"Halloween & Demonic Activity" Program for 97.3FM WLPV out of Greenfield, MA (Wednesday 9am!)

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Hello, and thank you for listening to 97 .3 FM WLPV. My name is
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Michael Grant, and I'm the pastor of Moores Corner Church in Leverett. I'd like to invite you to join us this evening for our
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Wednesday evening service. It's at 6 .30 PM, 10 Churchill Road in Leverett.
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That's just 15 minutes outside of Greenfield, so we'd love to have you join us. If you can't, we'll post the message to our
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YouTube channels. You can search Pastor Michael Grant or Moores Corner Church on YouTube.
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We have two separate channels, but there's a lot more content on my personal channel where I cover stories and Christian news and discernment.
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And that's also where you can find my podcast, which is also on Spotify. The name of my podcast is
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Testing the Spirits. And that's how we're going to start the program out today. I'll play an episode from my podcast, and after that,
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I'll play a sermon that I preached at Moores Corner Church. But first, here's the podcast. Hello, and thank you for listening to the
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Testing the Spirits podcast. In this episode, I'm going to be talking about witchcraft and Halloween.
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Should a Christian participate in Halloween? Is that wrong, or is it a
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Christian liberty issue? Are you free to do it? And what about this thing where churches are now holding what is called trunk or treat?
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Is that a good idea? Well, let's first talk about witchcraft. Most people, when they hear the word witch, they think of something like the
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Wizard of Oz. You know, a woman in a black outfit with a pointy hat, you know, and she rides on a broom.
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And listen, that's not what a witch is. That's the cartoon version of a witch.
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That's the Disney version of witchcraft. And people look at that and they think, oh, this is all make -believe.
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And they think it's harmless because, well, it's just all, you know, fairy tales and it's not real.
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Well, here's what you need to know. Witchcraft is definitely real. Now it's exaggerated.
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What you see in Harry Potter and the things they do, that's not real, obviously. But witchcraft itself is real.
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And the way the Bible defines it and portrays it, it's basically Satan's counterfeit form of spirituality.
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So witchcraft is simply any way of seeking supernatural power, any way of having supernatural experiences through some method that God does not endorse.
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The Bible says in Deuteronomy 18, 9 through 12, the Lord speaking to the children of Israel, he says, when you come into the land, which to the
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Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations.
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There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, 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 a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead, for all who do these things are an abomination to the
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Lord. And because of these abominations, the Lord your God drives them out from before you.
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So very, very clear that the Bible condemns witchcraft and all these associated practices, which really all fall under that banner.
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So a witch is any woman who is involved in occult practices, a psychic medium, seances, palm reading, any of that kind of a thing.
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So when a woman does this, she's called a witch. When a man is involved in this, he is called a wizard or a warlock.
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But for whatever reason, this does seem to be far more common among women.
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So they're trying to find some supernatural power, have some supernatural experience outside of biblical
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Christianity. And God says anyone who does this is an abomination.
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Okay, now don't get mad at me. That's what the Bible says. So if you're a Christian and you believe the Bible, there's no room for witchcraft or any of these practices.
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They are to be completely avoided. And, you know, sometimes people will see these shops that are set up in tourist areas, right, where they practice one thing or another.
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They have palm readings for $29 .99 or they'll hold a seance. They claim to be able to contact the dead.
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And listen, I realize most of them are con artists, but, you know, that doesn't make it okay because witchcraft is real.
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And if anyone is in contact with a spirit, the scripture says that would be an unclean spirit, something like AKA a demon, basically, it's definitely not your deceased loved one they're getting in contact with because human beings either die when they die, they either go to heaven or hell.
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So these practices and all of this, you know, witchcraft, necromancy, the whole idea of ghosts contacting spirits, it's all part of the occult.
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It's all witchcraft. Human beings cannot contact spirits or they cannot contact spirits of the departed.
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You know, their loved ones who have passed on, you can't reach out to them, but that's the lie that witches will use to draw people into the dark arts.
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The scripture says about the dead in the book of Ecclesiastes nine, verse five, the dead know nothing of everything that happens in this world, or as Solomon puts it, of all that is under the sun, the dead are unaware of everything.
