Spiritual Warfare | Ep.23

We go straight into spiritual warfare and why Christians cannot afford to stay ignorant of what Scripture says about demons, deliverance, and authority. I challenge the “oppressed versus possessed” split, walk through key Bible passages, and get practical about symptoms, open doors, and how to stay protected in Christ. 
 
• spiritual warfare grounded in Ephesians 6:12 and the reality of an unseen battle 
• what “demon” means and why “unclean spirit” matters 
• why the Greek points to “demonised” rather than neat modern categories 
• the temple courts picture and what it suggests about deliverance for believers 
• key Scriptures on casting out demons and why “come out” is the pattern 
• the “empty house” warning and why follow-up with the Holy Spirit matters 
• real-world stories that highlight how strange and tangible this can get 
• how demons gain access through agreements, sin patterns, and “open doors” 
• common signs like nightmares, intrusive thoughts, spiritual fatigue, and resistance 
• seven battle areas from Michael Harper and how doctrine can be attacked 
• the armour of God in Ephesians 6 and living with confidence, not fear 

Christ is King, Jesus loves you, and He's coming back soon!

Transcript

Welcome And Listener Shout-outs

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to episode 23 of the Ministry of Man podcast. I'm your host, Isaac Anthony Turner. Now I got some shout-outs to give. Because there's some people from the US that have been tuning in every week. And I got love for that. That's awesome. I'm in Australia. And you guys are in the US kicking it to the Ministry Man podcast. So shout out to Sepulpa, Oklahoma, for one. Because there's some veterans that have been listening from the start. Ashburn, Virginia. And I think this is how you spay it, say how you say it. Marion, Ohio. I wasn't sure if it's Marion or Marion Ohio. So if you're in any of those three places, I love you. You're amazing. And I feel like you get it. If you've listened to a bunch of these and you're still listening, then I feel like you get it. So shout out to you guys. Now we're getting we're getting into some heavy business today. Some real heavy business. I didn't I didn't think I was gonna get into this type of heavy business so soon on this podcast. Uh and if you aren't a Christian, then this podcast might be a little weird for you. It might be a little cray. You might be like Isaac Anthony Turner. The things that you're talking about, to us who aren't Christians, this sounds a little bit cray. That's what you're probably gonna be thinking. But that's okay. That's okay. You can either keep it pushing and don't listen, or you can stick around and you can get an insight into the spiritual realm of Christianity. Because I'm gonna be talking about some spiritual warfare. This is what I'm talking about. Spiritual warfare. Because here's the thing if you're a Christian, you believe in God, what follows from that is that you also believe in angels, demons, Satan, all these other things in the spiritual realm. And you you believe that there's also a spiritual realm. And if you believe in those things, then you you believe that there's an enemy. There's a spiritual enemy that first of all hates you if you're a Christian, or just hates everything because they can't love, because they're they don't have like God is love, and if you don't have God, you can't really love. Like if you are a demonic entity, you can't possess things that are godly, basically. So, but you would believe that there is an enemy that wants to take you out, like that doesn't want to see you grow into the potential or into the fullness or that God has created you to be, or to go grow closer to God. There's there's a battle, there's a war going on. So a lot of what I'm going to be talking about, or at least uh more towards the end of this podcast, I'm going to be going into there's a book called Spiritual Warfare from a man named Michael Harper. He basically popularized the term spiritual warfare, and a lot of what I'm talking about towards the end will be based off some things he's written in that book. But overall, these are just things that I've picked up along the way. Listening to other ministers and reading the Bible, just reading the Bible. What does the Bible say about these things? So uh essentially, one of the core doctrines or the core verses in understanding spiritual warfare comes from Ephesians 6, verse 12, which basically just says, For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers, over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. So in in summary, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. The fight of the Christian is not a physical, uh, material fight. We aren't going out to go to battle uh to get like bash the non-believers or kill people that don't believe, or just like kill evil people. The battle is in the spirit, and uh there's a number of different ways that you can advance the kingdom of God without using physical force. That being said, I'm not a pacifist by any means, um, but that ideology I will go through a different day because today we're talking specifically about the spiritual warfare of things. So a few things to begin with, to kind of understand as an overarching idea, is that first of all, the word demon for one by definition, it just means lesser spirit. So obviously, we believe in God and the the Holy Spirit, his spirit, or he, he is the ultimate spirit, he's the higher spirit. A demon is just a lesser spirit, it's just a little weakling. The Bible will often call them unclean spirits as another way of uh identifying what these things are and to address them is as an unclean spirit, an evil spirit or an unclean spirit. Now, one of the biggest questions in Christianity, I suppose maybe not one of the biggest, but a very common one that's quite divided in or or divisive is whether or not a Christian can have a demon. So in in whatever Bible you get, you're gonna have translations of the word oppressed and possessed. And so Christians have this idea of, you know, you can't, if you're a Christian, you can't be possessed, you can only be oppressed. And when they say that, they basically mean you can't have a demon inside of you, you can only have something outside of you trying to attack you from from outside, but not you can't have one on the inside because oh, that's where the whole, you know, your body is the Holy Spirit, uh temple of the