destructive activity to attempt to cause people to turn away from God and destroy themselves. Demons will try every tactic to blind people from the gospel, and they want to keep us in bondage to the things that hinder them from coming to God. So they're gonna try to use temptation, doubt, guilt, fear, confusion, sickness, envy, pride, slander, or any other means possible to hinder a Christian's witness and usefulness. Alright, so that is what we spoke about last week. Today our main focus is going to be on our relationship to demons. And we're going to answer some key questions here and be reminded of the authority and power of the gospel. And so let's begin our lesson here with a question. And I want to hear from you. Are demons active in the world today? Remember last week we said, or the week before, angels, right? We said, yes, they were active. But what about demons? What would you guys say? Are they active for today? Or is it just the angels going about doing their business? How are they active? What are they doing over here? What are demons doing right now? Are there any demons in here right now? Uh-huh. You said deceiving? Oh, looking to see who... Could they devour one of us, you think? Not if you're in Christ? All right, so no one would disagree here and say that Satan is bound right now and there's no demonic influence going. All right, everyone's on the same page. Okay, so let's answer this question here. Well, we know that Western secularized society would say, no, demons are not active, you fools. What is this demon nonsense, they would say. If you mention demons, they're going to laugh at you. It's a naturalistic worldview. If they can't see, touch, or hear these demons you speak of, it must not be real. We know that many people are blind to the true nature of reality. They want to deny the supernatural so they can continue to live in their sin. But biblically, we know that demons are active today. For example, we know that Satan's influence has not yet been removed from the earth. If you read in Revelation 20, it doesn't happen until the return of Christ. And so if demons are active, does that mean we can blame all the evil and sin because of them? Is it okay to just say the devil made me do it? No. We know that not all evil is from Satan and demons. We need to accept our responsibility to obey the Lord and not shift blame to the demons. Scripture teaches us that Christians will be held accountable for their actions. We can strive to grow in holiness and we can overcome temptations and sinful desires. Like Nancy said, if we have Christ in us, we can say no to the sins of the world, the flesh and the devil. However, that doesn't mean there isn't demonic influence. There is such thing as demonic influence. So why don't we turn to 1 Timothy. We have your Bibles, 1 Timothy. Here we see that yes, demons are active in the world. 1 Timothy 4, 1 to 4. Here we have Paul warning in the latter days that some would depart from the faith by giving heed, and there it is, to deceitful spirits and the doctrine of demons. And that this will lead to claims for avoiding marriage and avoiding certain foods, both of which God has created for good. And Paul saw some of this false doctrine as being demonic in origin, right? You just think about the avoiding marriage, right? We see some of that even in today's world. In Second Timothy, Paul implies that those who oppose sound doctrine have been captured by the devil to do his will. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher forbearing, correcting his opponents with gentleness, and that God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth so that they may escape from the snare of the devil after being captured to do his will. What else do we see some demonic influence? Well, if you read in Luke 8, you read about the parable of the sower. What happens there? There is the explanation that this is the seed, which is the word of God. And what happens? Those besides the road that have been heard, which are those that hear the word of God, what happens? The devil comes and takes away the word from their heart so that they will not believe and be saved. And so, The devil is active, demons are active. Another way is the unbelieving Jews. We see Jesus talk to them in John 8, 44, talking about how they are following their father, the devil. It says there in John 8, 44, your will is to do your father's desires, which he calls them straight up. He says, your father's the devil. And then what about Cain? Unbelievers, if you look at 1 John 3 verses 8-12, have plenty of demonic influence, and Cain would be one example of it. Let me highlight some key points here about these unbelievers in these verses. 