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They're not accessible to us. There's no way to contact them. They know nothing about what's happening here on earth.
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You might not like that, but that's what the Bible teaches. And some of those who can't accept that and they just want to contact their deceased loved one.
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So what do they do? They seek out witches, they seek out mediums, they seek out necromancers to try and make contact with the spiritual realm.
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This along with many other forbidden practices, this is what scripture calls witchcraft.
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And under the law of Moses, not only is it called an abomination, this was a crime punishable by death.
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So you can tell how the Lord feels about it. And in the new Testament, it's strictly forbidden as well.
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Here's a segment from the article put out by gotquestions .org, the ministry got questions.
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They say in the New Testament, sorcery is translated from the Greek word pharmakia, from which we get our word pharmacy,
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Galatians 5 .20, Revelation 18 .23. Witchcraft and spiritism often involve the ritualistic use of magic potions and mind -controlling drugs.
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Using illicit drugs can open ourselves up to the invasion of demonic spirits, engaging in a practice or taking a substance to achieve an altered state of consciousness is, according to gotquestions, it is a form of witchcraft.
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There are only two sources of spiritual power, God and Satan. Satan has only the power that God allows him to have, but it is considerable,
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Job 1 .12, along with 2 Corinthians 4 .4. To seek spirituality, knowledge, or power apart from God is idolatry closely related to witchcraft, 1
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Samuel 15 .23. That verse says for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
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Witchcraft is Satan's realm and he excels in counterfeiting what God does.
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When Moses performed miracles before Pharaoh, the magicians did the same thing through demonic power,
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Exodus 8 .7. At the heart of witchcraft is the desire to know the future and to control events that are not ours to control.
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Those abilities belong only to God. This desire to have or take that control has its roots in Satan's first temptation to Eve in Genesis 3 .5,
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when he says, you can be like God. Isaiah 8 .19 says, and when they say to you, seek those who are mediums and wizards who whisper and mutter, should not a people seek their
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God? So clearly Christians should have nothing to do with this practice. Now what about Halloween?
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So this is kids dressing up, going door to door, churches, doing trunk or treat, anything like that.
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Typically in evangelical churches, it's the general consensus this is a
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Christian liberty issue, meaning churches leave it up to the individual to decide.
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But with that said, I'll close by playing clips from two well -known Christian teachers.
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First Mike Winger, who takes a softer approach, but still has some real concerns.
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And then I'll close with what Pastor John MacArthur has to say about Halloween.
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So let's listen in. What I won't do is I won't, I won't say that, that this day of the dead person that who's contacting and doing a seance to contact the dead relative, but I'm not going to say that they are, they're doing the same thing as this little girl dressed up like a princess going door to door.
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Like we cannot say these are the same things, but they sure do all happen around the same time, you know? And they do somehow start to mingle in some places.
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And so it becomes complicated. You don't want to demonize this little girl yet. You don't want to create a bridge to something weird for believers.
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And I mean, if I have my opinion as a pastor, if I could just like snap my fingers and make Halloween go away, I absolutely would do it in a heartbeat.
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It would just be like, oh good problem solved. But I would never get up and preach that you can't take your kid out to get candy because some satanist is doing a ritual that day.
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Like that's just that doesn't connect. Do you think Christians should celebrate Halloween? No, it's just ridiculous.
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What is it? What is it about this? A bunch of feels more demonic every every year.
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And you know, they start pumping out all these books and all these movies and all these television programs that are just satanic.
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Fantasies of horror and just awful. No, just avoid it.
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Okay. There you have it. Some people agree, some won't, but that's the podcast.
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Thanks for listening. And until next time, may the Lord be with you. Have a great day. So this evening we're going to be looking at the subject of demonic possession versus demonic oppression or demonic influence.
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So let me begin with a story. Okay. Several years ago, a gentleman walked into the church on Sunday morning and someone noticed that his wife wasn't with him.
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So they asked because they always came in together. Hey, you know, where's your so and so?
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Where's your wife? I won't mention their names. They don't attend here anymore. But where's your wife?
