April 15, 2026 Show with Dr. Keith Evans on “Developing an Awareness of the Demonic in Biblical Counseling” (Part 1)

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

The Program Intro and Psalm 27:17

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 15th day of April, 2026.

Chad Ripperger, Roman Catholic Exorcism, and the Guest Introduction

Many of you who watch podcasts may have become familiar with an individual named Chad Ripperger, who is a Roman Catholic exorcist and has become a very popular guest on some of the most widely viewed podcasts, such as Tucker Carlson's program and the program hosted by ex-Navy SEAL Sean Ryan, just to name a couple.

Well, because of the fact that this self-professed exorcist is a Roman Catholic and a traditionalist Roman Catholic, and I've heard him myself intermingle idolatry and necromancy into his discussions on how he believes he successfully exercises demons, I thought it would be a very wise thing to have a theologically Reformed individual who is knowledgeable about the demonic realm on the program, and we have such a person today named Dr. Keith Evans.

He is Associate Professor of Christian Counseling at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina, and a former director of the Biblical Counseling Institute and Academic Dean at Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

And he is going to be addressing the theme of his doctoral dissertation today, Developing an Awareness of the Demonic in Biblical Counseling, a Conversation with William Perkins. And we'll also be having Dr. Keith Evans provide a Reformed analysis of the aforementioned popular Roman Catholic exorcist, Chad Rippager.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Dr. Keith Evans.

Thank you so much for having me. It's my honor and privilege.

Well, before we go into the subject matter at hand, as a first-time guest, I always have my first-time guests provide for our listeners a summary of their salvation testimony, including the kind of religious atmosphere, if any, in which you were raised and the kind of providential circumstances our sovereign Lord rose up in your life that drew you to Himself and saved you.

So, I would love to hear your story. Yeah, absolutely. So, I'm an only child.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and actually raised in the PCUSA. And my family and I, we didn't realize we found ourselves in a liberal denomination. It was just a solid local church where we actually had the senior pastor was trained at Princeton and denied the bodily resurrection of Christ, inerrancy, infallibility of Scripture.

And the associate pastor was trained was a five-point Calvinist, and that church, of course, was headed toward a split. But we just loved the preaching of the associate pastor, and I grew up from the youngest of ages sitting under the preaching of the Word, hearing the gospel from that associate pastor, and my parents, of course, speaking the gospel into my life.

I was born and raised in the 80s, and such was the time that you prayed the sinner's prayer, I feel like, half a dozen times in your upbringing. So, my parents wanted to make sure that I was saved. But probably around junior high school was when I really apprehended Christ for myself, just understood I need to be walking personally with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Again, I always knew that I was a sinner in need of a Savior, but really laid hold of my faith in junior high school. And honestly, it was shortly thereafter in ninth grade that I began to even discern the potential callings to ministry, just loving the Lord and the things of the Lord.

And what else would I do with my life than spend full time studying His Word and teaching others about His Word? So, that's a little bit about the Lord's sovereign grace in my life from the very youngest of ages, even into the call to ministry.

And what did the Lord use in your life that convinced you that you should enter into the field of biblical counseling and even more focused on the demonic realm, to the point at which you actually wrote your doctoral dissertation on that subject?

Yeah. So, I mentioned ninth grade, the beginning to perceive the call to ministry. I was in a verse-by-verse, book-by-book Bible study, and I just fell in love with this idea of studying the Scriptures.

And I told my senior pastor—this was when I was in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, coming out of the PCA, USA, into the EPC—and told my EPC pastor at the time, you know, I just, I love this. I want to do this for my life.

And, you know, when you're a youth, you think, well, you'll only minister to youths. So, I thought, well, maybe I'll be a youth minister or something. And then I had a class, senior year of high school, that was taught by, well, really a heathen.

I mean, he would stand up in front of the classroom and he would mock God, kind of in a Nebuchadnezzar-type way. You know, I built my life. I did this. If there is a God, let Him strike me dead. I sat way in the back of the classroom, just in case, you know, the Lord took him up on that offer.

But he was a—he taught psychology, and he was an incredible teacher, even if he was, you know, kind of a rank heathen. And I fell in love with the idea of caring for the individual in that class. So, I went to my EPC pastor and I said, I'd love to study the Scriptures verse by verse, book by book, but I'd love to care for the individual.

You know, maybe I could be a pastor of counseling. And he said, that's called a pastor. Why don't you go to seminary? And, you know, then you'll have plenty of opportunity to be ministering to individuals.