Holy Spirit. In terms of those that believe that you can't have a demon if you're a Christian, in 2 Corinthians 6, verse 14, it says, Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? So there's this idea of light and darkness can't have fellowship. Um, in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 16 it says, Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? So obviously, if God's spirit dwells in you and God is light, how could light and darkness dwell in the same area? In any kind of material way, as soon as light enters into the area, darkness flees. It's impossible for light and darkness to share the same space. And so there's this idea that wherever the light is, darkness cannot be. Therefore, if you're a Christian and you're filled with the Holy Spirit, it's impossible for you to have a demonic spirit. That is basically the essence of uh of this. And so that's why they they they have different translations where they'll say, this person's possessed, this person's oppressed. Now, the biggest issue with that that I have is that in the in the Greek, when it when the Bible was originally written was in the Greek, there's only one word that's used and it's demonized. So anytime you see the word oppressed or demon-oppressed or demon-possessed, that word is the same word in the Greek. It just says demonized. It doesn't make a distinction between oppressed and possessed. We've sort of come along after the fact and tried to use language for our own uh, I guess, ideas of expressing our beliefs. And so we've kind of drawn this line between the two, but the Bible doesn't do it. So I'm not a fan of making distinctions between things when the Bible doesn't do that. I'm not against the idea that that might say that Christians can or can't have a demon. I'm just saying we can't split the two. I don't think you get the answer for whether or not a Christian can or can't have a demon by just splitting hairs in between this word. It that it just says demonized, and you can be you can either be demonized or you can't be demonized. So that's the the first thing I want to say about that. In terms of the idea of Christians being able to have a demon, this is the the common scriptures that are used in in the case of having it for the case. In Matthew 21, 12, verse 12 and 13, it says, Then Jesus entered the temple and he drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of money, the tables of money changers, and the seeds of those who sold doves. And he said to them, It is written, My house should be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers. Obviously, Jesus has come into the temple. Now, in the previous verse I mentioned in 1 Corinthians 3 16, it says, You are the temple of the Holy Spirit, you are God's temple, and his spirit dwells in you. So uh your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Jesus gives uh that there's a a story of how Jesus is driving evil things out of the temple. And when you look at the temples uh of the day or of the Jewish temple, they had the outer court, they had the inner court, and then they had the holy of holies. And so the outer court was where anyone could just go. You could just go into the the outer court wherever you wanted. Uh, that was not a restricted place. And as the further you got in, it was heavily restricted. So, in in order to go into the holy of holies, you had to be a uh ordained priest. Like there were there was only certain people that were able or allowed to go into the Holy of Holies because that's where God dwells. So that was the place. So going back to the the old testament in the tabernacle that they made, there was only uh the highest, the high priest could go in, and they were only allowed to go in once a year. So it's a very prestigious place, uh, and no one can just wander in. So the idea is that the Holy Spirit dwells in the Holy of Holies as your body is the temple, that's where he rests. But in the outer courts, things can get in, and that's what needs to be cast out. So, in regards to the light and darkness scripture, it says at the beginning of it, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. So it is it is kind of saying it's not really talking about a spiritual thing, it's talking specifically about not being uh having close friendship or having business relationship specifically with unbelievers, as it's just an unwise thing to do. And to say to be yoked is to cattle, when it says do not be uh unequally yoked with unbelievers, it's when you yoke cattle together, they they pull a plow. And so they attach a yoke between two cattle and they pull the plow in order to plow the ground. And so if they're unequal in strength, let's say, the plow will be pulled in an obscure direction, it'll start to drift off to one side. The strongest will be able to pull it much more efficiently and powerfully than the weaker. And so you're not gonna have good soil to sew into because it's gonna be un uh uneven lines in your in your ground. And so you when you're traveling together, when you're working together, you want to be equal. You want to know that you're equal, and so you don't go off course. It's simple. So it isn't really a good verse to use specifically for whether or not Christians can have a demon or not. In Matthew 6, 22 to 23, it says, the eye is the lamp of the body. It says, so if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. And then it says, This is interesting, if then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness? So it's it is saying that your the light within you is is related to what your eye is drawn in. This there is a visual diet almost that you can consume. So you can bring darkness into you through what you look at. And so, in some sense, it's saying that your body will be full of darkness based on your eye. And so it kind of just throws out the window. Well, you know, if you've got the Holy Spirit in you and He's light, you can't have any darkness in you. And so, well, by that logic, that means you could literally put your eye towards anything and you'll be immune from the whole darkness thing. That's literally what you would say. Oh, I've got the Holy Spirit in me, which means I'm now allowed to look at anything because darkness actually can't get into me. I can look at whatever I want and darkness won't get into me. So that verse actually wouldn't even apply to Christians. And if that was the case, then why bother even putting it into the Bible? In addition to that, there's a verse about uh a Canaanite woman. This is in Matthew 15, 28, uh, 22 to 28. I'll paraphrase it because it's a little bit long. Basically, this Canaanite woman. So if you know about the Old Testament, the Canaanites are basically the enemy of Israel. So a Canaanite woman comes into the vicinity crying out to Jesus, saying her daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly, and and was asking Jesus to help with the daughter. And essentially Jesus says, I uh I was only sent to help the lost sheep of Israel. So basically he's saying, I was only sent for the the God's people, the Christians, the lost ones at least, to bring them back. And then, sorry, then Jesus says, It's not right to take the children's bread and toss it to dogs. And the woman says, Yes, it is, Lord. Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table. Then Jesus said to her, Woman, you have great faith. Your request has been granted, and her daughter was healed at that moment. So essentially what Jesus is saying, because she comes up for deliverance, she comes up, I've got a demon-possessed child here, I need your help. And Jesus says, Well, this is the children's bread, deliverance to cast these things out, it's for the children, meaning the the believers. And then she says, Yes, well, share, share it. You know, there's enough to share around, like everyone can sort of have some. And he says, Yeah, wow, you've got great faith. And uh, and so that there it is granted. Now, there is a reason why Jesus said that as well, because obviously that sounds harsh that he would say, No, I won't do this for you, but there is a reason. I'll explain that in a moment. So, based on that scripture, though, it sounds like casting demons out of people is specifically for the believers, not for those that don't believe. And uh, and I'll explain a little bit more on that too. But first, I'll just quickly say in in Mark chapter 1, verse 21 to 26, Jesus was in a synagogue and he was teaching. They were astonished at his teaching that he taught with authority, not as the scribes. Then it says, And immediately there was in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be silent and come out of him. And it says, The unclean spirit convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice came out of him. Uh, which is interesting to know for people, because some people think that if demons are doing that, that they're they shouldn't be, but it happened with Jesus, you know, they cried out with a loud voice and convulsed him, and it was a big display. So the key thing to keep in mind then is this person was in the synagogue. He was in the place that people were teaching the word of God. He was a believer in God. Now, obviously, Christianity comes post-Christ, but this person was still a believer in God. Now, later, I will say in Mark 1, it does say that Jesus didn't permit demons to speak, but it also says he went around all the synagogues preaching and casting out demons. So specifically, he went to the synagogues in Mark chapter 1. It's like these are the places that would believe more than anyone else. Like, if you were wanting to go for people that weren't believers in God, I don't think you would bother going to the synagogues. And by the way, there's a verse where Jesus casts uh a demon out of a man that's clearly as demon-possessed as someone could get, or as demonized as someone could get. Jesus asks his name and he says legion. And in Rome, a legion was somewhere between five to six thousand people. So if someone saying we are legion, it's as if to say that this person's got not just one, but a legion of demons in this person. They're so filled with these things that uh he's he's got insane strength for one. Like people couldn't hold him back, he was chained up and yeah, crazy. So it's interesting that it's the same word though, demonized for that man for that had legion as the man in the synagogue that just called out in the middle of the crowd. Like anytime it's used, it's always demonized. So I think that's an interesting thing to know. And it also only ever says to cast out. It never says cast off, it never says, you know, oh, you just rebuke around the sides and and just make sure that they're they come off the person. It's always come out in Jesus' name to cast them out. You will cast out demons in Jesus' name. In Mark 16, it says, These signs will follow those who believe, you shall cast out demons. It's one of the promises. Now, in Matthew 12, 43 to 45, it says, When the unclean spirit had gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places, seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, I'll return to my house from which I came. And then it comes and finds a house empty, swept, and put in order, and then goes and brings with it seven other spirits, more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the state of that person is worse than the first. So it will be with this evil generation. So basically, what he's saying is if a person is set free from an unclean spirit, the spirit wanders around, if it can't find anywhere, it comes back and finds an empty house. A person has a demon, the demon leaves, searches around, can't find anywhere, comes back to an empty house. So the person that wasn't filled with the Holy Spirit immediately after comes back to an empty house with seven more spirits, worse than it was. And so it's better for that person to have never had that demon gone to begin with, basically, because it's saying the state of that person is worse than the first, than it was in the beginning. And so, by that logic, if the person wasn't a believer in Jesus and wasn't filled with the Holy Spirit immediately after, it'd be way worse for them to cast demons out of them because they'll get seven more even worse. So you don't really want to be doing that because you can't guarantee that let's say a person that's not a believer that doesn't want the Holy Spirit, you can't guarantee that when you cast something out of them, that they're gonna all of a sudden say, Oh, great, now I want to give my life to Jesus. That doesn't happen. That doesn't always happen. I know people that have had really bad demonic experiences and they are not interested in Jesus. I had a friend of mine, he's not a Christian, doesn't believe in Jesus. He has told me he has been chased up a beach with some black apparition, like a shadowy thing chasing him. He has had uh voices in his house when he lives