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And he said, oh, she's not coming to church this morning. The devil got into her.
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And so that was probably a figure of speech. And of course, it's generally accepted that born again.
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Christians cannot actually be possessed by the devil. And I don't think he was saying that.
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Maybe he was joking. Maybe he was half kidding. I don't know.
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But what I think he was communicating is that she was either influenced by the flesh or the devil, maybe enough to where she was just she didn't want to worship
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God that day, whatever happened. And listen, we've all probably felt that way. So it's not to be hard on her.
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But does the devil get into us? Maybe not inside like the devil's possessing us, but does the devil influence us?
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You see, there's Christians who listen to this and they just dismiss it like, yeah, I know that in the
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Bible, that type of thing happened, but it doesn't really happen today. It's not like we would ever experience anything like that.
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And then other Christians realize that, no, this is real. This type of thing does happen.
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So you have demonic possession and demonic oppression. And they're two different things.
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So who believes that demons are real? I do. I was in law enforcement.
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Okay. So whatever your reaction is to this, let's define our terms and then we'll look at what the scripture says.
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So here's how demon possession is defined. A spirit enters into a person.
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Probably we're talking about people most of the time or some living being. And the demon controls that person's behavior.
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Okay. The Bible, according to the Bible, the symptoms of demonic possession include the inability to speak, seizures, people throwing themselves on the ground, immodesty, nakedness, self harm, excessive strength and screaming, or what
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I might describe as like a shrieking sound. Typically we think of demons only inhabiting people.
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But if you remember in Mark chapter five, Jesus commanded the demons to come out of a man and they entered into what a herd of swine, at which point the pigs ran violently to their death off of a cliff.
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Okay. So that's demonic possession. It's in the Bible. It's described. And when someone is demonically possessed, it's clear there is something very, very wrong.
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Demonic affliction or demonic oppression is different. The person who is possessed is owned by the demon, right?
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You think of the term possession, the demon owns them and controls them. But the person who is demonically influenced or oppressed, they can control their behavior.
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The demon possessed person can't control it. The demon oppressed person can control their behavior.
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So here's a good definition I found for demonic oppression. It says, as Satan attempted with Jesus in Luke four, verse two, demonic forces tempt us to sin and oppose our efforts to obey
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God. Should a Christian allow the demons to succeed in these attacks?
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Oppression results. Demonic oppression is when a demon is temporarily victorious over a
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Christian, successfully tempting a Christian to sin and hindering his ability to serve
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God with a strong testimony. If a Christian continues to allow demonic oppression in his or her life, the oppression can increase to the point that the demon has a very strong influence over the
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Christian's thoughts, behavior, and spirituality. Christians who allow continuing sin open themselves up for greater and greater oppression.
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So hopefully, can you all see the difference? Demonic possession, where the person really can't control themselves.
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It's very obvious something is seriously wrong. And then demonic oppression, which isn't always as obvious, but the person is in control of that.
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All right. Any questions to start with? Yeah. Yeah.
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I have problems of impure thought. I am suffering from demonic oppression, is that correct?
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Not necessarily. I think that is a possibility of the flesh, right?
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Because sin can come from Jesus has three categories, the world, the flesh, and the devil. So if you're having wrong thoughts, is that possible that there could be demonic influence?
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I think it's possible, but I don't think we can say that's definitely what it is. It could be the flesh, like you've seen things in the past and they come to mind and it's, it's your flesh.
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We don't, here's what we don't want to do. And I'm going to talk about this more later. We can't blame everything on demons, right?
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Or demonic activity. It's like the person, you know, the devil made me do it. You can't blame it on that all the time.
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So let's turn to first Samuel chapter 16. But just to start out with, I want us to all recognize the difference between demonic possession and demonic oppression or demonic affliction.
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Okay. First Samuel chapter 16. This of course is the story of King Saul. King Saul was demonically oppressed or demonically afflicted.
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I do not believe that King Saul was demon possessed. The scripture indicates he was oppressed by an evil spirit.
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And we see that the evil spirit had a real impact on his behavior.
