There are degrees of control and severity of manifestations due to several things. The degree of wickedness of the spirits. Jesus spoke about the degree of wicked spirits. In Matthew chapter 12, he took along with him, this demon returning, seven spirits more wicked than him. Rather nice, and some of them can be rather wicked. Demons are never nice, but they can be more wicked than some other demons. There are a number of inhabiting spirits. Again, Matthew started out with one. Matthew tells this man started out with one wicked spirit, then he ended up with eight. Of course, the man's state's going to be worse than it was previously, so said Jesus. I don't believe I've ever run up a case against a case of a single inhabiting spirit. They're usually able to get some others in with them. The degree of rank of the spirits. The rank of the spirits, they come in various ranks. Let's see if I've got an overhead that says something about that. I'm not sure I do. But the ranks of the spirits come like this. The Lord God of hosts is over all. There are high-ranking spirits called seraphim, cherubim, and living ones, like in Revelation chapters 4 and 5. But Michael and Satan seem to be on the same level. Satan is, in Ezekiel chapter 38, called a cherub. And I suppose Michael, being one of the chief princes, is also a cherub. And they have under them thrones, dominions, principalities, authorities, powers, world rulers. Well, world rulers can be any one of these. mostly thrones, and then the angels. So if you leave out the world rulers here, you've got pretty well decided what sort of order there is, because they're listed in rather consistent order. If you want to read about them, I have in my newest edition of Angels, Elect, and Evil. the list of those things, or I speak about number, organization, and rank, and there's a chart in here with the Greek words and then the various translations of those Greek words, and it shows that they are pretty consistent in order. So I list the passages, and I list the rank there, too. But they're well organized, and those who are of a higher rank are more powerful. For instance, a throne is more powerful than a principality. And the principality is more powerful than angels. And they all come in a pyramidal arrangement where one up top controls those underneath, just like the military arrangement. By the way, there's something else that you might write in here. Number D, if you want to write in this, we have found in clinical cases that the degree of demonization, or at least the effect of it, is increased by the amount of exposure to demonic influence, the amount of exposure. to demonic influence. If the person has been bothered from early childhood or has that in his ancestral background, if there is repeated traumatization of the child or the person, if there is a real depth of involvement in things occult or demonic, there's likely to be more manifestation of the demonization. So there are degrees. Now, let's talk about relief from demonization. The only real and permanent relief from the control of inhabiting spirit is found in the grace and power of the Lord Jesus Christ, the exercise of his authority. He exercised his authority while he was here on earth. In his personal ministry, you can see that he dismissed wicked spirits with a word. Why aren't we doing that today? Because we are not here trying to prove the deity of Jesus as the Messiah. We are not working miraculous things today. God is not limited to not doing miracles. He can do miracles anytime he wants to. I personally feel the gift of miracles has gone, along with many other gifts, but there are plenty of remaining gifts for us to exercise in building the church. And so I don't think the gift of working miracles is with us today, And we're not here to prove by miracle that Jesus is the Messiah. That's what miracles are all about. They were not primarily to heal people, but to prove that Jesus is the Son of God. Read John. These signs, these miracles are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and believing on him you might have life through his name. John chapter 20. Miracles were not done just to relieve human suffering, though they did that, and Jesus did have compassion, but they're primarily done to prove that Jesus is the Messiah. By the way, miracles are not found all through the Bible. There are only three major periods of history. You think about Moses and the deliverance from Egyptian bondage, miracles there. And then you think about the reformers of Elijah and Elisha. Miracles there. They came with a message of reformation. And their authority was backed by their miracles. The Jews seek a sign. And then there was the Lord Jesus. Multiplied miracles. All centered in his person. He claimed the authority. The others stood by and watched God do those things, but he did this in his own authority. What authority he exercises, they said. With a word, he cast out the demons. There will be another time of miracles upon the earth when the two witnesses mentioned in Revelation chapter 11 do miracles upon the earth. They are put to death, and they're raised again several days later. And when the Lord Jesus is coming again, of course, at the time he does that, there'll be signs in heaven and earth. But the Bible is not full of miracles. There are certain stated times at the