1 John 3, 8-12. It says the one who practices sin is of the devil, right? This is this continual, unrepentive sin. That's where they live. They don't repent of it, they dive into it. It says there that they are those that are of the devil. And then it says, by this children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. And so we see that the children of God are identified by their love for God and others. But the children of the devil, they are those that do not practice righteousness. They hate to do right. They want to do what's wrong. They want to satisfy themselves. And then it continues there in 1 John 3, And so we conclude from this passage, you're either a child of God or a child of Satan, right? Who are you following, right? It's not talking about biologically there, but we see there, where's your allegiance, to the world or to God? And obviously if it's the world, really it's ultimately of Satan, the God of this world, or if it's of God, your allegiance would be to follow Him and obey His commandments. Ephesians 2, 2, if you read there, this is everyone's testimony. We were children of wrath, and it calls the children of Satan sons of disobedience. All right, so we were all once on that side of Satan. Like Cain, our deeds were evil. We didn't love one another. We hated everyone. Now, the next question we need to consider is can Christians allow demonic influence in their lives? Think about it for a second here. Can Christians allow demonic influence in their lives? One verse that we can think about is Ephesians 4, 26. We're told there, do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. And so remember, the devil wants us to fall. He wants us to continue in our anger or any sin you can think of. He wants to destroy our testimony. If we cave in in any area, you're opening up yourself for more demonic influence. Think about it this way. If we have areas of unrepented sin, then there's weaknesses in our breastplate of righteousness, right? You're thinking about the full armor of God. You're going to need the full armor of God if you're going to survive in the spiritual warfare. But what happens when you're in unrepented sin? You're really just making yourself vulnerable to demonic attack. Now, remember, We're in this war, and many of us, we tend to think, well, if I get in trouble in this spiritual war, I'll just shout the name of Jesus when I'm attacked. He'll protect me. Well, of course we know that God will protect us from the evil one, but that doesn't mean we continue in our sin. God has called us to put on the full armor of God so that we'll be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. And so we have to, what, put it on. There's this action that we must do. And if you're okay with continuing in any sin, you're basically telling God, hmm, I don't really need to put on the full armor of God. I'll be fine. Just rescue me when I get in trouble. But God has called us to holiness. He has given us a command to obey him. And so we need the shield of faith to be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, right? I'm getting a lot of this out of Ephesians 6. But if you're living in sin, you're not living by faith. God has called us to holiness. If we do not confess and repent, if we're not turning away from sin, you better believe it. The demons look at you as prey. They look at you as prey. Think about what happened with Peter. Satan demanded permission to sift him like wheat. He wanted to crush him. But if it wasn't for Jesus praying for him, we know Peter's faith would have failed. And so we need to be alert. Our enemy doesn't sleep. All right, any questions or comments here about just evil from Satan and demons, but also obviously not all of it is from Satan and demons. We have a responsibility. Any questions here? All right. So let's continue to our next discussion question. I wanna hear from you. This is a good question. Can Christians be demon-possessed? Demon possessed. What would you say? Got a couple no's. Why can't they be possessed? What makes us so unpossessable? Okay, yeah. Yes, the Holy Spirit is in us. We have the full armor of God. They can't get through. Yeah, okay. We have the Lord Jesus Christ ultimately. I think Nancy mentioned that Christ is in us. Yeah. Yeah, if anyone remembers being in charismatic circles with a lot of, what do they call it, like deliverance ministries. I do remember some points where these people look like, yeah, they were possessed. It's interesting, though. When you see a lot of false doctrine, in certain churches, that's kind of almost like a nice place for the demons to approach. But yeah, it is possible to be demon-possessed, but Christians, I would argue, no. Kind of like what Vanessa said, we have the Holy Spirit. However, can Christians be demon-influenced or attacked? I think this is something more important to think about. Why don't we go to 2 Corinthians? Go to 2 Corinthians. This is important to look at. Now, obviously, there's different interpretations on this text, but 2 Corinthians 12. Yes, we wouldn't say that we can be possessed by a demon, but we would say we can be attacked or influenced by a demon. 