitation and practicing the occult.

And once again, that would certainly indicate that these are not aliens from another planet or another solar system or galaxy.

These are in fact demonic spirits manifesting or pretending to be masquerading as aliens.

Right. Okay. So you're saying that people within the occult are essentially summoning demonic spirits that when they visit them, those people say, oh, that was an alien.

So they start recharacterizing it as an alien. But once they stop the occultic practices, these visitations from quote unquote aliens stop.

Therefore, we can assume that they probably weren't aliens. They were probably demons. Aliens are entirely different subject that may or may not be real, but we cannot classify them as demons as well.

Yeah. I mean, that's what Hugh Ross has shared. And Hugh Ross, he tends to know his stuff. So I'll take his word on this one.

I think he used to be. Pardon? He's such a joy. I love him. He's amazing. Yeah.

He's an incredible man of God and God has used them so powerfully over the years. But I think he used to head up like a

UFO research team at one point in his life. And he had lots of testimonies coming across his table.

And he began to notice this pattern that when people gave up their occultic practices or rebuked these aliens in the name of Jesus, that these aliens would disappear.

Yes. Yes. He worked closely with Dr. Mark Clark who worked in national security, who I also interviewed about this. So we're all speaking within the same realm of what is going on.

And when we call them the name of Jesus, what happens next? But I think that, yeah, that is very powerful.

Okay. So demons are fallen angels. They're not the ghosts of Nephilim. They're not my dead grandma and they're not aliens.

But when we do encounter these things, because like we talked about at the beginning of the episode, I mean, like we have encountered these, they are very real and they are very malevolent.

What do they want? Like, what do we need to be kind of like clutching our pearls is the visual that I get, but like, what are they after?

Is it our soul? Like, is it, you know, we gave our life to Christ and they want us to give our life to Satan.

Like, is that the end game here? I think the end game is to do as much damage to mankind as possible because we've been created in the image of God and they want to mar that image.

They know that we are created for a special purpose and it's something I think that they are very jealous of.

It's something that they want to thwart. They know God has a special love for his creation, for humanity who've been created in his image.

And so I think they want to drive as many people away from God, both in this life and in eternity as much as possible.

I think that demons are deranged. I think that, you know, since their fall, they are not thinking logically.

They just have this destructive personality that just wants to cause harm and create sin and destroy other people's lives.

And so whenever you see kind of sinful destruction in anybody's life going on, there's probably a demonic cause behind that.

And again, that's not to say that people are demon possessed, but there are so many fallen spirits in this world that seek to drag us away from God and from the truth of the gospel and to blind us to that.

I can share with you another experience that I had some years ago. There was a man who was suffering from terrible, terrible depression, suicidal thoughts.

And I had another friend called Paul and he asked me if I'd go to his flat or an apartment and go and pray for him and minister to him.

So I said that I would. And that Saturday morning, we went over to his apartment and knocked on the door and he opened the door.

And as soon as I walked into his apartment, it was full of occultic paraphernalia.

On the left -hand side was a red Indian kind of doing the house sign as soon as you walked in. And then there were dream catchers and crystals and everything you can imagine from an occult shop.

He had probably bought it, probably into that occult shop that I was growled at. And he sat down and I just started to share the gospel with him because I knew the only hope that he had was to respond to Jesus and to become born again and be filled with the

Holy Spirit. And as I began to share the gospel with him, I literally saw his eyes glaze over.

There was something in him controlling him, preventing him from hearing the gospel message. So after sharing the gospel message, he kind of came to again.

He was unable to hear the gospel message. And I thought, Lord, what am I going to do? Because he can't hear this message.

There is something in him that's preventing him from doing this. And I just felt that little nudge from the Holy Spirit, that little whisper to pray for him.

So I turned around as I was leaving. I said, do you mind if I pray for you just for a second? And he's just kind of like, yeah, sure, whatever.

And I went over to him and I laid hands upon him in the name of Jesus. And I prayed that God would open his eyes.

And as I did so, he was flung back across the room by that spirit that was in him. The spirit within him was repelled.

And it's not like the stuff you kind of see on Benny Hinn or on kind of God Christian channels.

It was that sort of thing. It was the demon within him was causing his whole body to reflex and to throw him away from my hands, which were laying on his shoulders to pray for him.