introduction of certain eras or certain messages when miracles were important. So miracles are not a constant phenomena. They are reserved for proper time and proper purpose. Well, the Lord Jesus did that. And he did nine specifically mentioned, and there are many general statements about casting out demons. His delegated ministers were able to do that, too. In Luke chapter 9, 12 apostles were given authority over a conspirator. Turn with me, however, to Luke chapter 10. It wasn't just an apostolic gift, but here are 70 who were sent out by the Lord Jesus. Chapter 10, verse 1, the Lord appointed 70 others, sent them out two by two ahead of him to every place and every city where he was going to come. And when they came back, in verse 17, the 70 returned with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. They're getting a little heady stuff here, weren't they? And he said to them, I was watching Satan falling from heaven like lightning. Behold, I have given to you authority. Notice this authority is not innate. It is delegated. It's not called a gift, but is a direct delegated authority. I've given you the authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions over all the power of the enemy. Serpents and scorpions in this case, figurative terms for the enemy, not literal serpents and scorpions. And nothing shall injure you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven. It is not your ministry, the supernatural, the heady, the amazing things that you've seen done. Oh, they're real. But rejoice in your relationship to me, not in your responsibility, not in your ministry, but in your relationship to me. That's the most important thing. That's what Jesus said. So his delegated ministers had that authority. And in his redemptive ministry at the cross, he despoiled those who are principalities and powers, put them to an open shame according to Galatians chapter 2. In Hebrews chapter 2, it says he destroyed him who operated in the power of death, that is the devil, and kept people in bondage all their lifetime by fear. First John chapter three, one of the reasons Jesus came was to destroy the works of the devil. And so, the word destroying, by the way, does not mean to obliterate. The word katargeo in Greek means to render inoperative, just like with our sin nature, Romans chapter six. Our sin nature is rendered inoperative. That is, it's still there, but it's not on the throne unless we let it resume It's power over us. We can say no to it. And so we can oppose the enemy too. And so the Lord Jesus came to destroy or render inoperative the works of the devil and deliver those who through bondage, fear of death for all their lifetime subject to bondage. But not only is the deliverance by Christ, but also through Christians by delegated authority. You know, we have authority in the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians chapter one says, God's power was manifest in that he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand far above all principalities and powers. And the Greek text runs on in chapter 2 to say, and you who were dead in your trespasses and sins has he raised and seated in heavenly places with him. All one sentence. God's power is manifest in raising Christ, seating Him in heavenly places far above the enemy, and raising you to sit with Him in heavenly places. As my hand contains my thumb, my thumb is part of my hand, we're part of Christ, we're joined to Christ. When Christ is raised and seated in heavenly places, we are raised and seated in heavenly places far above the enemy. If they had necks, it would hurt them to look up at us. They're afraid that you'll catch on. And so, by means of our co-crucifixion, for we died with him, our co-resurrection, for we're raised with him, our co-exaltation, for we're seated with him in heavenly places, we are far above angels. Of course, when he returns, we're going to reign with him, and 1 Corinthians 6 says we shall judge or administer judgment to angels. Now this chart is over there also, so don't worry about it, okay? Don't try to copy that. There's no copyright and there's no right for copying it right now, okay? By the way, we need to understand that our position of authority above angels does not necessarily grant us victory in the battle. It is the basis of victory, but our delegated authority has to be exercised as under-authority. Submit to God, resist the devil, then he'll flee from you. All right, I must move on here. our delegated authority because of our position in Christ, but also by our commission of Christ. Matthew 28, the Great Commission, has one major verb. I have to read the whole thing to get the context. Jesus has appeared to them alive from the dead. He's appearing to them on a mountain in Galilee, which he had previously designated. When they saw him, they worshiped him. And yet, some were questioning what this is all about. Can you imagine that? Of course, we never do that, right? And Jesus came up and spoke to them. Now, notice. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Friends, that includes everything. That includes the demons. That includes the angels. That includes humans. Everything is his. All authority has been given to me in heaven and earth. Then he makes this commission, make disciples of all nations. There are participles which tell us how to do that. That's the finite verb, make disciples. Participles going, baptizing, teaching. Going means reaching, baptizing means winning, and teaching them means training them, bringing them up to observe all that I've commanded you. Now, he commanded us quite a few things about wicked spirits, by example. You know, some people say, well, there's no direct scheme of things. It's how you deal with demons. Well, the Lord Jesus gave us authority, and he told us how to handle these things. He showed us how to do that. He trained his disciples. They went out and found out by themselves. I don't read any formal training about the 70 who went out, but they came back, and they found out what happened. And Jesus then gave them perspective on that. I think we can learn from those things. That's part of what Jesus had commanded them, teaching them to observe whatsoever I've commanded you. And know I'm with you to the end of the age. How long does this commission last? In the book of Matthew, chapter 24 and 25, the end of the age is marked by Christ's coming. The authority that we have as members of his body, as delegated servants, extends to the end of the age marked by his second coming. You are still in the age when Jesus has delegated his authority to you. And finally, there's our empowerment by Christ, our position, our commission, our empowerment. Empowerment, we have provided power. Ephesians chapter 6 combines three words which speaks about power. which speak about power in verse 10. He says, finally, brethren, be strong in the Lord, literally allow yourself to be strengthened in the Lord and in the power of his might. We do not gain power. We submit the power and allow him to empower us in the strength of his might. And so he will provide what we need in the line of strength to handle the situation. And then we have armor from God, which we'll touch upon a bit later. For he says, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness. Put on the full armor of God that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes, the methods of the devil. Implied, if you don't stand in this armor, you will flop without it. And so we have our position, our commission, our empowerment, and demons are not dispensed. They are not ruled out in this age. Peter says, be on the alert, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. I had a friend from Africa who said he and his father had problems with that verse because they know what lions do and what they don't do. Lions don't roar when they're seeking their prey. They stealthily creep through the grass and they pounce upon the prey. And then they roar afterwards. So I'd like to suggest to you a possible significance of this verse in Peter. Be sober, be vigilant, for your adversary the devil goes about like a successful roaring lion, seeking whom he may next sneak up and devour. By the way, the word devour there is the Greek word for chew up in small pieces and swallow down. People who appoint to our position in Christ are saying there's no battle. All we have to do is clear out the lies and everything will be resolved. But not realizing that there's other personalities that need to be dealt with, not just the lies. And sometimes, in fact, most of the time, as I found out, there has to be the willful dismissal of wicked spirits by the person who has been afflicted. I am not an exorcist, but I lead people to renounce the works of the devil and to tell them to go where Jesus would have them to go. And we've seen some marvelous relief. Well, how shall we do this? Not only by a delegated authority, but by biblical principles. First of all, there has to be a proper diagnosis. You know, we can't jump to conclusions. We must have adequate evidence. So I'd like to suggest to you that there are three things we need to look for. Here's what I generally do. Let's see if I got it here. I guess I left it up here. All right. I have more material here than we can cover in this hour. We'll try to do it sort of summarily, OK? You stick with me. You don't have to know all of this. You can read my book, okay? Well, actually, you can read both of them, but the demon possession of the Christian continues most of this, okay? In the diagnosis of the problems, I suggest that, do like a doctor does. We have in the front row here a man who's an internist. And the first thing he looks for is symptoms. What do I look for? What am I going to treat? Well, I have to know what sort of thing it is. And so sometimes those symptoms can be discovered pretty quickly, sometimes they have to be sent out to the lab for testing. But he doesn't jump at conclusions. A little while ago I had a problem with high blood pressure and my cardiologist was treating me through medicine for hypertension. wasn't getting it down. I said, Doctor, don't you think we ought to get the cause? She said, that's a good idea. So we did a stress test and took some pictures, found out I had an artery that was pretty well blocked up here, so the doctor put two stents up here. When he took the re-picture, scanned it again, found two renal arteries, that's the ones that go to the kidneys, blocked. That was the cause of the high blood pressure, 95% blocked. When he took those out, that is, when he cleared them out and then put in the stents, my blood pressure dropped down to normal. And I heard him say to one