Are Ghosts, Angels & Demons Real? A Biblical Conversation

If you’ve ever wondered whether there’s more going on than what we can see—but don’t want fear, hype, or strange answers—this conversation is for you. Pastor Mateen shares a thoughtful biblical perspective on the spiritual world so you can approach these questions with confidence instead of anxiety.

• What Scripture actually says about angels, demons, and spiritual beings
• Why Christians shouldn’t ignore the spiritual world—or obsess over it
• How God’s authority gives believers confidence instead of fear

Chapters

02:24 Mateen’s Story: From the Occult to Following Jesus

08:15 What Does the Bible Actually Say About Spiritual Beings?

13:15 Should Christians Be Afraid of Demons?

21:33 Can Christians Be Demon Possessed?

29:16 What Should You Do If You’re Still Wrestling With These Questions?

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

There are two equal and opposite errors that human beings can fall into with regard to evil spirits. One is to completely disbelieve in their existence, and the other is to believe in them, but to have an unhealthy interest. And the devil doesn't care which error you fall into because he can use each each of those errors for his own purposes.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Hello, Mateen.

SPEAKER_04 0:28

How are you doing, Emmy?

SPEAKER_01 0:30

I am doing great. We were discussing two minutes ago how I'm actually very excited for this podcast with you specifically. I have gotten to know you a little bit, getting to work with you in your role here at First Press. The people on the podcast don't know anything about you. And I would love to get to introduce them to you a little bit, but more so have you introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_04 0:53

I was asked to come on staff here in an interim role, replacing a former Minister of Adult Education or Adult Discipleship. I served here at First Press back in the 1990s in that same role. That's fun. For six years. So it's great to be back on staff and uh enjoying all the relationships that old and new that have been able to develop.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

I love that. Well, Mateen, today we're talking about the spiritual world. And we are going to be potentially asking some really interesting and quirky questions and potentially answering uh just how we as believers navigate the fear, the unknown, the big question marks that come with things like what do you do with angels and demons and powers and principalities and all that kind of stuff that comes up throughout scripture? Absolutely. I mean, at least I don't feel like there's a angels and demons, you know, book of the Bible that I can just be like, ah yes, and that's what a seraphim does, and you know, so on and so forth. And part of your story of how you came to Christ and what your life was like before that, I think probably really helped to educate the learning that you did after this, after after the fact, um, to then have a Christian worldview of what to do with spiritual beings. Would you tell a little bit about kind of your walk towards Christ and what all that looked like just as a background?

SPEAKER_04 2:26

I'd be glad to. Uh and I mean to start off, I'd say uh the world of spiritual beings is very mysterious because uh human beings aren't uh told a lot about this unseen but very real world of uh spiritual beings. Uh so I grew up in Saudi Arabia. I grew up in the Muslim world. Um my father was Muslim, my mother was not, and we lived in a very secular home, but we were surrounded by uh uh a world of people whose whose world view was very much tied up with uh angels and demons and and a separate class of being called the jinn. Oh who were uh I I always like to think of them as uh desert leprechauns. Uh they're they're beings that uh a few can be good, but most of them are evil or impish. They just like to cause problems for human beings. Uh so all of that uh was part of my world growing up. I was given by one of my uh Arab ants uh an amulet you could you wear around your neck, which was supposed to protect you from the evil eye. So there was a sense belief that the supernatural was uh was woven in the midst of your everyday life, and you could be impacted by uh evil beings, possibly protected by angels, but people were more concerned about the evil beings, of course, and then had all of these um uh these ways to try to ward off evil spirits through amulets, through incantations, uh, through uh holy water that they would produce and all that all that kind of stuff. And I I moved from the world of Islam when I was about uh 13, uh becoming very interested in Eastern mysticism, and that took me uh all the way from age 13 till age 20 when I met Christ in a rather dramatic way. Uh and uh in that time period I was experimenting uh not so much with uh with getting wanting to get to know any evil beings, I didn't I didn't know any, uh, but with the desire to have power to be able to manipulate the world around me. And so as I was very deeply involved with Eastern mysticism, on a parallel path, I started uh dabbling in uh witchcraft in the occult uh out of this desire to be able to wield uh wield power beyond what human beings normally had. Um so at that point uh evil beings did not seem evil to me, but rather a source of uh a source of power. But I learned very quickly that there are trade-offs. I mean, if if you're trying to get some kind of uh gift of power from a spiritual being, uh there typically was a price that you had to pay. Um and uh of course I knew nothing about uh the grace of God, I knew nothing about the free gift of salvation in Christ. Uh all I knew was this transactional kind of uh deal. You know, you want something from a spiritual being, then you've got to pay the price for whatever that costs.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah. Yeah. Something I think about a lot with when we start talking about spiritual beings is I think that we as Christians, and probably even more so, we as more heady Christians, as Presbyterians, I think we just kind of back pocket them and say, oh, this is not really legit. But it sounds like even just from your your stories of your life growing up, you are very aware that it is a real, like there are real forces that we reckon with.