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Incidentally, King Saul, you remember was replaced by King David and even
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David, the man after God's own heart, David allowed the devil to get a foothold.
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Didn't he? When he committed adultery with Bathsheba and David did not immediately confess this sin and because of that, he recounts in Psalm 32,
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David says, when I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all day long for day and night.
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Your hand, God's hand was heavy upon me. He said, my vitality was turned into the drought of summer.
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So David living in sin, he could feel it in his body. Now it doesn't say that David was specifically afflicted by a demon, but he felt like the joy in the life was being sucked out of him until he finally confessed his sin and got right with God.
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At which point he says in Psalm 51, create in me a clean heart,
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Oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. And that's what God did.
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And then David goes on to say, I'm going to teach sinners these things and they'll be converted to the
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Lord. And I think this is a message that people need to hear, whether it's a Christian who has given the devil a foothold or it's an unbeliever who's just living in misery with no hope, uh, either way,
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I think this, this message applies. Okay. So King Saul here in first Corinthians or excuse me, first Samuel 16, uh,
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Saul started out. Well, uh, he was chosen by God to be King and he didn't end well.
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Did he? Why? Because he started rebelling against God. He definitely allowed the devil to get a foothold.
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All right. First Samuel 16, 13 says, then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him.
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This is David in the midst of his brothers and the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.
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So Samuel arose and went to Rama, but the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul.
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So you see that the spirit comes upon David, but the spirit leaves Saul and a distressing spirit from the
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Lord troubled Saul and Saul's servants said to him, surely a distressing spirit from God is troubling you.
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Let our master now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is a skillful player on the harp.
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And it shall be that when he will play it with his hand, when the distressing spirit of God is upon you, you shall be well.
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So Saul said to his servants, provide me now a man who can play well and bring him to me.
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Now skip down to verse 23. It says, and so it was whenever the spirit from God was upon Saul, that distressing spirit that David would take a harp and play it with his hand.
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Then Saul would become refreshed and well, and the distressing spirit would depart from them.
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Now, does it sound like Saul is demon possessed and he can't control his behavior? Now, if Saul was possessed, the spirit wouldn't come and go, right?
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The spirit would just stay. So we all agree Saul was not demon possessed. OK, but the
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Holy Spirit departed from Saul and I know we can debate whether Saul was saved and is he in heaven today?
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And I don't want to get sidetracked on that. But the Holy Spirit departed. And here's what confuses people.
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Those of you who use the King James Version, which I love the King James Version, and I don't think this is a problem, but I understand why people would be confused.
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What does the King James say? Right. An evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.
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You say, well, wait a minute. How can if it's from God, how can it be an evil spirit?
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Right. And the new King James says a distressing spirit. But either way,
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I think the explanation is simple. If demons do something and again, a lot of people just dismiss this and I don't know about that.
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Well, it's in the Bible, so we have to deal with it somehow. If demons do something, God is allowing them to do it.
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And if God is allowing demons to do something, God has a reason to allow it. At times we see this, the demons do what the
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Lord says. Right. And the New Testament, Jesus would command the demon and the demon would do whatever
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Jesus told them to do. The Protestant reformer Martin Luther said about Satan, he said
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Satan is God's devil. So the distressing spirit from the
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Lord, I believe, was a demon, but God sent it or at least allowed it to trouble
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Saul. Yes. I mean, you could say God did create Lucifer and he fell.
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So that's the and you said you didn't want to get sidetracked, so I'm trying not to.
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OK, but isn't it fair to say that a born again believer cannot be demonically possessed?
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Right. You're getting ahead of me. We're going to cover all of this. So, yeah, I agree that a believer cannot be demon possessed.
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OK, I mean, some people will disagree with that and I'll cover those who disagree. Yes. And can't we also say that someone that is leading a spiritual life and striving with all their being to live for the
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Lord can expect oppression, can expect the enemy? Why wouldn't the enemy?
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It's why we have to pray for you, because if I was the enemy, you would be the one
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I would want to knock off. Sure. Yeah. OK, and I don't want anyone.
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Let's let's say there's somebody thinking right now, yeah, I think I have felt like this oppression now that it's described this way.