And suddenly I had the guy's attention. His eyes were very wide open. The spirit was no longer controlling him.

And I went over to the man. I laid hands upon him again. And the same thing happened a second time. It flung the man back against the wall.

I approached him a third time. And this time the man was kind of begging me to stop. And then

I was able to share the gospel message with him. And at the end of that encounter, he turned around. He says, all

I know is the power within you is greater than the power that's within me. And the following week he asked his friend

Paul if he could start going to church with him. And so even though the spirit wouldn't allow him to hear the gospel, when he received the power of the

Holy Spirit and recognized that God is greater than that demon or that presence that was in him, it opened his eyes to the fact that there is something greater.

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I love your resilience in that moment because I feel like I would have reacted emotionally of fear that I was causing someone to fling back or how odd it was his body was reacting or even begging.

The social norms would have stopped me there, but you persisted and saved this man's life. Yeah. I think to begin with, when you encounter people who are being controlled by demonic spirits, you really don't know what to do.

One of the first occasions in my life was actually with my friend who was a Christian. We call him

David for the sake of this show. And David would come over on his motorbike a couple of times a night, sorry, a couple of times in a week during the nighttime.

And we would pray together and pray for the power of God to show up. And so I was about 17 years of age at this time,

I think 17, 18. And David was coming over and we were praying together for the power of God. And we'd been doing this for a few weeks.

And as we were praying this one evening, the presence of God really began to come down in the bedroom. You could feel it. It's like this wave of love and power and this kind of cloud of glory around us.

And again, I heard that kind of grinding, growling sound. And I opened my eyes and my friend

David was stood rigid. His eyes had rolled back. He was grinding his teeth and growling.

And I'd had the encounter of the occult shop at this time, but this was the first time

I'd actually seen somebody up close kind of have a spirit that I knew. And again, he was a Christian. And so I thought, well, what do

I do in this situation? Here's my friend in my bedroom. He's manifesting a demon. I'm praying for the power of God to come down and it's kind of causing this spirit to react.

And so I could remember reading the book of Acts and how the disciples drove spirits out. And so I just lifted my hand up and I said, in the name of Jesus, come out of him.

And I slapped him on the chest. He went flying backwards, landed on his backside, opened his eyes, and he didn't have a clue what happened.

All he could remember is that he started praying and the next thing he knew is on the floor and the spirit had gone.

And so I was scared at that time. That was the very first encounter of possession and what you call exorcism,

I guess, that I encountered. And I didn't really know what to do. I just tried to follow from the book of Acts what the apostles did, and that was to command in the name of Jesus, the spirit to come out.

And I just slapped him on the chest, kind of out of fear, really. And the spirit came out. And so that was my first encounter.

And so when you first encounter these things, you will be scared. You will be apprehensive. You will not always know what to do.

But the more encounters that you have, I think you just get used to it in the end. Wow. Wow.

This is, I don't know what I would do in that instance. Yeah, I think, so what you were saying was that their

MO here is to really just deceit, to kind of ensnare us, to kind of just keep us from God.

So would it be fair to say, I've heard this a few times, that Satan doesn't, he doesn't even want us to worship him.

He just wants us to not worship God. So would you agree with that statement? To a degree.

I mean, when you come to the book of Revelation, it's very clear that the antichrist, who is Satan's son, he clearly wants worship.

And he deifies himself in God's temple and declaring himself to be God. And that's what all the

Mark of the Beast is about, and the abomination of desolation. And he does want worship.

He does want to be glorified. But his ultimate aim is to send as many people to hell as possible.

Because it, I guess, in some sick, twisted sense, it gives him a sense of victory, that he's won in some way.

I think that's what the end game is for Satan. Okay. And how do you think,

I mean, you've mentioned a few things like the occult shop and kind of the occult imagery that people were having in these homes that you were helping expel these demons.

But what are some of the gateways that can really open us up to Satan, aside from not believing in God?

Yeah, there are many things that can bring on demonic control in a person's life.

With Judas, it was greed. We're told that when Judas went out to betray

Jesus, that Satan entered into him. And he was doing that for money. The same with Ananias and Sapphira.

Peter said to them, how is it that you've allowed Satan to fill your heart? And it's the same word they're fulfilling as the Holy Spirit filling somebody, for instance.