alone. He has heard children laughing in his house. He has had uh footsteps running around his lounge room, TVs turning off and on, lights turning off and on. He has had different voices speaking out of his own mouth. So he's speaking in the phone and it's connected to a loud um the phone connected to his um car speakers, and he's talking, and he can hear a voice coming out of his car speakers that's not his voice, and it sounds like a demonic kind of voice. He then has had someone message him, a random stranger on Instagram saying, I know you're being followed by uh a presence and I can help you with it. They tried to charge him money and he uh he didn't accept. But he has had some of the craziest experiences in this sort of stuff, and I tried to tell him about Jesus and he's not interested. He just was, yeah, like yeah, I don't really care. So if you cast something out of someone, there's no guarantee that they're gonna say, I want Holy Spirit now that you've cast this thing out. And so it's Actually, worse for that person. So you don't really want to be doing that right now. If a Christian can't have a demon, then why you wouldn't cast them out of Christians because they can't have them anyway. And so at what point would you cast a demon out of anyone? You basically just wouldn't cast a demon out of anyone because if becoming a Christian sets you free from all demons, you would just do that. You would just you would just say, I'm gonna lead you to the to Jesus. Let's do that. If they don't convert, if they don't convert to to Jesus, then you don't want to cast them out because it's gonna be worse for them. If they do convert to Jesus, well then you don't need to cast them out. And so there's literally no point in time that would be warranted for anyone to cast a demon out of anyone. This is a lie from demons to try and tell Christians that you can't have demons. Because like logically, there is literally no point in casting demons out of anyone. It's a bad idea, like no matter which way it is. See, it's either a bad idea if they're a non-Christian or it's or it's uh a waste of time. There's no need to do it if you are a Christian. So to me it seems pretty clear. And not to mention anyone in the Christian faith that does this regular, so anyone that's casting demons out of people, it's universally known that deliverance is mainly for Christians. To cast demons out of people is mainly for Christians, the people that do it the most, the people that are actually have seen things happen, including myself. I've done this. It's the weirdest thing ever, by the way. Um, if you don't know much about it, it's very strange when it happens. I remember praying for someone once, and um, like you don't often know when it's gonna happen. Like Jesus in the synagogue, he was preaching, and then the thing manifested. I started shouting at him, and then he cast it out. So, like oftentimes it'll happen, something will manifest because it's it gets stirred up in the presence of God, and yeah, it's really strange. And they're kind of half aware, but not really aware of what's happening, and you just yeah, you're casting this thing out, and they might they might throw up or they might convulse or do weird movements, and it's very, very strange. You'll see some people can't breathe, some people yeah, I don't know, it's really weird, it's hard to explain. Anyway, we we'll move on. So the other side of that of the people that do deliverance the most and cast demons out the most, all believe that Christians can have demons. On the other side of that, means the people that don't do it at all and that have never done it, they're all the ones that believe that they either believe you can't uh Christians can't get demons, or they'll believe that uh there are no demons at all and that no one needs deliverance. That is sort of believe it in a theological sense of like, yeah, the idea of it's true, but like in reality it's not. There's um you gotta be careful, as much as I love theology, you've got to be really careful with really strict theologians because they will they will be secret materialists that really don't believe in anything supernatural at all. Um, they have doctrine and they think that doctrine is all there is, and it's just about understanding the doctrine. And if you understand the doctrine the most and the best, then you're living for God and it's uh it's a trap. So, yeah, but it's always the ones that can't do something that say it's impossible. I there was a guy there was a guy who posted on a clip. Jordan Peterson said he used to read a book a day, and um, he was young, so he wasn't reading, you know. Oh, I don't imagine he was reading like, you know, thousand-page books back then. He was saying when he was a kid, so he would have been reading like you know, short like novels and like little novels or whatever. But one of the comments on it said, This is such a lie. No one could read a book a day. At best, you could only read like a hundred pages a day. Now I'm not the fastest reader, and I don't even know if I've read a hundred pages in a single day, but oh my goodness, that is so far off the mark. Like, I know people that could read 400 pages a day. Like a hundred pages a day is not some big milestone. That's like the fact that he was like he obviously can't read that quickly or that often. And so him saying no one could even read like a hundred pages a day, you're just exposing yourself that you just can't, like you're bad at doing that. But it's a it's a much easier thing to believe no one can do it and I can't do it as well, that's just the norm, rather than oh, I just can't do something that a lot of other people can. It's a bit better for the ego, I imagine, if you if you're not humble. All right, so I want to go over what demons actually are. So the Bible speaks of a lot of different names of evil spirits or these unclean spirits. It will say things like, there's a mute spirit, there's a deaf spirit, and it these are things that will say, This child had a deaf and mute spirit, or this child had a spirit of infirmity, which is uh of injury. Uh, there's lying spirits, there's prostitution spirits or adulterous spirits, spirit of confusion, there's deceiving spirits. So they're some of the, I suppose, spirits that someone could have that have a very specific effect that you know exactly what that is. If it's a mute spirit, obviously the person can't speak. Uh, if it's uh a lying spirit, it's obviously a