SPEAKER_04 6:27

Well, certainly from the worldview that I uh swam in in in the Middle East, it was just an uh uh I wouldn't say an assumption, it was it was a given that there were spiritual beings. Of course, all of them subservient to Allah, the you know, the one God, uh, and no none of them having power that Allah didn't hadn't given them, uh, but certainly that there were spiritual beings. And then of course I was educated in the West, and Western education, very much uh enlightenment scientific based education, uh, says that really the only realities that there are are the ones that we can measure with our senses. And so uh to think about some kind of uh unseen spiritual world behind the visible scene world was just uh uh it was something that would be laughed at or mocked in the West. Um but I think we do a disservice to ourselves to uh simply imbibe that worldview and not realize that at least two-thirds of the rest of the world uh recognizes there is such a thing as spiritual beings or a spiritual world where these uh creatures are active.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

Impacting us.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Oh, a hundred percent. If you had to lay out like a minute, I don't know, you can go as long as you want, but like a one minute of like if you were talking with another believer and you were maybe challenging their view on the spiritual world, what would you say? Like this is a worldview that lines up with you know what Christ teaches in the Bible, what scripture says about spiritual beings.

SPEAKER_04 8:16

Well, of course the scriptures say that uh everything that exists has been created by God. And so everything is under the sovereignty of God. Um but in this universe, as uh C. S. Lewis once said, there there is no neutral ground. Uh everything is is either uh joyfully under uh the authority of God or is an act of rebellion against him. There's there are there are no neutral spirits.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:47

And that applies to human beings also, even though many people convince themselves with regard to God, well, you know, I'm I keep an open mind. I'm not either for God or against God. I don't even know if there is a God or or isn't a God, but I'm neutral. But in reality, nobody is neutral. We, you know, if God does exist and he claims everything for himself, uh then as a human being to say, well, I I claim myself for myself means that we're putting ourselves at odds with God, even if uh we're not thinking that we are. Uh we're we're in a some kind of rebellion against him, just by leaving him out of the equation completely. So the first thing I'd say is everything is uh is under God as as having been created by him, and one day everything uh will recognize, as the Apostle Paul said in Philippians 2, that Jesus Christ is Lord of all, whether you're in heaven, on earth, or under the earth, uh every knee will bow, every tongue can will confess that he is Lord. So that's the first thing. Uh the second thing I'd say is that uh in addition to the the world that we know, the world of our observable universe, there is this uh unseen world, at least mostly unseen, to us, with these kinds of beings that the Bible talks about, angels, demons, and then some of the words that you use, principalities and powers, um uh beings that are have some kind of authority, whether it's given by God or whether it's been usurped from God. Uh and uh and these beings wield that power uh either f uh for God's kingdom or uh for the kingdom of darkness or for their own purposes. Um I think to me the most convincing thing uh to uh or the thing that most convinced me of the reality of beings is is some personal encounters. Yeah. But even more than that, it's it's the fact that Jesus himself, uh whom as Christians we believe, uh uh knows and sees all things. He's omniscient and and he himself talks about the reality of demons, of the devil, um, of uh uh he cast out demons from people to rescue them from the power of these evil beings. So uh I guess the simplistic way of saying it is if if Jesus recognized the reality of these beings, I'd be stupid not to.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Super fair. Super fair.

SPEAKER_04 11:28

Now also uh uh C. S. Lewis, who's one of my heroes of the faith, in his uh uh book Screwtape Letters, which was uh a fantasy novel about a senior devil instructing a junior devil into how to to uh tempt and mislead uh human beings, uh Lewis in his introduction to that book said there are two equal and opposite errors that human beings can fall into with regard to evil spirits. Uh one is to completely disbelieve in their existence, and the other is to believe in them, but to have an unhealthy interest in them. He said, uh in the end the devil doesn't care which error you fall into because he can use each of those errors for his own purposes.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Yeah. And I'm really glad you quoted that because I've been thinking of the most vague version of that quote all day. Is that right? Yeah, since you know I knew we were doing this. Um but that was very eloquently said of like what then as believers is the balance that we hold of being aware of these spiritual beings? And also, I don't think we've really touched on this a ton, but also like of good beings who are serving God, right? Or even of the Holy Spirit, or the fact that we are spirits, like we have spirits as well, of like we're not just physical beings. Um and then these evil spirits of how do we hold those things in balance without squashing and pretending that it's just material, that like enlightened Western view, and without over-elevating and deciding, oh my goodness, I need to be worried or I need to be fearful or anything like that all the time. Yeah, how would you, if you have somebody who's wrestling with those things, like how would you respond to them in that?