And it was in seminary that I came to love the Reformed faith and understand the Reformed faith. And that's when my Reformation process began much more. And after I was in pastoral ministry for seven years, my alma mater, where I received my master's of divinity, was knocking on the door to say, come back and replace your mentor of counseling and be the professor of counseling.

And so, after seven years, I did so and began my study in—my PhD studies. And I asked the seminary board at the time what I should study, and I gave them three proposals—theology of emotions, an understanding of 1 Corinthians 7 and desertion, with what's going on there with biblical grounds for divorce and desertion, or a Reformed understanding of the demonic.

And the seminary board said, we're not telling you what to do, but do the demonic. So, that was what was the nudge to begin studying a Reformed.

Understanding of the demonic at the doctoral level. Oh, great. Well, this is a subject, and I'm wondering if you agree with me, that in the Reformed faith—whether you're a Presbyterian or a Reformed Baptist—it seems to be a subject, and I'm speaking of the demonic realm, that is shied away from.

It is even to the point of being ignored. It may come up in a sermon if the text is describing the demonic realm. But other than that, it seems that there is a fear amongst many in the Reformed faith to delve too deeply into the study of this subject, to acknowledge the danger of it in the 21st century, and to really view things that are going on in the way that the demonic realm may be interacting in those spheres of our life.

Can you give us your own opinion on that? Yeah, absolutely. As somebody who's found himself in.

Why the Reformed World Often Avoids the Demonic

The Reformed world for at least 20 years, I've found that this is a topic that people hear that I studied, and they have one of two responses. Either kind of an undue fascination—let me tell you all of my demon stories, and let me ask you about all of my demon stories, because I have nowhere else to park this—or holding me at arm's length like, you must be odd and weird.

And I think that reflects rather a famous quote by C .S. Lewis, and I'm not going to have the exact quote in front of me, but the paraphrase is that devils would love for us to make one of two errors, that we would be overly fascinated by them, or that we would functionally dismiss them altogether.

And I, at least my experience in the Reformed world, I've found that it's predominantly the second part, that the Reformed world just kind of wants to stick their head in the sand and functionally pretend like the demonic realm isn't real.

I mean, of course we believe in the other kingdom, of course, you know, Satan is one of our great enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil, but we have such a neat and tidy view of the flesh—and hey, praise God that we do have a robust understanding of the flesh—but we have such a neat and tidy understanding of total depravity and sin and so forth, that we have no functional need for the devil, and then any talk of the devil, at least in our Reformed sensibilities, smacks of being charismatic or Pentecostal, and we don't want any of that.

So, for instance, just this past October, I was presenting at a conference and about 3 ,000 or so folks, and presenting on a Reformed understanding of the demonic, a historic understanding of it, and multiple people came up to me and asked if it was even appropriate to talk about that.

Is it even appropriate to study it? And so I do think that that reveals kind of our predisposition against the notion.

Yes, and the interesting thing is, this was not always the case until probably the 20th century, am I correct, in the Reformed faith?

Well, that's why in my doctoral studies, I went back to the Puritans, 1500s, and up at least until the time of the writing of the great confessions that we have, as far as the Westminster Confession or the London Baptist Confession, these thinkers, our Reformed forefathers, had a really robust understanding.

And by that, I don't mean fanciful or fantastical or wild, but biblical, theological, faithful understanding of the demonic as it arose out of the Scriptures and as applied to pastoral ministry. So I went back to these great fathers of the faith, and there's a lot of propaganda, I'd say, that surrounds the Puritans.

Oh, you know, we don't want the excesses of the Puritans. Look at the witch trials in England, as well as the witch trials in the New World, as far as Salem witch trials are perhaps the most famous. We don't want that excess, so why would we go back to the Puritans?

But if you read the clergy, you read the theologians, they were faithful and biblical. There were none of these excesses that you perhaps would associate with, you know, quote-unquote Puritanism that isn't actually Puritanism.

So yes, we've had quite a robust heritage in the Reformed world, as far as an understanding of the demonic.

Now, what did you highlight, even in the title of your doctoral dissertation, Developing an Awareness of the Demonic in Biblical Counseling, in conversation with William Perkins, who was a 16th-century Puritan?

Why did you bring him up?

Yes, so I found myself studying all of the Puritans, and I just had way too much information to write a single dissertation on all of the Puritans. They wrote significant tomes on the demonic, on demonology.