person that lies. So there's also like higher, there's like a hierarchy that the Bible will kind of uh lean towards, like a higher ranking demons. This is actually a very interesting book I read recently called The Screw Tape Letters by C.S. Lewis. And it's basically a higher ranking demon speaking to uh a lower ranking demon in giving advice on how to tempt and disrupt the Christian life. It's really, really cool. Um, so you've got the higher-ranking demons like uh Leviathan or Jezebel, a common that people see. You've also got deities, things like Baal or Moloch or Baphomet. You might have seen like the weird Baphomet thing. Um Bilzebo, uh, that's another one. Bilzebub is the prince of the demons according to the Bible. Now, distinguishing how these sort of came about, there's a lot of different theories. Some believe that they're just fallen angels. So, what I believe is that those deities like Baal and Moloch and Baphomet, those things are fallen angels. This is just my own personal belief, but uh it could be it could be different. But there's a scripture that says in Genesis 6, verse 4, it says the Nephilim, so Nephilim means giants basically, but it's only used here. So it could there's other words that the Bible uses for giants as well. It doesn't always use Nephilim, so Nephilim, they believe, is its own distinct thing, but it says the Nephilim were on earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them, these were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. So people think that the the sons of God and the daughters of man bore children, and that they either were the Nephilim or that they were these abominable hybrid creatures, and that they're those spirits uh, I suppose, like the spirit when they die, those spirits are the demonic spirits. So it could either be fallen angels, which I believe some of them are, uh, or it could be these hybrid beings. It's hard to really to know exactly what they are, but um nevertheless, the more important thing to know is not necessarily how they came to be, but how to know if you actually have one and what to do about that as well. So the way that the demonic world works is that they only have as much power as you allow them to have. So they operate off authority, right? So if you give them authority or if you make an agreement with them, then they can do what they want. And the idea of casting them out is that they're submitted under the authority, which is the highest authority of anything, is Christ. So if you make an agreement, let's say, as a um you you might be uh making you might make an agreement when you sin in a particular way. So if you if you're lying a lot and you're opening the door to to say, I agree that lying is okay because I've just lied. And and so you're you're allowing a lying spirit in. If you lust and if you're being lustful and sleeping around or watching porn or whatever it is, you're making an agreement with lust to invite in a spirit of lust. And so it's it's in those moments that you you're basically signing a contract and saying, Yeah, I approved this. I said yes when I was tempted, I gave into the temptation, therefore I'm saying, okay, I want this. I want this. In that moment, you're saying, I want this. And so you've opened the door. So a demon could come in. It's not to say that every time you sin, you just get a demon every time, and you get a whole bunch of it's like it's just uh an open door. I mean, like I can leave my front door open in my house, and someone may or may not come in. A rat may or may not come in. Uh, but the point is that you have opened the door. In those moments, there is an open door there in in your in your body or in your soul realm kind of thing. And so the idea is that if you leave your door open, let's say a rat could come in. The rat doesn't own the house, the rat doesn't, you're not like controlled, the house isn't now controlled by the rat, but it could be causing a nuisance and it could be a bother in there. And so you have to drive it out. And so that's kind of the the idea of it is that your actions and your behavior in what you say yes to will open a door. And so that this is why a key part of the Lord's Prayer is repentance. To repent every day is to make sure that you haven't made agreements that you weren't aware of. So if you say something like, Oh Lord, like forgive me, I I looked at the wrong thing today, I shouldn't have looked at that, or um, I was listening to, you know, this sort of dark music and I was singing along to it. That's making an agreement with it because you're saying that this is okay, you're saying that this is good stuff. And so I remember one of the things that I got set free from when I came to Christ was uh was anger. I used to just have like full on hatred in my heart, and the reason I had that was for probably for a number of different reasons, but I used to watch violent movies and and enjoy them to the degree that I would almost look up to the really bad characters in a sense, where I was like, I want to be like that. People are scared of that guy, he's so tough, he's beating up like three guys at once. I want to be like that guy, and then I would listen to music, and it would be like 50 Cent or the game, just like real, or like I don't know, Tupac or Eminem just being super violent in their lyrics, and I'm singing along, and I'm kind of embodying that as I'm seeing it. I'm trying to, I was like cultivating the anger that they had in the music and absorbing it. And so I was making an agreement with anger and rage and wrath, and it's no wonder that I was angry all the time because I was saying yes to those things. So that's kind of the idea of how to know if you've got one as far as if you've opened up to something like that, and to to make sure you avoid opening doors in terms of symptoms. This is a way that you can kind of see um some of the more clear ones. One of the most clear is uh nightmares and and demonic or bad dreams. So when you're asleep, that's when you're kind of at your most vulnerable in the spirit. You're you're kind of your defenses are down in some sense. And so I knew someone that was having nightmares literally every night. If it wasn't seven nights a week, it was six nights a week. Now, that's definitely uh not a good sign, and you shouldn't be having demonic dreams every night. Another very common one is intrusive thoughts. Now, here's the thing. If you I've I've seen people post things on Instagram with hundreds