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I think I've I've felt this. I think any Christian, I think every Christian has felt it, whether they categorize it this way or not.
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This is very common. Now, possession is a totally different thing, right? OK, so like I said,
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Martin Luther said that and I agree with this, Satan is God's devil. Remember the beginning of the book of Job?
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We see that Satan presents himself before God. Satan really had little to no ability to do anything unless God permitted him to do it.
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So God is in control of all of this. And what's happening in the spiritual realm? We simply don't know.
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We have a little bit of insight that we get from scripture, but we don't know more than we do know.
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I think that's safe to say. OK, so Saul is being oppressed by this evil spirit from God.
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Flip over to first Samuel 18. Saul now is prone to questionable judgment, the fear of man.
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He struggles with bouts of anger and depression. And again, you don't don't hear me saying that anyone who struggles with anger, depression or questionable judgment has a demon.
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That's not what's being said. But these are some of the influences. Right. I look at first Samuel 18, verse six says, now it happened as they were coming home when
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David was returning from the slaughter of the Philistines, that the women had come out of all the cities singing and dancing to meet
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King Saul with tambourines, with joy and with musical instruments. So the women sang as they danced.
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And they said Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands.
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Do you think this made Saul very happy? He's being outshined by this young kid.
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Right. Verse eight. Then Saul was very angry and the saying displeased him.
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And he said, they have ascribed to David ten thousands. And to me, they've only ascribed just a few thousand.
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Saul's feeling sorry for himself. And he's he's upset. And he says now, what more can
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David have but the kingdom? So now he's worried about his position. So it says
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Saul eyed David from that day forward. So does it sound like Saul is starting to give the devil a foothold?
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Oh, yeah. And look at the next verse. And it happened on the next day that the distressing spirit from God came upon Saul and he prophesied inside the house.
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It doesn't tell us what he said. Sometimes I wonder if he was speaking a curse over his life or I don't
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I don't know what he said. So David played music with his hand, as at other times.
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But there was a spear in Saul's hand and Saul cast the spear and said,
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I will pin David to the wall. But David escaped his presence twice.
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So Saul or now Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with him, but he had departed from Saul.
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Therefore, Saul removed him, David, from his presence. And what did he do? He made
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David his captain over a thousand men. The thing about what just happened here,
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Saul tries to kill David, and then the next thing he makes him a captain in his military.
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Now, does that make a lot of sense to you? That doesn't seem like a very wise thing to do. What's happening?
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Saul is under satanic or demonic influence. So he's he's doing illogical things.
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Sin will cause people to do some very illogical things.
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But Saul, who is made king by God, put in that position by God himself, is now paranoid, which is why it says that he was eyeing
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David from that day forward. And this happens again in the next chapter to the evil spirit comes upon him again.
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And we see this back and forth in Saul's life. Sometimes he feels bad. And, yeah, David is really a great guy.
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And I'm sorry, David. And then the next minute he's trying to kill him and then he goes back. And right. If you've read the story, you remember that back and forth.
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So I think this is a good example with King Saul. It's a good example of a man who sinned.
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He continued to sin. He let the devil get a foothold in his life. And then because of that, he suffered from demonic oppression.
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OK, to me, that's pretty clear what's happening. Here's the thing, all of that could have been avoided.
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Here's a verse or two. James chapter four, verses six through eight says
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God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. King Saul started out a humble man, started out well, but then he became very proud and he wanted to do things his way instead of God's way.
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And because of that, that was his downfall. So God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
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James four, seven. Therefore, here's the solution. Submit to God, resist the devil and what the devil will flee from you.
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But if you're not resisting the devil, what's he going to do? He's going to stick around. And if he's sticking around, you're going to feel the affliction.
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And that's what Saul did. James four, eight. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded.
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So this is good advice. But it's also good news that demonic oppression or affliction, whatever you want to call it, it is avoidable and it's fixable.
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The person who's demon possessed. I mean, this is a whole other level of bad. Yes, I'm reminded because we're talking about spiritual matters here and on the other side of things, we're familiar with Proverbs three, five and six.
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It says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean on your own understanding and all your ways.