SPEAKER_04 13:16

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. Uh a lot of Christians uh do not focus enough upon uh the sovereign goodness of God. Uh if we belong to God, uh if we indeed have come to Christ and now are children of our Heavenly Father through adoption into the life of Christ, then we are protected by God uh from any ultimate damage or hurt by uh evil spirits. So uh even though it can be a daunting thing to to suddenly be in the presence of evil, and and there are times even without uh you know without someone who's possessed, but you walk into a situation and and the hairs on your arms just kind of stand on end and you you you feel an evil presence. Uh it's easy to be frightened, and there's a need then to remind ourselves uh that greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world, and ultimately we are protected from the powers of darkness. And that and that we are given authority by Christ. Jesus said, All authority has been given to me by, of course, by the Heavenly Father in heaven and on earth. Uh and uh so we have the authority in Christ, not ever in ourselves, but as we rest in him to be able to uh do battle with evil.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Yeah, that's something that I remember being taught probably since I was two. My parents, I would have nightmares and they would say, I mean, you have you know, you have the Lord on your side. Yeah. You can say, when you feel scared at night, in the name of Jesus, get out. Yeah. Because like Christ trumps it all. You know? And I mean, I still say that. There are still times when I will wake up or enter into a space, and you're right, like you you can feel. I think that's also might be something, I don't know if you'd agree with this, but like reassuring people that if you feel like something's off, you're probably not crazy. Yeah. Like that's a very real experience. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 15:35

And like claiming, of course, I think it's it's been uh exacerbated by Hollywood, you know, all of the horror films and uh Exorcist and which I went to when it came out. I wasn't a Christian yet at the time. Scared the bejeebers out of me. Um but uh you know, all all of these, the imagination of Hollywood directors to create a kind of evil that uh I think uh it's it's a sh a showtime kind of evil. It's not it doesn't really plumb the depths of what true evil is like. It tries to scare us with with all the physical pain and and all of the uh visual horrors that we can imagine the devil looking like, you know, where where the real evil is the evil that corrodes the soul and uh make prepares us for an eternity apart from God rather than with God. Uh but yeah, to uh reminding ourselves that uh that we are we exist under the sovereign care of God and and so we have no need to be frightened of uh of the evil one. But that's something that takes time to overcome, I think, sure with practice.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Yeah. To totally flip the switch. We've been talking a lot more about like powers, principalities, evil devils, things like that. What do you think about angels?

SPEAKER_04 17:04

Angels are good.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Yeah. What do they do? Like how do we do we need to think about them a lot?

SPEAKER_04 17:11

I don't know. Uh I I don't want to say anything blasphemous by any means. Uh but I I don't know how much we're called to think about angels. Sure. We're to recognize that they exist and and and they have uh their very specific role from God or roles to play. The term uh where we get angel from in English comes from Greek, angulos, uh, which literally means messenger. Angels are divine messengers uh to the human race, maybe to others as well, but certainly to the human race. Uh Hebrews 1 14, I think it is, speaks of angels as uh m ministering spirits. So sent from God with a purpose, ministering means uh serving. And so their role is uh under God's decree, whatever message he's having them deliver, uh, it's to to do that faithfully. Uh but angels are uh are formidable beings. Uh in the New Testament, well, Old Testament as well as New Testament, when people come into the presence of an angel, uh typically they shake with fear, fall down with fear, and it's the angel has to say, Hey, don't be afraid, don't be afraid. Yeah, I'm here br bringing good news, uh, not uh not this destructive news. Yeah, so um the the image that often uh we have in our culture of angels as these little cherubs that are sitting on uh clouds uh flapping their little wings.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Um yeah for Christmas in the little angel costumes, not quite the same thing.