of thousands of comments and likes, and it'll be like, oh, when you go to pray, and then it has a video of you going to a guy going to pray, and then a voice over voice just saying, like, F Jesus, and it's like, and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, and then they're trying to like, geez, where did that come from? And it's like, my brother, like you have company, like that's not normal. You shouldn't, like and people would say, Yeah, I don't know why this happens, brother. You got a demon, bruh. Get to the get to the church and get it cast out. Come on. If you're getting thoughts like that, and they're like discomforting thoughts, right? So you're disturbed by your own thoughts, it's it's highly likely that you have a demon. And you can just get it cast out because they don't have authority, they can't stay with the name of Jesus. You're like, Jesus is the ultimate authority, and if you repent and say, you know, I rebuke all this stuff in in your own life, it doesn't have the contract anymore. You've canceled the agreement, and so it can be cast out. Some other things or quick fire through, you you might get uh a haunting kind of feeling or a dark feeling over you. You might have pain in some areas where they shouldn't be for extended periods of time. I know in the trap in the neck, um, people uh can have soreness in their their traps just for literally no reason. Uh there's other areas as well. Tiredness in godly places. So when you go to church, you're getting really tired. When you go to pray, when you go to read your Bible, you're getting really tired and drowsy. Uh, if there's a high resistance to those things, you there's a very high resistance to either pray, read the Bible, or go to church. And I don't just mean in the sense of like there's some people that aren't readers. And so if you're not a reader, it might already be difficult to read the Bible. So that might not necessarily mean that this is a symptom of a demon. I'm just saying that if you let's say you are a reader and you can you have no trouble going to read anything else except when it comes to the Bible. That's when it's hard. Or you don't get tired when you read anything else, but you always seem to get tired when you're reading the Bible. So we don't want to overdo it. Not everything is a demon. Yeah. And let's say like you don't get tired or there's no resistance to go literally anywhere except when it comes to church. That's the only time where you plan to go all week, but then it gets to the day and you're like, I can't really be bothered now. And it's like, you know, these you have to be discerning and try and pick up and compare these moments to other things. If you notice that, if you notice for whatever reason, it only seems to be the spiritual practices that I get tired or that I find a I'm really resistant to go and I have to kind of force myself to do it. Like maybe it's a possibility that there's uh demonic interference there. Um, if you have different behavior, like erratic behavior that is inconsistent with how you have been behaving, and it's uh uh extended amount of time. So it's not like you know, you had a bad day or whatever. Again, like what I'm saying is these are symptoms that could be, not that definitely are. You can get sore traps, um, you can have a weird thought and it's not a demon in you. Like, um, but if there's a there's a I know people that have had all of these. I know people that have had the the the high resistance, the tiredness, the intrusive thoughts, the bad dreams and the nightmares, the sore uh traps, like all of these things, um, and didn't realize that they had a demon. It's like you've ticked literally all the boxes, anyway. Um, if you can't look uh a Christian in the eye, that's another sign, or you can't look people in the eye, and you used to be able to. Again, we're comparing to having and not having uh a rational anger towards people or irrationality altogether, it could be some other influence. So again, none of these things on their own distinctly categorize you definitely have a demon, but we're looking for symptoms, and these are some of the symptoms that that you might do. Um and sometimes it'll be more obvious, like some intrusive thoughts that some people have, like if it's distinctly like F Jesus, like come on, bro. Like if you're a Christian, you shouldn't be ever thinking that. It's not a natural way to think. So not everything is a demon, but also not everything is just natural as well. So the specific battle areas to watch out for from Michael Harper's book Spiritual Warfare. There's seven battle areas to watch out for. So the first is the physical. So this could attack in terms of illness, in terms of sicknesses and injuries, organ failure, things like that. These are like the spirit of infirmity, for example, where there's certain sicknesses that come up, deaf and mute spirit. These are physical things that are happening to your body. There's the moral, which is obviously comes in the form of temptations. So this is a very common one. Temptations, addictions, pushing the boundaries of things to be like, well, maybe this is not that bad. It's always like pushing you towards something that's leaning on the edge of whether it's moral or immoral. You'll hear a lot of Christians say things like, well, where's the line between like what's sin and what's not sin? Immediately correct that. Like to try and find the line, you're you've already asked the wrong question and you're already facing the wrong direction. You don't even want to be facing the line. Turn around. Like, where's the the furthest away from the line? Like, what that's what you want to be doing. If you want to be like Jesus, then you don't want to just like tread the line of moral and immoral or tread the line of sin and not sin. You want to move as far away from that as possible. You do not want to be asking where the line is if you're just wanting to teeter on the on the line. Uh, you want to look completely different to the world, you don't want to blend in, you know. So the the moral area is a big area for demonic attack to push you towards um temptations. There's the theological. So Satan is a deceiver, and there's a scripture that says in the in later days and end times, there will be seducits and uh and doctrines of demons that will come in to lead the faithful away. Um, doctrines of demons can manifest in so many different ways, but it wants to take what is true and pervert it