Ananias and Sapphira, who were believers, who'd been baptized, they were part of the early Christian church. They held back some of the promised money that they were going to give to the church.

And Peter said, you've not lied to men, you've lied to God. And Peter bound them, and they were kind of struck dead at that point.

But they became filled with Satan because, again, of greed and because of breaking their promise to God.

We also have scripture talking about, do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not give the devil a foothold in your life.

So unrighteous anger can also give the enemy a foothold in your life. And once he's got the foothold there, he can begin to work on you and influence you more and more until you become basically oppressed.

And then if you're a non -Christian, possessed, although that's very extreme and very rare. So you're going to say something?

Did you hear me inhale and you were like, she's going to speak. Yeah, like you go, she's going to speak. Go for it. Thank you.

You mentioned a few things that I just want to tap in on. Is A, a Christian being filled with a demon?

But then you mentioned oppression, and that's different from possession. Can a Christian become filled with a demon despite being filled with the

Holy Spirit? And is that considered oppression or possession? I'm just seeing when

I gave my life to God, what am I at risk of still? I think it's clear teaching in the scripture that Christians can certainly become filled with a demon, like they can become filled with the

Holy Spirit. As believers, we receive the Holy Spirit immediately upon conversion. We're born again. The whole triune

God comes to live on the inside of us. So we receive God in ourselves, and we're told that our bodies are physical temples of the

Shekinah, the residing presence of God. And so God comes to live on the inside of us. But we are a triune being ourselves.

We're body, we're soul, we're spirit. And it's our spirit that is regenerated. It's our spirit that's born again.

And it's that which is really connected to God. Our body, on the other hand, we can use for all kinds of sinful purposes.

And so therefore, it's possible for our bodies to become controlled or filled with demons whilst our spirit is still connected to God and born again.

And so I would say most Christians in their lifetime at some point or another will be controlled by a demon.

And then it's kind of recognizing that and then commanding it to go and getting yourself right with God.

No, I'd say possession is when the body of a person, the central nervous system, the mind is completely taken over.

So if you think of the man of the Gadarenes, when Jesus crossed over, and he said, we are legion for we are many.

I would say that is possession, where the actual personality of the real man is pushed to the back and the personalities of the spirits are pushed to the fore.

And therefore, it's the spirits that you're speaking to now, and not the man himself. And so I've not really come across a case of full -blown possession like that.

My friend, Ollie, I think did. He worked in a psychiatric hospital, and he's a born -again

Christian. And one evening, he was walking down the ward, and one of the people in the bed just turned around to him and said, you're a

Christian, aren't you? With a really kind of disdainful tone in their voice.

And so that person was very clearly possessed. But I've not come across that level of possession in my life.

That is. So there's a couple of things that I've heard within the sphere. And again, I like to stay in my

Sunday school mentality, because what do I do? I go to church and I consume media. I haven't had a formal education on this. So my questions come from that place of I watched that documentary called

Come Out in Jesus Name. And it's mostly about a church and the deliverance ministry.

And it's discussing how Christians can become demonized, but we cannot become possessed, but we can become oppressed.

And it's this very distinct, to deliver people from grief, to deliver people from oppression, to deliver people from skin diseases, to deliver people from all of these issues that it really, to me, illuminated a life where it's like when

I wake up and I am overcome with a feeling of I am not worthy,

I am worthless, I am unsuccessful. These horrible, horrible thoughts. I, as a

Christian, place that on like, oh, I'm becoming demonized. Do you think that's too far fetched for me to think that and be like, get behind me, you know, like obviously chase

God after that when I wake up in that way. But is it fair to attribute all of those feelings to Satan?

I would say that salvation is a three -step process. First of all, our spirit is saved.

That's the regeneration of the spirit by the Holy Spirit is what being born again is. Once our spirit is saved, then we can undergo the second stage of salvation, which is sanctification, which is a renewing of the mind.

And then the third stage of salvation, of course, is the resurrection of the body, which will come either at the rapture or if Christ returns at that time.

When Christ returns. Yeah. Sorry, it depends on your view.

I personally believe in a pre -trib rapture, but if you don't, then it's if Christ returns. So yeah, at the second coming.