And so I was working with my advisor, and I'm like, this is like seven, eight dissertations. This isn't just one. He said, well, why don't you pick a representative voice? And William Perkins really stands as that representative voice.

He's perhaps one of the first, if not first Puritans, and he's certainly the popularizer of Puritan thought, writing in the late 1500s. And you see Puritans after him drawing down on everything that he wrote.

So he really does stand as the fountainhead of the Puritan thought on the demonic, as well as representative of Puritan thought on the demonic. So that's why I worked with William Perkins. Everybody was quoting him, and he had his fingerprints over everybody that came after him, even if they weren't necessarily citing him by name.

And can you tell us about, in your experience as a biblical counselor and your study of this demonic realm, how are demons and perhaps even Satan himself manifesting themselves in our 21st century setting, even in the lives of born-again believers?

Now, I'm assuming that you would believe, like every theologically Reformed Christian and every cessationist Christian that I've ever encountered, that the Christians cannot be demon-possessed, but there may be some kind of an oppression going on from demons.

Perhaps you could even tell us about the difference between those two and explain how you believe or why you believe that the demonic realm is rearing its ugly head, even in the lives of unfortunate souls today.

Yeah, there's a lot there to unpack. Maybe I'll start with the counseling aspect first, and then I'll get into kind of the manifestations. But I found myself encountering a field that talks about—biblical counseling is the field I mean—talks about counseling in light of the spiritual realms, that we are not the chief counselor, but God is, the Holy Spirit is, and he uses us as instruments.

And he's the one who brings about heart change. He's the one who uses his means that he's appointed of the Word and prayer, etc., to bring about transformation in people's lives. So it's a discipline that really understood counseling in light of the spiritual realms, but only the good one, right?

And yet I found my professors speaking to this of, you realize we are always counseling in light of the spiritual realms, but they really wouldn't say much about the demonic, right? Just kind of tipping their hand to it quickly and then moving on.

And I found myself interacting with people inundated with lies, believing lies, having experiences where they're saying, I don't know where these thoughts or suggestions are arising from. Are they arising from my body?

Are they arising from my sinful flesh? Could this be a fiery dart? What is a fiery dart? What does all even mean in Ephesians 6? So I found just boots on the ground, your average believer grappling with these realities.

And I found the discipline really lacking in being able to speak to those experiences. And again, speaking to those experiences from a robust theological perspective. And then onto your question about what do believers experience?

And of course, believers can't experience demon possession. Let me unpack that a little bit. I actually shy away from using the phrase demon possession because I find that people are confused by what they mean.

And so I'll just ask the question, do we mean demon indwelling? Like we see with Judas, Satan entered into him. So here's this willing vessel of the evil one and the evil one's designs and desires to crucify Christ.

Or in the case of King Saul, for instance, the Holy Spirit departs from him and this tormenting spirit kind of takes the Holy Spirit's place, if you will. Right. So this facsimile of indwelling by the Holy Spirit, this evil sham that the evil one is engaging in as far as demonic indwelling.

Is that what we're talking about when we say demon possession? If that's what we mean, then absolutely believers cannot experience that. We're indwelled by the Holy Spirit. We can't be indwelled by demons.

But the Greek word in the New Testament that's used and often translated demon possessed is simply the word demonize, demonizomai in the Greek. But it's a general term. It's a catch-all term. It could be demon affliction, demon oppression.

And can that happen to believers? Yes, that can. And we see several examples in the scriptures that that's the case. So I always want to distinguish, what do we mean? Do we mean demonic indwelling? That can't happen to believers.

Do we mean demonization? Well, certainly. There's quite a range of experiences.

That even believers can find themselves facing. And how would that become manifest where someone is actually convinced this is supernatural that I am witnessing or experiencing? And since it is bringing about evil, it must be from the demonic realm.

So how would this be materializing or manifesting itself?

Yeah, a number of different ways. So we see in the scriptures, for instance, this believing father who brings his son to the Lord Jesus in Mark 9, this boy with epileptic, what would appear to be epileptic seizures.

But that's not what the text describes and defines it as. But it's instead demonization. And the boy is having these seizure-like experiences. He's thrown into the water. He's thrown into the fire. And Jesus agrees with the diagnosis that, yes, that's a demon that's doing so and seeking to destroy this boy.

Or another example in the scriptures, the daughter of Abraham, as Jesus refers to her in Luke 13, this believing woman that she was bent over for years, and that as a result of a demon. So that looks like physical manifestation.