SPEAKER_04 18:56

No, not quite the same thing. They're majest I mean, as far as I understand, majestic beings who project the the power, the awesome power of God, yeah, the glory of God.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:08

And in the Old Testament, sometimes when they when an angel appeared and started to talk with one of the patriarchs, uh uh first they would think of them as an angel, and then somewhere in the conversation it would change to now addressing God directly, even though they're still in conversation with this being. So interesting. There's this sense that uh that they can sort of become a uh what's the term you would use? Intermediary? They're an intermediary for sure, but sometimes uh they they lose, or for the person who's interacting with them, they lose that distinct nature as a as a being, yeah, and they become transparent.

unknown 19:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 19:50

Uh and that God is actually speaking through that angel. So uh I've never noticed that before.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

That's really interesting.

SPEAKER_04 19:58

Yeah. The angel of the Lord suddenly becomes the Lord speaking to the individual.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Yeah. Interesting. Is there anything else that you want to talk about right now that you're like I've been itchin'? I think the people need to know this.

SPEAKER_04 20:14

Well uh I mentioned Lewis talking about how we shouldn't have develop an unhealthy interest uh in uh in evil beings. And part of that Jesus talks about as well when he when he says uh don't don't be afraid of uh of those who can harm the body, but after you know they've done their harm, uh they can't do you any more harm. But rather fear the one who has the power not only to uh to kill but to send you to send a person to hell. Give your attention to the to the one who is the ultimate authority over life and death, and the one the one that we ultimately are answerable to, of course, who's God. So uh don't worry about all these little these lesser beings who parade themselves around as if you know, puff themselves up as if we I can really do harm to you if if you don't do what I want you to do. Rather, we should say, well, there's only one being that really I have to deal with in my life, and that's God. And if things are right between God and me, then uh nothing else can go wrong ultimately.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Solid for a rogue question, circling back. Okay. Um you had talked about how Jesus also had you know expelled demons through his power, right? And these demons were having physical effects on people. Yes. Yeah. I think that that's one of the main questions that I think of. I mean, we have people who are walking around the streets here in Colorado Springs, who you might look At them and say, whoa, like they are not okay. Um and I think that a lot of times we think, okay, that's definitely a physical or mental illness. And I don't necessarily know exactly how to shape this question, but when we look at things like that, and then we also read of this like demonic oppression in the New Testament, how many times do you think that we are approaching situations and saying, okay, medicate it or fix it or stick a band-aid on it when we also need to be like praying for the intervention of the Holy Spirit to like come in and do you get what I'm are you picking up what I'm putting down? I feel like I'm not really asked actually asking this question well.

SPEAKER_04 22:45

Yeah, uh I'm not sure, but I have an answer.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Great.

SPEAKER_04 22:49

In in the New Testament, uh Jesus seems to pretty clearly separate out people who need healing from people who need deliverance.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 23:01

You know, from demonic oppression or possession. And he uses uh two verbs, the verb therapuo, where we get our word therap therapy from, which is the main one of the main words in the New Testament for healing, uh, from this other word ekbalo, which means to cast out. Uh and so it uh when it comes to uh demonic beings inhabiting someone or harassing a person, uh Jesus doesn't heal them, he casts out the evil presence uh to set that person free now to live uh a life that can flourish. But he he also warns people that uh you've been set free uh uh but now you have to fill yourself with uh with God's presence so that you don't have a vacuum that this evil spirit can come back into and bring, as he says in one place, seven more of his buddies to inhabit with him. No, it doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

And I think I mean I've heard this conversation kind of go back and forth of like, then we as believers with the Holy Spirit, my understanding is that we have no fear of any sort of possession because of the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_04 24:18

Yeah, I think that's true.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 24:20

If we're filled with the Spirit, we can't be filled with the evil at the same time. Uh but but we can be harassed.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

That was gonna be yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:29

Yeah, that w there we can still have d demonic um the demonic world around us, uh, and we we can be debilitated, yeah but but we can't be possessed, take uh taken control of uh uh by an evil spirit that says, now you belong to me, or you belong to the forces of darkness. No, that can't happen.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

No.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

Because oh this is one thing I wanted to say, Emmy. A lot of Christians uh think of good and evil as sort of equal powers, equal and opposite powers. And so they think of the devil as kind of the king of the underworld or the world of darkness, and they put the devil over up over against Jesus or God uh as the equal and opposite force. But in the New Testament, well, Old and New Testaments, the devil is is never a being who who has any kind of equality with God. The devil's a created being.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 25:33