So some people will say that you're giving your glorified body at the second coming or at the rapture pre -trib.

Depends on your view on that. Oh, okay. That's a future episode for us. Future.

Yeah. So salvation is a three -stage process. And so you've got the regeneration of the spirit, which is connected to God, but then you've got the fallen human mind, which we all have.

And so this fallen mind of ours, it's going to produce sinful thoughts. It's going to produce negative thoughts.

And so it's going to be kind of an enemy that we battle with as a soul in a body.

We are going to be battling even with our own thoughts. So not every negative thought is a demon, of course. Not every depression is caused by a spirit or every anxiety caused by a malevolent force.

So we really need to kind of really look at our lifestyle. Are we living in a sinful way?

Are we living in a way that's giving the devil a foothold? And I think if we are living right before the

Lord in prayer and in studying His Word and in worshipping Him and having that living relationship with Him, we will become acutely aware of as to what is demonic and just what is ourselves.

Maybe we've got out at the wrong side of the bed, or maybe we're feeling grumpy that day, or maybe like in the UK during the winter months, everybody becomes depressed because there's just no sun and it's just rain and it's cold.

So I wouldn't put those things down to demons. But that's not to say that some anxieties, some depressions, some illnesses can be caused by spirits.

I think the Bible clearly does teach that too. Interesting. So I think it's really important to distinct the fallen mind and the fallen world, and then the role of demons.

Those are separate. They both play a part, but they're not the same thing. Okay. And a demon can certainly use your fallen mind to make matters worse.

Okay. Okay, good. That's clarifying for that. Okay. So did you want to speak more on possession?

Because I cut you off with you talking about Ananias becoming filled with demons, but did you have a remaining thought there before we move on?

Just that possession, I would say, is very rare. And I think most people today that potentially are possessed, they're probably locked away somewhere.

So you don't generally get to see them in - Like in a psych ward or what do you mean? Yeah, yeah.

So they're kind of for their own safety and for the safety of others. So they're either in a psych ward or in prison or somewhere like that where they're receiving treatment.

And the treatments, of course, do not deal with the demons. It just causes the mind to become, or the brain to become so suppressed that even demons can't control it anymore because of the chemical, the drugs that are being used.

So I think that's why we don't see it as often as when we're reading through the gospels, you're seeing it on nearly every other page.

But today, I think they're hidden away, these people, they're kept away from the general public. Oh my gosh.

Okay. So just as a Christian friend, as a brother in Christ, when you see somebody that is struggling with sin, how do you decipher if maybe it's a little bit deeper than that and they're demonically oppressed?

Or if we just need to simply pray and support that person, is there a trick that you might use so you can accurately assess the severity of the situation?

Yeah. If somebody becomes oppressed by a spirit or controlled by a spirit, you will often see a difference in their countenance.

They will look different. They will sound different. They will walk differently. Their body posture will change.

Their behavioral patterns will change. And so over the years,

I've seen quite a few cases of people who are once very full of life, full of joy, full of love, full of peace.

They get entangled in some type of sin, whether it be the occult, whether it be pornography or whatever it is.

And you'll literally see them changing as the spirit begins to take over their physical body.

Their physicality changes, their voice changes. And so that's something to be on the lookout for.

Also, you'll notice that they'll begin to drop off from church attendance once they were there for every Sunday morning service,

Sunday evening prayer meeting, Bible study, social group, whatever it is. And then they begin to pull away. And that's another red flag because they're obviously falling away from the grace of God that they were once living in.

Something's going on. So that's something to watch out for, for your kind of brothers and sisters in the church and to pray for them because prayer is so powerful.

God really does listen to prayer. And when we get serious about prayer, God gets serious with us and miracles happen.

So never underestimate the power of prayer. It's so important. Wow. Okay. So it sounds like prayer is key.

Observation and accountability is key. But what about me?

I'm just a lone Christian churchgoer. What power do I hold if I do feel like I'm encountering somebody that's undergoing this?

I'm not Jesus. Thank God I'm not Jesus, but I'm also not you. I don't have this level of knowledge or depth.

So what would you give advice to someone like me that's like, I feel like so -and -so is dropping off, but what can

I do? What are we called to do? So that's a great question.

And I would say that you and me, we have absolutely no power in ourselves over demons at all.