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Acknowledge him and he will direct your path. So acknowledging God and saying, wow,
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I'm seeing God at work somewhere in my life or in some other area.
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If you acknowledge him, he'll direct your paths and you'll be heading the right direction.
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By the same token, if you recognize Satan's satanic spiritual things, if you just resist him, you say, oh,
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I know, I know where that's coming from. Yeah. If, you know,
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I announced to you all how the Lord has led me to teach fourth grade and one of my dear friends said, are you sure?
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Are you sure you're up to teaching? And I almost said, get thee behind me because I said, no,
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I'm not sure. But I am sure of the Lord. So resist, just be aware of these spiritual things.
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Don't be so involved in the physical.
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Yeah, but I know there's somebody thinking right now, oh, please give me a break. Demonic influence, oppression, whatever, you know, and they're going to dismiss it.
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But OK, I think that's what the devil would want you to do. Like, yeah, I don't know if this is real.
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The devil tried to do this with Jesus, and obviously it didn't work with Jesus. And Jesus had to say, get behind me,
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Satan. And he was tempted in the wilderness and he never gave in. But we give in, don't we?
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At times we do give in. OK, so submit to God. That is, we must obey
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God and resist the devil. If you fail or I should say when you fail and give in, what do you do right away?
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Confess your sin. And turn away from it, because the other option is to kind of let things slide, continue to do it again and again, and by failing to fight that spiritual battle, we open ourselves up to the oppression.
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So believers have this promise. If you draw near to God, he will draw near to you.
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Draw near to God. That may include and may require you to make some serious changes in your life on how you live day to day.
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But the promise is pretty, pretty clear. It might be difficult, but it's possible.
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OK, so that's demonic influence, affliction, oppression. Now let's look at demonic possession.
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Let's turn to Matthew 17. And I'll just be honest with you, apart from what's said in scripture,
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I know very little or I know I could say I know nothing about it apart from what's in scripture.
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Right, because we all have our own thoughts and ideas about this. But honestly, if it's not stated in the
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Bible, I don't really know what's going on in the spiritual realm and I don't want to be reckless and speculate.
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There's a lot of people online who will speculate and I'm going to try to be biblical here.
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Right. That's what we always want to do. So like I said, I'm not an expert.
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I don't know that much about this, but I do know what the Bible says, because what are some of the misconceptions?
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Right. We've all heard like the Catholic priest with the crucifix in the holy water. And there's that movie,
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The Exorcist, right? I want to ask who's seen The Exorcist, but I mean, that's kind of in pop culture.
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Like everyone's heard of this. Is that really the way it happens? Is that really how you cure demons?
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See, there's all this stuff out there that's not really in the Bible. So we want to be biblical.
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And then the other big question is, how do you differentiate demonic possession from the serious mental illnesses?
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That's a pretty touchy subject, dangerous. And people are very reckless sometimes where they just want to categorize everything as demonic possession.
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And I don't think we can do that. So this is a challenging subject, and it's probably why so few bother to address it.
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Why are so before we read this passage, why are some people demon possessed? I don't know.
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Honestly, I don't know why people are demon possessed. I would assume that people get demon possessed by playing with Ouija boards and having seances and inviting the spirit in and all of that.
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But honestly, I don't I don't know that the Bible never says that. LSD was pretty good, too.
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You know, I think there are some people that maybe you're on, you know, drugs maybe can push them over the edge or lead them in that direction.
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But yeah, I don't I don't know. I want to stick to what the scripture says. So Matthew 17, starting in verse 14, says when they had come to the multitude, a man came to him.
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And this is Jesus kneeling down to him, saying, Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely.
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We often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.
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So is this young child into seances and Ouija boards? Well, it doesn't say
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I'm thinking probably not, but we don't know. It does seem like some people are demonically possessed and there's like no reason there's no obvious reason for it.
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The chapter 17, Matthew 17. Yes. Verse starting verse 14.
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Now, a few other things, the Old Testament, this is something that I just kind of discovered while studying this.
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The Old Testament, the Old Testament doesn't really mention demonic possession hardly at all.