into something that's no longer true, it's a perversion of itself. And so this is something that Satan did a lot. I mean, in the in the snake in the garden deceived Eve by saying, Hey, God doesn't want you to to be like him. And in one sense, that's true. God doesn't want you to be like him, but not for the reasons that the serpent was saying. He was saying, Oh, God's trying to keep you from it because he is greedy and wants it all to himself. He doesn't want anyone else to be like him. Rather than God saying, No, it's that you won't be able to, you're not God, so you won't be able to handle it. Like I'm keeping you safe with this. And so, in one sense, God didn't want them to eat of the tree of uh of the knowledge of good and evil, but for their own benefit. And so there's a there's a deception there to to pervert the truth and to pervert the meaning and the intention of the truth. In the same way, Satan tempted Jesus using scripture in Matthew 4 and in Luke 4, he uses scripture to tempt Jesus. So he's trying to pervert doctrines. This is a lot of how any kind of cult will appear. So a similarity between Mormonism and Islam is that their founders both got their information from an angel of light. Now it even says in the Bible that Satan appears as an angel of light. And so it's an interesting thing to look out for is that we know based on the scripture that we have in the Christian Bible, the things in the Quran and the Book of Mormon are contradictory to what is found in the Bible. And so we can we can compare and use a measuring stick and say, okay, well, obviously this is false because it's contradicting uh God's word, and and so. You would look at it and go, okay, well, obviously that wasn't an angel of light that came to you. It was a it was a demonic entity appearing as an angel of light and has given you doctrine of demons. So, but yeah, a lot of cults you'll you'll find that they have these weird obscure ideas of God and they try and use weird scriptures to to deceive people anyway. So the theological is another area. Um, the psychological is another area in terms of things like schizophrenia, fear, anxiety, mental illness, um, hearing voices. Now, this one is is a tricky one because there are certain mental illnesses that I definitely don't believe is demonic. And there are certain demonic, uh psychological demonic issues that I don't believe can be healed with just medication and therapy. So it's it's something that you have to tread carefully in because you've got to walk the line. If you go around trying to cast demons out of someone that just has some like mental health issues, that's not gonna go good. Uh, I know for me, I went and seen a psychologist, I've had both. I've gone and seen a psychologist for around about three or so months that helped immensely. Had antidepressants for a little while, that was a good crutch to help me get my life on track and whatever, and then I was good to go. A big part of it was my faith though, and a big part of that was he pushed me towards my faith because he knew that was something that I cared about that I just wasn't practicing. And so it was kind of hand in hand where I went to therapy, a psychologist, psychiatrist. It all helped. But on the other side of that, there were things that I had to deal with that couldn't be dealt with through just different changes of thoughts. There literally there needed to be a supernatural encounter, and that's what happened. I went and I had things get lifted off me in a weird, supernatural way, like being being prayed for and God's presence just literally like changing you. It feels like your whole biology changes and you feel legitimately lighter. It's the weirdest feeling. You have this, you don't know how heavy you feel sometimes until it gets lifted off, and you're like, Whoa, what was that? And you're like, I feel physically lighter, even though I don't even know what that was. So it's like these unexplainable things. So the psychological is another area that is just another battle area to be careful or to watch out for. Um, there's the psychical, so this is things like um divination, new age, like spiritualism type of stuff, things like mediums and and yeah, talking to the dead, like necromancy, that sort of stuff. These are these are things that people can come in. That there's a chapter in Acts that talks about this girl who was saying to Paul and Peter, maybe, or it was Paul and Silas, and she was saying, These men are from God. She was following him around for three days, saying, These are the men from God, these are the men, uh, and and affirming who they were, and it was like irritating them because she was using strange methods of getting information, and they cast the demon out of her. And it's interesting, like people can can get genuine information through mediums. I actually believe that it works. Like, I believe a lot of the new age stuff and the spiritualism and the mediums and all that stuff, I believe that it works. I believe that's why people do it. But I also believe that it's a a uh perverted way of accessing that information, and I think that it opens doors to demonic spirits and that the root of it is demonic because you're not going through the good source, the good shepherd, which is God, and his way of doing things. Another battle area is children. Now, it's very interesting, but in multiple verses in the Bible, it will say that these children had unclean spirits. The devil doesn't play fair. Children might not be as spiritually strong as adults, and so they might be more susceptible to getting demonic spirits. And so that's another way that they can they can try to attack and to get into the family is to go through the children. And then the last place was um places. So houses, buildings, cars, even I've heard of a lot of different stories around this sort of stuff. But essentially, it's like when you walk into a building or a house and you can feel a presence that's weird. Like some people, I know a lot of people that have had this happen. They've gone to a place, doesn't need to be indoors, can be just a certain area, and you're like, there's something off here about this place. It's hard to explain if you've never felt it, but it is some sort of eerie, dark feeling. Uh, and I've heard a lot of stories about you know, places that have had horrific things happen in them, and then other new people have moved in. I mean, this is the whole story of the house of the Amityville