And yet again, the diagnosis of the scriptures is that's a demon that's causing her to have this physical malady. You see elsewhere, the New Testament writers can distinguish between physical maladies.

They brought the sick and the diseased and the epileptic to Jesus, and he healed them, and also the demon-possessed, and he healed them, right? So the New Testament would distinguish that not all physical experiences, of course, are demonically instigated, but certainly some are, as we see, as I mentioned in Luke 13.

And then in Job 4, we see Elipaz having a demonically instigated dream in the night watches, this malevolent spirit who's speaking contrary to the word of the Lord. And Elipaz is quite confused about the meaning of that and his application to Job.

But we see that the clear indicators there in Job 4 is that this is like a demonically manifested dream in the night watches, experience in the night watches, that he's having these troubling thoughts.

And then I also mentioned Ephesians 6, fiery darts, these suggestions that even believers face from the other kingdom. So that's just a smattering of the different types of—well, that's the biblical evidence that suggests these types of experiences can happen to believers.

And I've seen those things in the counseling room as well.

Yeah. And so this brings the conversation to the logical question that many will ask. They will say, well, if this demonic realm is true and real, if it definitely manifests itself in the 21st century, why do none of the theologically solid denominations and churches perhaps even especially those that are theologically Reformed have exorcists?

Should there be an office or a role of an exorcist in the 21st century in Christ's church?

People tease me on RTS's campus that I'm RTS's Reformed exorcist. They're obviously teasing me. I do not agree with that. But they say, you know, I'm the demon guy because I've studied the demonic. And I do find myself yielding questions from pastors and theologians and counselors from all over the country asking me questions about the demonic because I have become known as the demon expert or something like that.

But no, I don't believe that we should have exorcists in the 21st century. I don't think that we should have exorcists after the first century when that particular gifting ceased with the apostles, just like I don't believe we should have a particular office of apostle and I don't believe we should have a particular office of healer.

I also don't believe we should have a particular office of exorcist. Those were apostolic sign gifts given to the early church directly by Jesus as he gifted them to the apostles that their apostolic sign gifts would attest to the fact that this is indeed the work of the Holy Spirit in that transition epoch of that first century as we move from the old covenant to the new covenant and the old is passing away and the things are becoming new.

And then it gives way to the pastoral epistles. And isn't it fascinating in the pastoral epistles, we see no instructions on how to engage in divine healing. Oh, here's how you lay hands on people and you pray this particular prayer and this is how you'll heal people.

Or here's how you put power into tissues or handkerchiefs or, you know, and that we heal people in those ways. Or here's how you make your shadow fall across people and you heal them. There's no instructions like that in the pastoral epistles.

Well, so too, there's no instruction in the pastoral epistles of how to engage in apostolic sign gift exorcisms, right? Because that particular gifting ceased with the first century. So no, I don't believe that we should have exorcists today.

Well, then how does one who is demon-possessed get those demons to depart from them? And how does one, even demon-oppressed, be freed from that oppression? Yeah, absolutely. So you recall, of course, the event when Jesus.

Comes down from the Mount of Transfiguration with Peter, James, and John, and the rest of his disciples are trying to cast out a demon at the same time. And they say, Lord, why were we not able to cast out this one?

And it's fascinating that Jesus doesn't say, you know, Bartholomew, if you just had greater faith or if you just had a better apostolic sign gift of exorcisms, you would have been able to handle this one.

What he says is, this one does not come out but by prayer and fasting. And he points to that which is enduring. He points to that which is the ordinary means of grace and is actually superior to the apostolic sign gifts.

Isn't that fascinating? That he doesn't say, if you just had greater faith, and he says, no, prayer and fasting, ordinary means. And so how do we face these experiences of demonization? Or how do we face night terrors or fiery darts?

Well, the ordinary means that the Lord has given us. And isn't that exactly what the apostle Paul teaches in Ephesians 6, after he lines out that our battle isn't with flesh and blood, but is against these rulers and principalities in the dark places?

And he says, and pray for me. And what prayers does he ask for? Not pray and bind and cast out that the gospel might go forth in Ephesus or something. No, he says, pray for me that I'd be bold in speaking the gospel.

And he mentions just the ordinary prayers. And so the same thing that Jesus points to is the same thing that the pastoral epistles point to. Now, how,.