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Actually, I think I don't think it mentions it a single time, which I thought was interesting.
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But when you see the ministry of Jesus and the disciples, Christ ministry in particular, it's like there's a flood of demonic activity around the ministry of Jesus.
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And then it carries over to the ministry of the apostles, which is what I would expect because they want to hinder the
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Lord's work. Right. But after Jesus and the disciples, after the first century, where did all those demons go?
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You know, where were they before? Where did they go? I still assume that they're active in the world.
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But, you know, I have to be honest, the Bible doesn't give us concrete answers with this stuff.
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Yeah. Don't you think that what it's talking about when it when the verse that says that Jesus came in the fullness of time, the world needed him.
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Couldn't couldn't stay with his father any longer. He had to come. Yeah.
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Like I said, there's a lot of speculation. OK. Matthew 17, verse 17. So they bring this child to Jesus because he according to them.
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What's his problem? Lunatic. Yeah. OK. King James says lunatic.
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Modern translations say epileptic. Of course, that raises questions.
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Right. Verse 17. Then Jesus answered and said, Oh, faithless and perverse generation.
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How long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to me.
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And Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of him. And the child was cured from that very hour.
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So this is a child who's demon possessed. OK, let's turn to Mark chapter five. But the thing that kind of jumps out at me is that it says he's an epileptic.
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So we have to realize that that doesn't mean that it's epilepsy like we think of today.
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It could be. It might not be. Could demon possession cause that?
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It might. It might not. Could it give symptoms that just look like epilepsy?
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Maybe. Maybe. See, we don't really know. One thing we do know for sure is that this child,
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I mean, his life was not like there was something obviously wrong with him.
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And Jesus said it was a demon and the demon was trying to harm the child, right?
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You'd fall into the fire, fall into the water. OK, one commentator says this. I think this is important.
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So if you haven't been listening, listen to this. This is really key. It is important not to label every depressed person, angry person or epileptic individual as demon possessed.
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You can't say that. You can't say that while they have this problem, this illness, therefore must be a demon.
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You can't do that. On the other hand, Western cultures probably do not take satanic involvement in people's lives seriously enough.
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So you can't blame everything on demons and Satan, but you don't want to just dismiss all of this.
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The truth is somewhere in between. Where exactly? Again, I'm not sure
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I know. So where does that leave us? Just to comment on this idea that every illness is somehow caused by a demon.
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This is actually a growing movement within the charismatic Pentecostal world.
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In fairness, not all charismatics believe this. So but many of them are now saying that if you have any bad and I've talked to people who believe this and they were taught this.
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If you have any bad habit, any illness, any addiction, it is the result of a demon.
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So if someone is an alcoholic, they have the demon of alcoholism. Who's heard this? I mean, this is taught more than you think.
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I think that's a stretch at best, totally false at worst. Could demons be involved? Yeah, they could.
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But there is a resurgence in this charismatic deliverance ministry where now there's all these
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Protestant ministers who are casting out demons. And I think we need to be very, very careful with that.
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And they say some of them, the more extreme teachers that are very popular online, they say that Christians can be demon possessed and that Christians need to cast out demons either on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
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I mean, think about that. I totally reject that 100 percent.
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If you ever hear someone teaching that, I would just recommend you do not listen to that at all.
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You could buy one of their prayer quads. Yeah. And of course, there's people who try to make money off it, too.
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But I just think that's false. But remember, and I'm not trying to pick on charismatics and Pentecostals, but they believe you can lose your salvation.
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So if you can lose your salvation, then yeah, you can do something. Now you're not saved.
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Now you are open to potential demonic possession. So I just think that's a really dangerous, slippery slope that we don't even want to go near.
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OK, look at what a demon possessed person looks like. We were talking about demon oppression before.
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Now look at demon possession. Very, very different. Mark five, verse one.
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Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes, who sort of the maniac of Gadara.
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Right. This is that this is that story. And when he had come out of the boat, Jesus immediately there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit who had his dwelling among the tombs and no one could bind him.
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So he has that kind of superhuman strength, not even with chains, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains.
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And the chains had been pulled apart by him and the shackles broken in pieces. Neither could anyone tame him.