horror. Apparently, that's based on a true story, and then yeah, even friends of mine, even friends of mine have uh literally moved out of a house because they're like things keep moving around in our house. I'll put the towel on the door and then all of a sudden it's just like moved and and no one's been home. Like there's you know, things turning off and on, like all this sort of stuff. So, you know, if people have done Ouija boards or seances in a house and then they leave, and then new people come in, they're like, There's some weird stuff going on here. So, so in terms of arming yourself against this sort of stuff, there's a few things. The Bible in Ephesians 6 talks specifically about the armor of God, it also talks about putting on Christ. To put on Christ is is in one sense to put on armor, but every single piece of the armor that it lists in Ephesians 6 is a particular area of defense against this sort of stuff. So there's the belt of truth, so that obviously will protect you against lies and errors if you have, if you're believing lies or there's an error in your theology or something, the belt of truth um protects with that. The breastplate of righteousness is to help with sinful desires. The shoes of the gospel of peace is to protect against like an easy, lazy life or against apathy. You've got the shield of faith, which is to protect against unbelief. A lot of things happen due to unbelief, and and a lot of things happen due to belief. It's a lot of things we'll say, Jesus will say in so many different healings that he does, your faith has made you well. And he rebukes a lot of his disciples by saying, Um, oh ye of little faith. And yeah, so that's an interesting one. The helmet of salvation is to help against calamity or accidents. It's interesting, the helmet of salvation. Obviously, we're we're saved in Christ, but saved can be a can apply to so many different things. You can be literally saved from accidents and protected in that sense, saved from calamity. There's so many instances in the Bible where accidents happen. Paul getting shipwrecked or bitten by a snake, or like, you know, just like random things can happen. And uh, but he survives them. He survives them all by the grace of God. And obviously, the name of Jesus. I spoke last week about the power of the name of Jesus, he is the ultimate authority. Every knee shall bow uh to his name. He's the highest authority, so everything comes under him when you call out his name, he's the highest authority. And of course, the last one being angels. There is an angelic host of angels that we know that they fight wars and fights because it's littered throughout the Bible. There's uh there's angels that wield swords against bad people, so against the demonic. So, yeah, so that's oh that's that's just like the tip of the iceberg. It's hard to to go in because I realistically, so many different sections of what I just spoke about could just have their own thing. I wanted to try and fit it all into one thing, so I don't know if I did a good job of that, but the most important thing is Jesus came to set the captives free. So if you're experiencing anything like that, like you you don't despair. Jesus said He came to defeat the works of darkness, and when he was on the cross, he says, It is finished, so it's done. The work is done, so you don't need to be afraid or like be fearful. If anything, you should be empowered. If you're a Christian, you should be empowered to know your authority, to know like Jesus says the these signs will follow those who believe. He said, You you'll you'll lay hands on the sick and they'll be healed, you'll cast out demons in my name. He gives you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, it says it's pretty it's pretty dope. So yeah, and and obviously, like I a lot of this stuff, if you don't like it, if you're a Christian, you don't like it. Here's the thing the Bible says, My children, God says, My children are destroyed by lack of knowledge. And if you don't know you're in a war, you're not gonna win. The Bible also says, Don't be aware of the devil's, don't be unaware of the devil's devices. And so it's important to be aware of the schemes that he has. And and so you can be equipped and you can be prepared. It's not like you have to walk around your life always like checking around the corner for when the next demon's gonna be there or whatever. It's you live a life faithful to the Lord and you won't have to worry about it. And things will come up, like you don't need to go, you know, seeking out demons as people that's like, yeah, we're gonna go out and just cast demons out of people. It seems like the demons will show themselves, and people will also tell you sometimes. They'll go, you know, I'm struggling with this. Okay, it sounds like you might have a demon. Let's cast it out. And look, if you if you have a prayer and you try and cast something out and it doesn't, nothing happens, okay, then that's fine. Like, no love lost. You're sweet. So you shouldn't be afraid of it. And there's no there's nothing wrong with you. If you're a person, you have a demon. There's nothing wrong with you in the sense of like who you are as a person. It's just like you you have something, let's get it out. All right, get it. You should just be like, all right, if you if if there's something in me, I don't want it, get it out. I want to be as pure as possible. So, yeah, and obviously, like purity is one of the best defenses of anything. If talking about armor, purity is probably one of the highest forms of armor because nothing's gonna get in. If you're living a completely holy life, like you're not giving any room. I mean, the the one other thing that I didn't speak about was about generational spirits, these are things that are can be passed down through bloodlines. I've gone too long, so I won't go into that, but it they're no different to being cast out than anything else. Everything falls under the name of Christ and they're gone. So, anyway, I'm gonna wrap it up. So, thanks again for listening. And to be honest, you know, I sh I gave shout-outs to all the uh a bunch of the places in the US, but shout out to all my Gold Coast, Brisbane, Australian listeners, because I love you too. I love anyone that listens to this, you're amazing. And guess what? Christ is King, Jesus loves you, and he's coming to be back soon. So get to know him, get prepared, and yeah. Cast demons out. Alright, thanks for listening. Peace.