If it is even known, would one prevent himself from becoming oppressed by demons, especially in this discussion, a Christian? And is there anything that you're aware of that would bring such oppression about, to begin with?

And is there anything that would are aware of through the scriptures on why someone became demon-possessed to begin with?

Yes. So it's fascinating to see the scriptures speak of the notion of foothold. And now the Charismatic Church or the Pentecostal Church is going to go in a concerning direction as far as our understanding of foothold.

So please don't mishear me in an alarming or charismatic way. I don't mean it in that sense. I mean that we see Ephesians 4 speak of, do not let the sun go down on your anger or your wrath, and do not give the devil a foothold.

And really, that's just the Greek word for place. Do not give him a place. Do not give him an opportunity. Do not give him an occasion, right? It's not something mystical or magical. It's that even arboring bitterness and resentment and anger that we steward in undue length of time, that we're not keeping short accounts in conflict and so forth, and we're not approaching it in a biblical way, that that's an opportunity for the devil to get a wedge in, to leverage in our lives.

Well, we see similar notions in 1 Peter 5 that we are to be sober-minded and watchful because our enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. So to not be sober-minded and to not be watchful is another occasion.

John Brown of Haddington, Puritan author, wrote an entire...well, it was a sermon that was turned into a book, but you can get it The Banner of Truth, on 1 Peter 5, dealing with that particular notion of being sober-minded as an occasion of the devil, that if we're using drugs and alcohol or even just being not watchful or weak-minded...and he's not meaning that in a putting someone down kind of way, being weak-minded, you know, that they're stupid or something.

That's not what he means at all. But that if we're not watchful and we are of a weak mind is what he's getting at, that that could be an occasion for the evil one. And then we also see in 1 Corinthians 7 that Paul says that we are to engage in regular marital relations and not to forego that by mutual agreement only for a time that the devil might not have an opportunity and tempt us because of our lack of self-control.

So we see those are three different locations in the Scriptures that are speaking to the notion of giving the evil one an occasion, and they would all be areas where we're not being self-controlled, we're not being watchful, we're not being sober-minded, we're giving an occasion or opportunity for the evil one.

So that's.

How the New Testament speaks of these things. We are going to our first commercial break, and when we come back, I will begin asking a couple anyway of the questions that have already come in from our listeners.

But if you would like to join them with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c-h-r-i-s-a-r-n-s-e-n at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence.

If you live outside of the USA, only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, and I can readily understand that those writing in questions during a topic like this may want to remain anonymous because you are going to be asking about some kind of personal experience with the demonic realm, or perhaps the experience of a close loved one, and you don't want to identify yourself publicly.

I can obviously readily understand that, and I will respect your wishes to remain anonymous. But if it's a general question, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

Chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back right after these messages.

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Puritan Demonology and William Perkins

Welcome back. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is Dr. Keith Evans, Associate Professor of Christian Counseling at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina, and former Director of the Biblical Counseling Institute and Academic Dean at Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

And we are addressing the theme of this doctoral dissertation, Developing an Awareness of the Demonic and Biblical Counseling in Conversation with William Perkins. And we're also going to be addressing a Reformed analysis of popular Roman Catholic exorcist, Chad Rippiger, who has begun to appear on some of the most popular and most highly viewed television podcasts.

Before I go to any listener questions, I just wanted to ask you a couple of my own, one being, are you familiar with any of these demonic battles or experiences that have been witnessed by some of these great Reformed men of the faith, particularly the Puritans, since you have highly studied them in this area?

But the incident that comes immediately to mind is a well-known story, and I have no idea if it's apocryphal or if hyperbole and poetic language is being used, but when Martin Luther says he encountered Satan and threw an inkwell at him, or a bottle of ink or something.

But if you could let us know about your own discoveries on that.

Yeah, sure. So, I didn't study Martin Luther directly, but you can't be in the space of demonology and not encounter Martin Luther stories about ones that are apocryphal, the one I think that is apocryphal is actually breaking wind at the devil.

There's a story that's partially accurate where he says, you know, that's all you deserve, Satan, as he breaks wind.

There was a famous woodcut of him doing that to the Pope. Pope Leo, I guess it was.

But the inkwell story, I do believe to be accurate. I'm not a Luther scholar, but I did hear that particular story from a Luther scholar that that is allegedly not apocryphal. But no, so again, studying William Perkins, the father and popularizer of Puritan thought, the reason why he was a demonologist and wrote as much as he did on the demonic is because before his conversion, he was an occultist.