It's just completely not dependent upon us. And that's why I'm always very skeptical of, like you mentioned the word earlier, deliverance ministries, because when you study the scriptures, there is no such ministry.

There is no such thing as a deliverance ministry in the Bible anywhere. And even the apostle

Paul was often reluctant to drive demons out of people. You more often just avoid them. What do you call that, deliverance ministry, when

Paul would do that? I would say that that's just Paul driving out a spirit because he had to, because it was annoying him.

But there is no specific. Because to me, if I'm interacting with any demon, I'm calling that deliverance, but that's not the right way.

I would say there's a danger with deliverance ministries. Well, there has been at least in my experience in the

UK, and that's all I can go on, is that people will kind of often self -appoint themselves as deliverance experts.

And then they just try and look for a demon under every rock. Any little problem you're going through, it's a demon, and you need to have like 30 sessions of counseling and deliverance and exorcism.

And then they start to kind of bring out all of the rituals and it's just all of this stuff.

You don't see any of this in the scriptures itself. And again, I'm a man of the Bible. I'm a man of scriptural faith.

And if we have to rely upon ritual or Latin verse or walking around a person seven times or binding and loosing demons and all of this just nonsense, which is involved in the deliverance ministry, then we are not relying upon the power of Jesus.

We are not relying upon his name. We are relying upon methodologies and techniques.

And you simply do not see anyone in the Bible using these methodologies and techniques.

They borrow them from different places, like Joshua walking around Jericho seven times and Jericho was a stronghold. Therefore, we have to march around this person seven times and blow a shofar in their ear to get the demon out, this kind of nonsense that you see.

What we see in the scriptures is when the apostles, when the disciples had to eventually drive a spirit out, they would simply say, in the name of Jesus, come out.

And that was it. It didn't matter what the demon was, how powerful the demon was.

God is in control. He's completely sovereign and Jesus is God. And so when you command a spirit in the name of God to come out, it obeys or it goes to the abyss.

And you and I can do that? Yeah. God lives in us, right?

So we are temples of the Shekinah, the dwelling presence of God.

That's what the Day of Pentecost was all about, by the way. That's why they saw tongues of fire coming down. It's the same fire that Moses saw in Sinai or in the burning bush.

It was the same fire that came down in Solomon's temple. And the same Shekinah returned on the

Day of Pentecost and then filled us. We are now the temple of God and God dwells within us. And so it's not us driving a demon out, it's

God in us driving a demon out. And so we need to understand that it's not how clever we are or what techniques we know or what books we've read on the subject, but that doesn't have any bearing on delivering someone at all.

It's all to do with God in us driving the demon out of the person. Yeah.

And it makes sexism so much easier when you understand that it's God doing it, not us. Yeah. So what is the role then of the armor of God?

Is that not for deliverance? That's just like a daily bread type of situation? Sure. So the armor of God, Paul uses the armor of God as a metaphor for the

Christian walk. And so Paul was a rabbi trained on the Gamaliel.

He knew the Old Testament like the back of his hand. And so what Paul does in the armor of God, he pulls from Old Testament scriptures.

And he lists them all in order saying, listen, as a Christian, this is how you should be living. So you've got the helmet of salvation, okay?

You've got the breastplate of righteousness, so live a righteous life, belt of truth, always be truthful.

You've got the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. So that's our offensive weapon. You've got the feet shod with the gospel of the good news.

So be preaching the gospel continually, share the testimony of Jesus. And so really the armor of God is describing how a

Christian should be living 24 seven. It's not something that we wake up in the morning and I put on the helmet, salvation, breastplate of righteousness.

That's kind of nonsense. Paul is saying, live in this, live this way.

And if you do this, you'll be successful in your Christian walk and you will combat the enemy and win.

I see. So he's using Old Testament language to kind of create this vision, like this visualization of like what they were already referencing in texts of like, yeah, they talk about the breastplate, the belt of the helmet, the boots and all the things.

And so any Jewish person during that time would have recognized that language and they'd be like, oh, that's what

I should do with the word of God. Yeah. So Paul is basically saying, you're a warrior. Get out there and start fighting.

That's kind of what he's saying in those scriptures. And he's putting on those Old Testament references to affirm that to us.