2 Corinthians 12.7 Paul says, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Now obviously there's some debate about whether it was like a literal demon or maybe a false teacher that was, you know, causing a lot of havoc in his life and causing him to stress and all this, but the point is that the Lord allows certain circumstances like this to happen to us. We'll get into the story of Job a little bit, but I'll give you one more. Luke 13, 16, and 11, there was a woman for 14 years had a sickness caused by a spirit. And she was bent double and could not straighten up at all. And Jesus said, this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for 18 long years, should she not be released from this bond on the Sabbath day, right? Obviously the Pharisees didn't want Jesus to do any healings on the Sabbath. But of course, here you have someone who's in great need and Jesus was going to cast out this spirit. And so, what about the story of Job? I think it's important to see there that yes, the Lord could allow us to be attacked from Satan and demons, but he has a purpose with it. And so the next question that we can say is, well, okay, if we're being attacked, what can we do? Can we ask for deliverance? Well, yeah, we may ask the Lord to deliver us from the attack, like 2 Corinthians 12, 8 continues. What does Paul do? He asked the Lord to deliver him three times. He implored the Lord. However, that didn't mean that it was to be delivered right away. This trial will continue in his life because the Lord says, my grace is sufficient and power is perfected in weakness. Another scripture that you can think of is Matthew 6.13 in the Lord's Prayer, right? Deliver me from temptation or deliver us from the evil one. And so, yes, we can ask for deliverance. We can ask for the Lord to cast out those demons from our lives. But one important thing is to remember, like I said, the story of Job. God has a purpose with every trial that comes your way, and we know all things work for our good. All right? And so yeah, that's kind of a small little discussion on can Christians be demon-possessed. We would say no, but they can be influenced. Any questions on that? Any stories? I know last week or the week before we had some interesting stories. All right, I'll give you one. So not really a scary story or anything, but when I was like 14, 15, I definitely was scared of the dark. My brother told me that there was this scary woman in the attic. And I had the room with the attic, of course. And so you would hear the noises, the creaks. You know, probably some like animals on the roof. But your mind plays tricks on you, right? You start thinking, there's a demon in there or something, whatever. And I was really scared. And then around this age is when I first got saved. And I was battling. I was like, I have this spirit of fear. I'm scared. I'm scared. But I know the Lord is real. And so I just cried out. I said, Jesus! And ever since that day, I really haven't been scared of the dark anymore. Now, that's not to say that there were demons in the attic and all that stuff. However, it's important to just understand that there, yes, there is this power in the name of Jesus, but ultimately what it was, was I wasn't trusting God. You know, I wasn't applying Psalm 23, even the, what is it? Valleys of shadow of darkness, I shall fear no evil. But that night I did, I asked the Lord to take that fear out of me. But any question or comment there? Yeah, yeah. that he was a young man, and it's pitch dark when he has to walk home. And he said there were these animal sounds, you know, it's just very woodsy there. And he said when he became a born-again Christian, he said he was no longer afraid because he felt that God was with me. And, you know, so I don't know if that's like... Yeah, it's obviously extra biblical. It's not like we don't see anything in scripture here that talks about, you know, oh, if you're scared or whatever, and darkness and stuff. But there is some applications from the scriptures we do have, right? It says, do not be anxious, trust in the Lord, cast all your anxiety on him. So even if those things cause, you know, anxiety just to You know, some people, they're scared of just sleeping alone. You know, everyone's got different issues or different things that come about. But I do think a good reminder, given what we're talking about, is trust the Lord. Trust the Lord. He's gonna be with you. All right, any other comments here? We'll move on to the next discussion question. Okay. Now, this is interesting. So we would argue that, yes, there is such thing as demon influence or demon attacks, But how can we recognize it? How can you say, whoa, that's some demon stuff? I think John brought up, I don't know, the lady there, someone was, you know, rolling around or possessed. Like, I've seen that too, but what would you say, hey, yeah, I think there's some demon, you know, influence or demon attack going on over here. How can you recognize it? You're like, yeah, I think that's demons. Mm-hmm Yeah, I mean if you're trying to mess with the cult and all those Ouija boards Wouldn't be surprised at some demonic activities happening Think about in the scripture when you see someone that has a demon. What what does it look like? What does the person? experience Profanity okay Church scene Yeah, so worshiping some demons Yeah, no, those are the more obvious ones. You got other people that are, they don't know they're worshipping demons, but they are with some other rituals they're performing. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was looking for. So, we see some strange and violent actions. Yeah, sure. Yeah. The Pharisees who had the scriptures, the Pharisees that supposedly knew when the Messiah was going to be born, where, and all this type of stuff. Here we see Jesus calling him, your father's the devil, you know? And so even religious people, think about the Catholic Church right now. A lot of things going on. So let's talk about it. How can we recognize this demon influence? Three ways. First one, kind of to what Veronica was saying, strange and violent actions. If you look at Mark 5, I'll read it for you there. Mark 5, 2 to 5, here we have, spoke about a little bit last week, but I want you to see the details of this demon possessed man who has some interesting features here. Look at mark five, two to five. When he got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tunes with an unclean spirit met him. talking about Jesus, this unclean spirit met Jesus, and he had this dwelling among the tombs, okay, so kind of outcasts, like Veronica was saying, and no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces, and no one was strong enough to subdue him, all right? So we see there's some kind of supernatural strength going on here. Verse 5, constantly, night and day, what is he doing? Screaming among the tombs and the mountains and gnashing himself with stones. You know, you could also think about just a lot of cutting yourself and all these just destructive activities. And so we see these strange and violent actions. And if you go to chapter 9, chapter 9 of Mark, verses 17 to 22, We see something similar here when Jesus encounters another little boy, this time possessed. So look at 9.17. And whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground, and he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and stiffens out. I told your disciples to cast it out, but they could not do it. And he answered them, Oh, you unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to me. And so they brought the boy to him. And when he saw him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, falling to the ground. He began rolling around and foaming at the mouth. One aspect of this is obviously the demons tremble when they see Jesus. But do you see here what's happening? This strange activity of the foaming of the mouth. And verse 21, Jesus asks his father, how long has this been happening to him? Since childhood. And he was often thrown both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. We see again, these demons just want to destroy life. And lastly here, but if you can do anything, take pity. And of course, the Lord delivers this demon. Nancy, you had a question? Yeah. just the seizure, wow. The foaming of the mouth, yeah, I can see where some of that comes out. Yeah, I mean, I've worked with people that I've seen have some seizures and stuff like that. Sometimes they fake the seizure, and this seems a little more I would say not just a little seizure. I would say this is, yeah, the demon here literally is trying to throw the boy into the fire and into the water for him to get drowned. Usually a seizure, yeah, that would be more medical. But yeah, this, I would say, is definitely more than that. Anyone else here? Seeing the influence, it's easy to say, okay, the strange and violent actions, but then we have destruction. Destruction, Mark 5, 13 alludes to this here, because yes, in Mark 9, we see that the boy was, the demon was literally trying to kill this boy in the fire or in the water. But we do see that when Jesus cast out, you know, legion, the demons. What does the demons do here in verse 13? You know, send us into the swine so that we may enter them. And look what happens. Jesus gave them permission, and coming out, the unclean spirits entered the swine, and the herd rushed down to the steep bank into the sea, about 2,000 of them, and they were drowned in the sea, right? These demons go into the pigs, and yeah, the pigs drowned there. And so we see a lot of destruction by the demons. We see these strange and violent actions, but the number one, I would say, and we already saw a little bit of 1st Timothy and 2nd Timothy, is false doctrine. Okay? False doctrine. We see here that in 1st John 4, 1-6, we see that those that do not confess that Jesus is Lord, It's obviously not on the team of Jesus, they're on the team of Satan. I'll read to you a couple verses here. It says here in 1 John 4, And then verse 4, And then verse five, it talks about they are from the world and they speak as from the world and the world listens to them. Not the 100% proof that you're a believer, but usually this is the norm for Christians. The world hates you. The world doesn't want to listen to you because you're speaking truth. You're exposing the darkness with your light. But the world, all this false doctrine, it's going to sell a lot of books. It's going to be something they want to hear, the tickling of their ears. And then lastly, verse 6, we are from God. He who knows God listens to us. He who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. The scriptures, what the apostles laid out, obviously through the spirit of God. If they are not listening to scripture, not hearing the word of God, there's probably going to be some demonic influence in their lives. And we see, obviously, their false doctrine. We looked at that a little bit already. False doctrine, a lot of it, the origin is from demons. All right, one more. 2 Corinthians 11, talking about false doctrine here. Maybe you came from a church that had false doctrine. Very dangerous, very dangerous stuff. Alright, so 2 Corinthians 11, 13-15. Notice here, these false apostles. But what am I doing, I will continue to do, so that I may cut off opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the matter by which they are boasting. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel. And so this is why I would argue that when we speak to other people of false religions, we are engaging in spiritual warfare. Even though we may not see much of the first two ways that we recognize demonic influence, we spoke about strange, violent actions and destruction, we know that the early church certainly did, and they also were attacked with false doctrine. But they had nothing to fear, but rather they should have had faith during these great spiritual warfare battles because we know Jesus gave believers authority to rebuke demons. And so that's going to be our next point here. Any questions or comments before we continue here? How Jesus gives believers authority to rebuke demons. All right, so let's look at it here. We see throughout scripture, the 12, the 70, Philip, Paul, they had the authority to rebuke demons. We see that in Luke 9, 1, that Jesus sent the 12 disciples of Herod to preach the kingdom of God, and he gave them power and authority over all demons. Again, this is Jesus that is giving the power and authority. And then with the 70, so it's not just the 12, it's also the 70, that they would preach the kingdom of God in the towns and villages, and they would return with joy. And what did they say? Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. Then Philip, the evangelist, went down to Samaria to preach the gospel, and unclean spirits came out of many of them. Then Paul, he used spiritual authority over demons. If you remember with that Susanne girl, he says, I charge you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. So let me remind you. that this authority is because of the Finnish work of Christ on the cross. Jesus took on flesh and blood that through death he might render powerless him who had the power of death which was the devil. At the cross God disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them triumphing over them in him. And then because of the blood of Christ, which speaks of his death, we read in Revelation that those who overcome Satan by Christ's blood during the conflict in this world, they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. So there's some scriptures there in Hebrews 2, Colossians 2, and Revelation 12. And ultimately, because of Christ's death on the cross, our sins are completely forgiven, and Satan has no rightful authority over us, and we have no need to fear. We understand we're part of the family of God, and we can say amen to 1 John 4, 4, that says, And so, yeah, I would argue that Jesus gave believers in the early church authority to rebuke such demons. Any questions or comments here? talking about demons. Yeah, yeah. That's a great point. No, that's a really great point, Chris. So there are extremes to this view, right? You have one side that's pretty much really just scared of demons. Then you have the other side that's demon chasing, and we'll get into that a little bit. But yeah, there's a lot of charismatic churches that teach that, you know, here's a course in how to rebuke this demon, or here's a course in how to become this demon chaser. And it is sad that they're not holding to the Word of God. I think this is where it comes down to, really, what's the sufficiency of the Scripture. If you're not holding this as your main authority, but rather pretty much think that you can kind of do it all, and you don't really need much of the scripture. The Lord's given me so many gifts here. I'm gonna go cast out demons, but you're not in the word, and you're not really learning what the word is teaching. Yes, that is a major danger where people fall into. But yeah, let's kind of talk about that, because that's the next thing here. The Christian spiritual authority in ministry. So we know that we don't have to have any fear. But how can we go about helping others in spiritual warfare? Remember, we're not in this war alone. We have our brothers and sisters in Christ fighting the same battle. This is one reason we gather on Sundays. We want to check up on one another and pray for one another. Could it be that someone is under great spiritual attack from the enemy? Each Christian is a soldier in the Lord's spiritual army and therefore subject to attacks from the forces of the enemy. So we're gonna need to help each other out. And so maybe you notice someone who's bleeding out on this spiritual warfare and they need some help, right? We see that in Galatians 6 where we come with a spirit of gentleness and we restore such a brother. And so let's briefly discuss