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And always day and night, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones.
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When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshipped him. And he cried out with a loud voice and said,
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What have I to do with you, Jesus, son of the most high God? I implore you by God that you do not torment me.
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So you notice the demon recognizes Jesus and the demons afraid of Jesus. He knows that Jesus can just send him to the abyss, send him to hell.
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Really, if you wanted to. Verse eight, Jesus said to him, come out of the man unclean spirit.
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So a demon unclean spirit would believe the same thing. Then Jesus asked him, what is your name?
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And he answered, who's speaking the man? Now it's the demon speaking. He answered,
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My name is Legion, for we are many. So this man is not just possessed by a demon.
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He's possessed by well, he says Legion. And back then, a Legion was like six thousand or more soldiers.
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So, I mean, if that if we take that literally, that this man is possessed by six thousand demons,
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I mean, that, I guess, is a possibility. But obviously, this is an extreme case, right?
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I mean, if you're possessed by that many, this is extreme. But if you think of all and examine all the
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New Testament examples of demon possession, it's not just someone who's living in sin and they're struggling with it and they're, you know, dealing with all this stuff in their life.
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No, this is very, very serious. It's obvious that he's demon possessed or that there's something very wrong.
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Again, I don't know everything about this, but this is just my personal story.
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OK, don't take this as doctrine. But when
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I go through Greenfield, you know, it's it's hard not to notice just the people who walk the street.
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Some of them, their behavior, some of them is very, very bizarre, right? They're not just talking to themselves, which we all do, right?
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We don't typically talk to ourselves in public, but they're having full blown conversations with themselves.
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And some of the people I'm talking to are like shouting at themselves. Presumably they're shouting at the voice in their head.
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Is that drugs? Is that mental illness? Is it demon possession? Is it a combination of those things?
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Lord knows. But again, we can't just dismiss that as a possibility, but we can't say, yes, this is definitely what it is, because how would you how do you know?
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How do you discern? So there's a lot we don't know. Well, we do know demonic possession is real.
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Demonic oppression is real. So there are very powerful unseen forces out there.
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So don't dismiss it here. Here's the takeaway after all of this. Here's what we need to do.
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We need as Christians, we believe that a believer cannot be demon possessed.
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Why? My response would be the Bible says greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world of Ephesians 430, that we should not grieve the
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Holy Spirit of God, by which we are sealed until the day of redemption. The believer has the
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Holy Spirit who has sealed us until the day of redemption.
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So we who are saved, we cannot lose our salvation. We cannot be possessed by a demon, but we can be oppressed.
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You might you might say, well, I don't believe that. And hey, you know, again, that's your opinion.
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From studying this, I believe many Christians not only can be demonically afflicted, but many of us probably are.
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I'll be honest with you. I think I can think of times in my life where I have felt oppressed, not possessed.
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I don't want to scare anyone, but yeah, I felt demonic oppression.
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But you have to recognize this is a spirit. And then there's the flesh that we deal with. So it is a challenging subject.
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Here's the takeaway. Don't give Satan a foothold. When you sin, confess it right away.
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Turn away from it. But if you do it again, you don't confess it and you do it again and again.
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Now the devil has a foothold, right? That's the term we're using. And once he has a foothold, we keep doing it.
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It gets worse and worse. That's where we feel the oppression. So I think there are people in this world,
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Christians, who Christianity is not working for them. There's no joy.
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There's something very wrong. They know there's something wrong. But they also know that there's this behavior they're involved in that they're just not dealing with.
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And that may be the source of the problems. So what's the solution?
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Turn away from it. James four, seven through eight. Therefore, submit to God.
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Resist the devil. And what he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
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Amen. Okay. Thanks for listening. I hope you found this helpful. If you would like to contact me, visit our website, morriscornerchurch .com
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and you can send a message through the portal. Also, don't forget to check out our YouTube channel.
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So Pastor Michael Grant on YouTube. And we're trying to get the word out as much as possible.
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So that's radio, YouTube, also the podcast Testing the
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Spirits on Spotify. So thanks for listening. And until next time, may the