In Christian and Jewish tradition, uh the devil is seen as as originally created good, as one of the archangels who then fell, uh twisted himself into the belief that uh that he was better than could be better than God at running the universe and should be on the throne instead of God, and then became an enemy of God's. Um but in in theological terms, the uh the equal opposite or the antithesis to the devil is not uh God or uh Jesus, God the Son, but is rather the archangel Michael. Oh so that's where the parody would be. Oh and God is over all of it. All of it. So the the devil has no independent reality or no kind of power that can uh that can somehow overcome God's power. I l I like in uh in uh Martin Luther's hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God, uh, when Luther's painting the picture of uh of Christ opposing the forces of evil on uh in in the book of Revelation, the armies of God range against the armies of the devil. Uh Luther's word is one one little word shall fail him, the devil. That's cool. Though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God has willed his truth to triumph through us. Uh so one one little word will fail him. That is, the word of the all-powerful Jesus uh uh has complete sway over all the forces of evil. So although they appear formidable to us, the forces of evil, uh to you know, the to the infinite uh all-powerful God, uh any force in this universe is just as nothing compared to him.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

So we should rest really easily. I think you just answered my follow-up question, which is as believers, when we feel like we might be being harassed or we feel just like this present darkness, just like the darkness of the world, like how do we respond to that in faith? And how does how do we walk forward into that in Christ, knowing I think what you just said. I think you just answered it.

SPEAKER_04 27:58

I hope so. I uh another quote from Martin Luther when he was being harassed by the devil, tempted or test not tested, but uh uh tempted to believe that God uh would abandon him. Luther's r response was uh, I've been baptized. In other words, I'm I'm immersed in Christ, I belong to Christ. Wow. You have no power over me. You know, you can't you can't get to me because I'm in Christ, I belong to Christ. So that's what we need to remember. I think like you were saying when from when you were uh a little little girl, uh you know, get away from me, Satan. Yeah, you have no you have no rights over me, no power. I belong to Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Yeah, that's powerful. Well, thanks, Mateen. My pleasure. All my all my rogue questions and uh That's it, we finished, we've covered this topic. I think that's it. We can say goodbye to the people, and we can say, hey, if if you are questioning these questions, if you have these same questions, if you're wondering about this kind of stuff, you're not all by your lonesome.

SPEAKER_04 29:12

Absolutely. Yeah. So it's important to address address them if it's a real question with us.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

For anybody who's asking these questions and is maybe wrestling with this kind of stuff, what do you think would be like a good practical next step? Like what's the next thing that you would say?

SPEAKER_04 29:30

Hey, well, uh right now my mind is filled with uh the theme of of mentoring, uh, mentors. Yeah. And trying to find older, wiser believers to help shepherd younger believers. And I think this is a perfect example of where that would be helpful if if there's a younger believer who doesn't really understand so much about God's sovereignty and and the authority that God has given to his people, to every Christian. When you're filled with the Spirit, you're filled with the presence and the power and the authority of God. But a lot of people don't don't realize that or don't know how to unpack that.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:13

And so it's really helpful to find an older, uh, wiser believer who's who's uh maybe a I don't mean physically appears grizzled, but a veteran of walking with Christ and and uh and and to pitch these questions. Because uh someone who's a who qual would qualify as a mentor is a person who would never say, oh, that's a stupid question, or you know, you uh you you shouldn't think about those kinds of things. Or that you're kind of weird if your mind is revolving around that. A mentor says, Oh yeah, I I've been there, yeah, I've I've walked through that, and uh can can be a great guide on the road to spiritual growth. So that's what comes to my mind first.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

I love that.

SPEAKER_04 30:58

Find someone as a mentor.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Yeah. I love that, and you've been a great just example of that to me.

SPEAKER_04 31:04

You're so sweet, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

Um well, thanks so much. My pleasure. This has been a good one, I think. Maybe we'll chat again sometime.

SPEAKER_04 31:13

I would I'd enjoy that.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

In our generally shared office space upstairs.

SPEAKER_04 31:17

That you've now moved out of.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

I know, it's so sad. Mateen, as the introvert on extrovert row, I miss you. Or as you are the were the introvert. I was one of the extroverts on extrovert row. I do miss you.

SPEAKER_04 31:30

So I miss you. Because you were the protector. You could do all the extroverted things that I didn't have to do.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Mateen's office was kind of tucked behind my office, and so whenever people walked in and they had questions, they would catch me first before they hit Mateen. So he could keep reading his book and studying. That's right. Yeah. You know, having nice peaceful conversations with people. Anyway, good chat.

SPEAKER_04 31:55

Thanks so much, and good to be with you.