of his assistants, we really fixed him up. My wife was glad for that, too. But you know, it's good to know what the symptoms are and to find out the causes. Causes are important, too, and the causes And by the way, we talked about these symptoms, haven't we? The causes can be three kinds. Ancestral involvement. This morning, Mark spoke about ancestral blessings. And Glenn spoke about ancestral curses to some degree. And we will be speaking about ancestral curses. One of the gentlemen here will do that. But the second commandment says, I visit the iniquity of idol worshipers upon the third and fourth generation. Idol worshipers are those who worship false gods. Along with a false god, there's a false concept of human worth. There's a false concept of sex. You can't find a religion in the world, outside of biblical Christianity or biblical Judaism, that doesn't have a perverted idea of sex. And so those things that have to do with murder, have to do with violence, sex, probably are the effects of idolatry. Romans chapter one tells us about that. Even homosexuality is a result of worshiping human needs rather than divine requirements. Well, ancestral involvement. I found more than 95% of the over 650 people that I've talked to in the last 35 years were involved with, actually were inhabited by, spirits that came from their ancestral background. That's the first thing you've got to treat in the line of renunciation. Now, I know that Neil Anderson has a very good selection of seven steps of principles to freedom. He puts the last thing as ancestral. I would like to bring number seven up before number one. And I'd treat that first. It seems to be a little easier to do. And if it's there, at least it seems to be less objectionable to some people. You might find some resistance in the process from the enemy. But it's good to clear out that background thing. Then there can be personal involvement in occult practices, divination, magic, or spirit control, witchcraft, Satanism. There can be certain controlling personal sins, drug, alcohol, illicit sex, any addiction type of thing the enemy really picks on. American Indians are really given over to the spirit of addiction. And of course, their mystical, magical background and their animism and their dependence upon medicine men all lead to this. How many of you know American Indians and their practice of medicine men? Yes. Jim could probably tell us quite a bit about that. But when I was up in Dillingham, Alaska, it was quite obvious. They had a hospital up there established by the US government in which they did not only modern medicine, but traditional medicine. Indian man who do his sand drawings and do his healing potions and so forth. And those people are in bondage. One of the biggest bondages they have is addiction. addiction to alcohol, addiction to spirits. They are in bondage, whether it's in Alaska or any part of North America, Central America, South America, animism over in whether it be Asia or Europe or Africa, wherever it might be. Animism, the most prevalent religion in the world. South Sea Islands too, right brother? Those things are occasions where the enemy can actually control whole societies as well as individuals. Then there are personal controlling sins, drugs, alcohol, mind control, that type of thing, false religions, cults, pornography. I've never found a case of addictive pornography that wasn't associated with wicked spirits. They are really on the ball in this area. They like it, and they use it. And they bring people into bondage. And you know, it's amazing that there's hardly any difference in the statistics among Christian men than there is among unsaved men. Jim, you probably have some statistics on that for us, but I won't ask you at this time, OK? But Jim is a source of great information. He's probably the whitest red person in this whole group here. And he can tell us something about that. Then there's transferred control. Treatment received from demon-influenced persons. Glenn talked to us about soul ties, and that's where this comes in. If we receive advice from astrology advisors, healing, charming, laying hands for power, healing of tongues, you can have some problems. You have to be careful who lays hands on you, because that's a transfer of authority. There was a Christian lady who taught in psychology at a Christian college not too far from where I live, whose aunt could water witch. That's divine where there's water. type of thing, or hidden things. And she says, here, you can do it, said to her niece, this professor. And she couldn't do it. So what did the aunt do? She put her hands on her niece's hands, and then she could do it. And when we were praying for release, we prayed against any spirits of divination, and this woman's hands started shaking. And I said, you will not do that. Why don't you tell that spirit to leave? And she did, and it did. And she was free from that. People out in Nebraska, that state next door, often do water witching. And there was one man out there, he said, no, I won't do that. So he prayed about it, and he asked the Lord to guide him. And of course, the Lord doesn't always guide as to where there's water, that type of thing, but in this case, He drilled down. They have, I think, about 18-foot sections of their drilling pipe. And down, down, and down. Oh, there's nothing