Okay. That definitely, again, like my misplaced mind of like the Sunday school of like, okay, so this is the armor, like what's my sword?

And it's just like, in the name of Jesus. Okay. Well, kind of ending on our last segment would be, so what happens with demons?

Like what's going to happen to them in the end? Or is the end when Jesus comes or is like, do they have a lifespan where they end now?

Like where, what's the ultimate fate for these demons? Yeah. I just want to add one extra bit onto dealing with demons in your own life, if that's okay.

Just very, very quickly. One of the clearest examples that we have is Jesus in the wilderness when

Satan comes to, well, try and tempt him. Of course he can't, but it's a test of Jesus' character.

The way that Jesus deals with Satan, again, is not marching around him seven times, blowing a shofar in his ear or doing any of these funny techniques or reading

Latin verse or any of this. Jesus deals with Satan in his own life by quoting scripture, which is the sword of the spirit, the word of God.

And so when you quote scripture and covenantal scripture, it's enormously powerful, enormously powerful.

And it really does cause Satan to flee. Jesus continually quotes from the book of Deuteronomy when he's fighting with Satan, because Deuteronomy was the marriage covenantal book between God and Israel.

And because Jesus was acting as the representative of Israel in the wilderness for 40 days, he used that covenantal book to drive

Satan away from him. Today, as believers in Jesus, we have a new covenant, and that is the writings that we find in the book of Acts all the way through to the book of Revelation.

That is the new covenant in Christ's blood. And so it's very important that as believers, we really study the book of Acts through to Revelation and that we become familiar with those scriptures, because for us, that's our covenantal pact between God and us.

And it's those scriptures that contain real power. And so if we do resist the devil by using these covenantal scriptures, the devil will flee from us.

And so in somebody else's life, in the name of Jesus, drive it out in your own life, use scripture to drive

Satan away, and he will flee if you do that. Oh my gosh. Wow.

Oh my gosh, that's so good. I'm reading Deuteronomy right now, and it's so good.

Chapter eight is just sticking with me. And I originally read chapter eight, and it's talking about like, hey,

I'm taking you into a land. This land is going to be abundant, everything you could ever want, rushing streams, honey, milk, all the things.

And when you get to a point, and God is so self -aware here, and he's just saying like, you're going to get to a point where you're going to be so overjoyed.

Remember to say thank you to me that you got all of this wealth through me and not by your own strength and your own doing.

And if you forget, then I'll destroy you. And when I first read that verse, I was so,

I was not humble. And I was like, oh, this is a verse about new age and manifestation. It's not by your own strength.

It's by God. And if you don't give God your credit, he'll destroy you. But then I reread it and I saw how directly applicable it was to me of like,

God wants to bring you into a place of abundance. He's the type of, I guess I don't want to like make that a promise on God, but God is the type of God that brings people into abundance.

And when that happens for them to remember to say thank you. So this is the type of God that we can trust wants abundance for us if he wills it.

And he just asked that we give him that credit afterwards, that we don't lack humility in our own achievements and what

God has worked for us. And yeah, I've definitely been in my own wilderness struggling with like, where are we going?

Like, what is, what is my promising? Like, what am I working towards? And you brought me here for a reason with this podcast.

So what is this for? Cause I'm very lost and very confused. And so I just, I sympathize so much with the

Israelites of like, I too would have started wondering, you know, for 40 years, that's absolutely insane for me.

It's been four months, you know, like, and I'm already in that place of like, God, where are we going?

And I just, I can trust that God is a God of abundance if he wills it when he does, if that's what he wills for me to remember to say thank you to him and credit him for all of that.

Um, so I agree with you. Deuteronomy is so powerful and some of the language it uses is just so directly stating to the things that we see today.

Like I was just reading, I think, what verse was I reading today? Let's see. Um, chapter 13 was directly speaking to me to new age practices of like, when someone speaks to you of powers.

Um, so it's not saying that like, here, I'll just read it. It was so insane to me because it's saying like, things have power.

I'm not by any means saying like that psychic was wrong, but it was chapter 13. If a prophet or one who foretells by dreams appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder.

And if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place and the prophet says, let us follow other gods, gods, you have not known, let us worship them.

You must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord, your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart, with all your soul.