the Christian spiritual authority and ministry. One way we encourage others in the fight is to remind them that God is with them. We encourage all brothers and sisters in Christ that in the trial we are to trust God. especially in spiritual warfare. One reason many believers fall into the enemy's trap is because they're proud, right? They are not casting their anxiety on the Lord. They think too highly of themselves. Like Peter, they trust themselves to not deny the Lord in the midst of great temptation, but we need to recognize that we have sinful hearts and we ought to humble ourselves and ask the Lord to help us to be faithful. Another way to ask our brothers and sisters in Christ, another way is to ask them, how is your prayer life? How is your personal spiritual preparation? You're in this war. Are you lazy? Are you getting up, praying and asking the Lord to help you each and every day? And so I recommend fasting, much prayer, especially during difficult trials. And if we're not in the word of God, our foundation will be in sinking sand. Imagine not taking the sword of the spirit with you in the battle. You're a sitting duck. And so you might think, well, I'm just too busy. That means you need to pray more. We will not be able to stand firm if our prayer life is shaky. Another important point about spiritual authority, and kind of like we were saying with Chris, is that we do not go demon chasing. 1 Corinthians 14.20 states that we are to be babes in evil. And so we are not to become overly fascinated with matters of evil and attempt to become some type of expert in these kinds of evil just to satisfy our curiosity. All right, any questions about that? We're almost finishing up here. Yeah, really important stuff here, because we're in this war. We're not alone. We have the church, obviously. That's why it's important to come. It's a Sunday school, Sunday main service, too, and fellowship afterwards. We need to check up on each other and know that, hey, if you're going through a lot, we need to check up on you and see how you're doing, because there is this spiritual warfare. All right, our last point here about this relationship with demons is really important, it's about our expectations. We should expect the gospel to come in power, to triumph over the works of the devil. Jesus commissioned Paul to preach among the Gentiles, and he says this in Acts 26, 18, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, a place among those who are sanctified by faith. in Jesus. And so if we really believe the scriptural testimony to the existence and activity of demons, if we really believe that one of the reasons the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil, then it would seem appropriate to expect that even today that the Gospels proclaim to unbelievers, and when prayer is made for believers who are being attacked by the enemy, that there's going to be this triumph over the power of the enemy. And so we are to preach the Gospel. This is how people are trans We'll end with this verse here. Colossians 1, 12-14. giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. For he rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And so we not only preach the gospel to ourselves, we preach it to others. We know that we could fall into this prideful state and so we wanna make sure we're not bait for the enemy We need to be preaching the gospel which triumphs. Some applications here as we close. The first application question is, are there any areas of sin in our lives that might welcome demonic activity? We are called to repent of all sin, and so we better stop playing. The enemy is looking for Christians that are sleeping, and so may we bring glory to God and not give a reason to the enemy to smile. If we long to please God, we will live lives that demonstrate this strong battle, a battle where we obeyed God by putting on the full armor of God. The second application question here is, are we aware when we speak to unbelievers of a false religion that there's often this spiritual battle taking place? And so we should be in the business of fasting, praying, and meditating on scripture. When we depend on God, we're going to see great victory. And a lot of people, they tend to doubt that, oh, Muslims, they'll never come to Christ, or people from this other religion, they're brainwashed, they'll never come to Christ. The reason why a lot of times we fall into that trap is because we're not trusting in God and the power of the gospel. We should understand that if we keep praying for our unsaved loved ones and we keep telling them the gospel, yes, God can save anyone. In conclusion, We learned that demons are active, right? They are active, they are going about looking who to devour. Are we active in preaching the gospel and engaging in spiritual warfare? We know that demons have this authority currently in the world, but are we aware of the authority we have because of the gospel? And lastly, demons are afraid of God, but are we afraid of demons? We shouldn't be, because God is the creator and these are just creatures. We have God on our side and we ought to trust in Him and go to war. Amen, let's pray.