here. Let me do one more. The guy said, well, maybe we ought to go to the water witching approach. He said, I won't do that. One more section, and he hit a river, a real source of water. But you know, water witching can be done on premises, can be done on a map, and the people who do it have their own rules for it, but demons are helping them along that line, because God is not doing it. There's nothing magical. Excuse me, there's nothing scientific about water witching. It's really magical. By the way, if water witching was really true, all the trees would bend over toward the water, right? And of course, the old wooden golf clubs would probably give you a little problem, too. In your bag, you're trying to reap up there. Laying on hands for healing is difficult too. Hypnotism, psychic treatment. Watch out who controls your mind. What I do in the case of people who wonder what's going on, I make a test. Like the doctor sends the culture to the lab. The objective is to differentiate between the person of the counselee and the persons of the demons. By the way, I am not using confrontation as the major means. I counsel the person. We clear up the lies. We look at the scripture. We sometimes use the theophastic approach. But finally, it seems to me in many of my cases, if not all of them, I have to do some matter of identifying and dealing with the wicked spirits that are involved and get the person to make the stand. And if there's a husband present with a woman, and by the way, I always counsel with my wife when women are involved. Get the husband to take authority over his wife. And it's so wonderful to see them free their wives up. Boy, it really helps the husband and wife relationship. So I would suggest here that if there has to be prayer to clarify and instruction of the counseling is what you're doing, I'm not going to this now. But spirits will seek to hide. Counseling may become confused. You have to pray about that. there's adequate relief, you know you've treated the situation. For instance, I might have a sinus infection and so the doctor gives me amoxicillin and within 10 days the thing's cleared up. Pretty well know that that was a sinus infection. If it continues on, that's something else. I don't know what it might be. Doctor, maybe you can help me with a little guitar here. depression, suicidal thoughts are eased, confusion is removed, harassment of the body and mind cease. So, successful treatment. So, we're talking about dealing with the symptoms, looking for the causes, doing the test and finding relief. So we often come around to that. Now, friends, we must move on here to the matter of Prayer for deliverance, that's always, always in line. Ephesians chapter six, verse 18, praying at all times in the spirit. You can find people praying in the Old Testament for winning in the battle. Second Chronicles chapter 20 does not deal with demonization except with the enemy, but it deals with the Lord's intervening on behalf of his people. By the way, there was not a war in the Old Testament that did not have spiritual counterparts. Take the first case back in Exodus chapter 17. Moses prayed and Joshua won. Moses let his hands down, Joshua lost. And so there's spiritual aspect to war there. And it was oftentimes the gods were carried into battle. And so the gods, the Philistines, he said, well, you know, we shouldn't go up to the mountains. Their god is the god of the mountains. So let's get them down in the plains. It was a battle of gods against God. And there's not a battle in the Old Testament that doesn't have implications of spiritual warfare. And sometimes the direct command is needed, just like in the case of Paul saying to this python spirit, get out of the woman. Discipleship and counsel and growth, very important, and that's what Neil Anderson is talking about, follow up and helping people. Now, you do not have in your book this but it was passed out the question of demonization of believers i have ten minutes and i'm sorry i had really hope to leave some time for questions but i think maybe treating this uh... just briefly and that's all i have time to do treating this briefly will interest you in following up on it you know if you are a counselor or even just a you know a regular layperson, Christian, and you are wondering about, can Christians be inhabited by wicked spirits? That's a big question. It's loaded emotionally, and it has problems interpretationally. That's why I wrote this book called Demon Possession in the Christian. And in this, after I laid the foundation, I look at rules for evidence. What kind of evidence do we have? The Bible is the final authority. But the Bible doesn't have all the truth. It doesn't tell me about your qualification to fly a 747. It doesn't tell you about manic depression. It doesn't tell you about schizophrenia. There are many things that God has allowed us to find out through his common grace and the research in his creation. And we need to be aware of that. God didn't give us a mind to bypass it. He wants us to use it. And to do research. I'm not so sure how important the research is on Mars today, whether there was once life there or not, when there are people in our country who are hurting so. Don't get me on that, OK? But in this book, we treat the matters of the evidence. Our final authority for doctrine is the