So I feel like Deuteronomy is speaking to people today of like, Hey, that psychic has power.

That doesn't mean you need to start worshiping that power. All right. Uh, just because it has power doesn't mean it's the ultimate power.

And you need to recognize that like, God's kind of like spilling the beans here of like, it is real, but despite that do not suddenly switch teams.

I don't know. I love Deuteronomy. I love that you just said that because Deuteronomy has a hold on me right now. And, uh, like another thing that as Christians, maybe sometimes they kind of make a mistake like the power of demons.

Let's let's remember that all power ultimately comes from God. Any power man has comes from God.

Any power a demon has comes from God. There's not a separate kind of storehouse or warehouse of evil power that Satan draws upon to perform his wicked works.

All power and all existence ultimately come from God. And so any power that Satan has, it's power that Jesus has allowed him to have for a short period of time to fulfill

God's plan on the earth. I mean, make no mistake, Satan is on a leash.

Um, he's completely under Christ's control and any demon is. And so any power that they do have ultimately comes from God.

And that should give us assurance or reassurance that should give us peace to know that God is sovereign.

And if he allows a spirit into our life to buffet us like he did with the apostle Paul, Paul was given a messenger of Satan, an angel of Satan to buffet him and to torment him, to keep him humble because of the surpassing great revelations and visions and dreams that he was having.

Um, Paul was actually assigned a demon by God to keep him humble. And wherever Paul went, it's this demon basically followed and caused trouble for Paul and it ended in imprisonments and stonings and riots.

Uh, and that was all to keep Paul, um, in a place of humility and in a place of prayer. Uh, but demons ultimately are under the power, not of Satan, but they're under the power of God.

And so that's why we don't have to fear them, but we must fear the Lord. The visual that you just gave me is almost like when you check a hat and it's like made in China and it's like every hat, even like,

Oh, representing anything in America, it's still made in China. But it's like if you got a tag and it was like, Oh my Bible, you know, made by God.

And then you get like a demon, it's still like has a tag that says still made by God. Like everything here is made by God.

And I think absolutely like my visual would have been, you know, before in the Sunday school mentality of like there's bad power and there's good power.

And you really start like when you say God is the ruler of everything, we mean literally everything.

All right. And Satan and demons only exist because he is currently willing them to exist to fulfill his plans and purposes for humanity.

It's such a powerful note, uh, to end on, but it's just, it really like, it's something that we can continuously ponder and just be grateful that we're on the winning team.

We're serving a God that has power over everything. This is a message of joy of empowerment and to really, and of encouragement.

So I really appreciate the clean, the clean cut clarity of scripture and what is not of scripture and kind of the way that even the enemy has been diluting my mind to attribute evil in the places that there is not evil, but to really just keep my eyes focused on God and the things that he allows.

So thank you so much for this conversation. Um, can you tell me a little bit more how people can get involved with your ministry, either through your church or with reasonable faith?

Sure. So we've got a website, uh, reasonable faith dot, uh, UK, or we've got a clear spring church, uh, dot com.

So they can find me that way. Perfect. Do you have any like upcoming events that people can start looking for to join?

Um, we've got some coming up, uh, in the springtime. We're going to start the

God of hope tour again across the UK. And if there's anybody who wants to invite us to, uh, where they live, uh, drop me a line.

And so you with the God of hope tour is essentially you and yes, tell me more about that.

So I didn't explain what that was. We spoke about it before, didn't we? Um, yeah, so the God of hope is, we did, um, is an evangelistic event where I share basic Christian apologetics for the existence of God.

And then we, uh, share a very clear gospel message and we see a lot of people turning to Jesus as a result of both the evidence and the gospel.

Um, and so we do that all over the UK. We've recently come back from Ireland where we saw 25 people commit their life to Jesus, which was absolutely wonderful.

And, uh, yeah, we rely upon invitations. So if people want to invite us to come along and do this in their local church, uh, drop us a line.

That's amazing. So they should contact you at reasonable faith dot UK. Yes. Okay, great.

Well, thank you for coming on the show. We have many more topics for us to discuss and I'm very excited for them, but thank you for your wisdom and your time,

Paul. Uh, it's truly a blessing. Oh, thank you for having me. I've had such a wonderful time. All right. See you soon.