scripture. Our method of interpretation of the Bible is what we call normal and contextual. That is, we look at the grammar and we look at the meaning of the words and the figures of speech and the context, that's the most important thing, and then cross-references, sometimes called happy references. You're not laughing, I know that. Okay. And our proof. must be understood. We cannot just say, well, this is what I think it means. Why do you think it means that? What evidence do you have? How will that stack up with the context, the meaning of the words, and with the cross-references? We have to understand that we cannot just say something and allow it to stand as proper interpretation. Well, looking at biblical evidence, let me just say that in my book I treat the general evidence against the possibility of a Christian being inhabited by a demon. Passages on the defeat of Satan by the cross, passages on deliverance from Satan and his dominion, passages on the Christian's defense or Christ's defense of the believer, passages that speak about denial of participation with demons, But all of these are really not totally conclusive. There are evidences that the conclusions that people come to are not adequately based. And there's a place here where I just have a comment on the general evidence against the possibility. None of the passages which we study, and I've tried to cover them all, can with any fair treatment be construed to eliminate the possibility of a genuine believer's being inhabited by wicked spirits. We may say definitely, however, that the believer who heeds the warnings and obeys the scriptures and walks in fellowship with Christ cannot be freshly invaded. Christ will regard him as the believer guards himself from evil. And then we look at biblical evidence supporting the demonization of Christians. And there is a problem with those passages, too, because a lot of people say, well, this shows that. And it seems quite clear that there is not enough support for the fact that Christians will be inhabited or can be inhabited. Some passages present evidence that cannot be lightly dismissed, but must be considered as fairly strong evidence, such as the daughter of Abraham with a spirit of illness and the Corinthian tongue speaker. However, there can be legitimate doubts. that these are genuine examples, uncontestable, of the fact that believers were inhabited. So we cannot say conclusively that the Bible clearly presents evidence that believers may be demonized. So we look at theological evidence. Here's the biggest argument against Christians being inhabited by wicked spirits. Let's see if I can find it here, OK? Here it goes. It goes like this. Anyone who's inhabited by the spirit of God cannot be inhabited by an evil spirit. You've heard that one, right? All right, let's see how that works out. To put that in the form of a syllogism, it looks like this. Major premise, God cannot dwell with evil. Minor premise, every Christian is dwelt by God, the spirit, actually the Trinity. Conclusion, therefore, evil cannot dwell in a Christian. Well constructed. The common part is eliminated. God, God. And so it picks up evil and Christian and puts it together, and the same word dwell is kept all the way through. By the way, this is based somewhat upon Psalm 5, 4, where it says that God cannot dwell with evil. And the next section, the next stitch of the Hebrew poetry, which is parallel, says, neither do you take pleasure in evil. or in wickedness. So to dwell with means to live in the same tent as part of the family and to take pleasure in that person. Oh, God doesn't do that. Can God dwell in the presence of evil? Can evil dwell in the presence of God? God calls Satan into his presence, but listen, friends, the problem with this is that the first premise is false. The major premise is false. Not only does God call evil to his presence, but he dwells in each one of you. And is there anyone in here without a capacity to sin? If one man back there raises his hand, I will not mention his name lest he be discredited. But I'm going to ask his wife if that protestation is true. So the Holy Spirit lives in you, and you have evil within you. Is that right? How do you know you're a Christian then? Because you have trusted Christ and the Holy Spirit lives in you. The Holy Spirit lives in you to control that evil which is also present in you. I find this, that there is a principle within me, says Paul, that is bent on evil. Who shall deliver me? I thank God through Jesus Christ. The next passages deal with the gift of the Holy Spirit, who overcomes the sin nature within. You see, he's in there for control. His presence does not eliminate the sin nature. So if the premise is false, then the conclusion is false. Can't use that. What's the problem? Well, the problem is this. The major premise is not accurate. God allows evil in his presence. But he allows evil nature to inhabit a Christian's body where the Holy Spirit dwells. The real issue is not presence, but control. Friends, the Holy Spirit lives within you. Are you always under his control? Oh, shame on you. Shame on me. We should be. But presence does not mean control. Control is the issue. Who are you going to let control your life? And it should be Christ and the Holy Spirit. But the issue does not affect your security whatsoever. Nothing shall separate us from the love of God. Once he's foreknown, he'll also see through to glory. Now, let me just finish here. The theological arguments don't work either. We have to go to experiential evidence. What place is there for reason and experience? Let me just say this. You don't know anything without experience. Don't throw experience in the waste can. God gave you a mind to use. He wants you to analyze things. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Experience is never the basis of doctrine, but it can help express doctrine, understand the application of doctrine, illustrate doctrine. It can help us to understand what the Bible's saying. It can help us reason with one another. Let me just use an analogy here. How many people believe a Christian can have cancer? You're looking at one who did. Now, how did you come to that conclusion? Does the Bible say so? No, it doesn't. But does it say you're a human with the possibility of contracting disease? There is disease in the Bible, right? It's all a result of the fall and so forth, not necessarily individual personal sin. But how do you find whether a Christian can have cancer? You look at what the Bible says about what a Christian is. You get a picture of a Christian. Then you take a person who has cancer to the lab and find out what the cells look like. In fact, I've had cancer twice. One on my arm and one in my prostate. And they're both gone now. So I went to the lab. Now, when you see a person who has cancer who's also a Christian, you might have a pretty good start. If you have five, that's a little more sure. 10, that's better. 50, that's much better. Statistically, you're building the case. Have independent researchers out here finding the same sort of thing, then you got multiplied evidence and you come up with the conclusion, yes, Christians can have a cancer. You use the very same reasoning process. Can Christians have demons? Here's the picture of a demon. Here's the picture of demonization. By the way, you have some help from the Bible in that, too. And when they overlap, you say, well, here's one case. Here's five. Here's 10. Here's 50. Independent researchers come up with that. Yes, Christians can have cancer, I mean, can have demons. And by the way, I've quoted many of the researchers along this line. I myself have treated over 650 cases, and of those, only six of them were unsaved, and they got saved in the process. That's wonderful. And what we're saying is, when you're done, you don't have a Bible doctrine. People object, say, oh, you're teaching Bible doctrine. No, I'm not, because it doesn't say it in the Bible. I was brought up pretty strict theologian my master in theology and doctorate in New Testament exegesis, literature and exegesis. And I know what I'm saying to some degree. And I'm not saying this is Bible doctrine. I'm saying it's a conclusion reached upon the basis of the combination of biblical evidence and clinical evidence, and it's good evidence. And people have been relieved believing it. Suppose you say to a person, you can't be a Christian and have cancer. What happens to the Christian who has cancer? What does he say? Oh, I'm not sure about myself, right? That throws him into great dither. Well, you have a demon, you can't be a Christian. Oh, what a horrible thing to say, because it's not Bible. And people will revert to biblical statements that seem to say that, but really don't say that. and they put people on the spot, and they don't help people, and they send them away, and they become worse than at the beginning. Friends, we need good research on this, and we've done it. There are case studies by notable counselors, my own counseling. Conclusion. Yes, Christians can be demonized. Not in biblical doctrine, but in actuality, reality. So then, how shall we respond? Page five in your notes or whatever it is. Recognize its reality. Be cognizant. Rely upon our position to Christ. Be confident. Respond with proper practice. Be committed. And here's some eight things you can do to help people. Renew allegiance to Christ. Reject false worldviews. Remove false ways and lifestyles. In the Old Testament, they burned all the idols. They burned the magic books in Acts 19. Rely upon the armor of God. Repair to God in prayer. Actively resist with truth. Resist with commands of the enemy and respond to godly counsel. There's not one way and one way only to treat this. We have to be flexible. Should Christians be concerned? Yes. We must recognize demonization's reality in our present world. We must recognize that Christians can be demonized. Christian counselors must be able to recognize and treat those who are demonized. Listen to Proverbs 24, a challenging word for counselors. Deliver those are being taken away to death. And those who are staggering to slaughter, oh, hold them back. If you say, see, we did not know this. Does he, God, not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does he not know it who keeps your soul? And will he not render to man according to his work? We are responsible. Demonization is real in all parts of the world. It occurs more frequently than suspected. We must be able and ready to recognize it, respond to free those who are subject to oppression. In Jesus' name, we must stand against it and aid in setting the captives free. Thank you for coming, friends.