May 10, 2025 • 43 mins
Don't miss the premiere episode of "Strange Encounters," as Rick Burgess uses the truth of the Bible to take on the realm of spiritual warfare. This is not about Bigfoot, space aliens, or the Loch Ness Monster. This is about encountering the supernatural. Angels and demons are real, and the Bible tells us exactly how to approach their existence. Come along as we search for the truth, hear stories from people with firsthand experience, and win the spiritual war going on around us on this premiere episode of "Strange Encounters."
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, this is Adler from the Rick Burgess Show. You
are about to hear the premiere episode of Strange Encounters
with Rick Burgess. It's a brand new show and the
folks at Blaze Media wanted to give you a taste
of what's to come. Come along as we search for
the truth, hear stories from people with first hand experience,
and use the truth of the Bible to win the
spiritual war going on all around us. To hear future episodes,
(00:23):
you just need to subscribe to this brand new show
from Rick Burgess and the folks at Blaze Media. Just
search for Strange Encounters wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe.
And now here's the very first episode of Strange Encounters
with Rick Burgess.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Welcome to Strange Encounters. I'm your host, Rick Burgess. This
is our first episode. So let's talk about what this
podcast will be all about. Okay, first of all, I
want to clarify what the podcast is not. We are
not going to be talking about ghost We're not going
to be talking about Bigfoot. We're not going to be
(01:06):
talking about space aliens from another planet. I know those
things are popular, and I know they get a lot
of views, but what I would like to talk about
is something that is supernatural. It is very serious and
it is very real. Angels and demons and a lot
(01:26):
of the things that people talk about when they talk
about space aliens, when they talk about I think I
thought I saw the ghost of a loved one. There's
some sort of ghost haunting this or haunting that I
believe that I, you know, saw some sort of monster
or creature. Most of this, I do believe that people
have experiences. Don't misunderstand me. I have talked to I
(01:51):
have seen interviews of very credible people, and I believe
that they're telling us the truth. Now, we first have
to weed out all the people that are just making
stuff up to get attention and know that they're out there.
I'm talking about people that have experienced something, and they've
experienced something that I do believe them that was supernatural.
(02:12):
That's really not the question. Do we encounter the supernatural? Well,
the answer is yes, But does that mean that we
are encountering space aliens, ghost, bigfoot monsters fill in the blank.
I'm going to tell you, I would say no. I
don't believe that any of those things are real. I
believe it all falls under what we know to be
(02:34):
true if you have a biblical worldview, and I do
and so do many others, is that it really isn't
up for debate whether the supernatural exists, because we know
that it does. So. I spent thirty one years hosting
a show called The Rick and Bubba Show. Thirty one
years that we did that. It was a wonderful run,
(02:56):
loved it. I'm currently hosting a daily show called The
Rick Burg Show. And I remember back when I was
doing The Rick and Bubba Show, we had a very
popular segment called the Thirteen Working Days of Horror, and
it was all in good fun that we would start out,
you know, talking about ghost stories, and then we would
(03:17):
send members of the team out to investigate those ghost stories.
And there's tons of shows that do that now and
they're very popular. But it didn't take long because I
was so new to the faith. I had not been
redeemed very long, so I didn't know much about spiritual warfare,
and I thought, well, what's the harm. You know, we're
doing these things. Everybody seems to like them. We all
(03:39):
like being scared fill in the blank. But I will
tell you that from the time I was a little boy.
I had a very strong, you know, a strong feeling
about horror movies and haunted houses. I didn't like them
at all. I sensed, even as a child that there
was something wrong with this, and there was an oppressive
(04:01):
spirit with it all, and I didn't want any part
of it. But as I grew up, I still didn't
care for it all that much. But I didn't take
it very serious. And this was one of those occasions,
and it became a very very popular series on that
show that I did for thirty one years. But as
I began to grow in my faith, I began to
(04:24):
be more and more uncomfortable with the thirteen working days
of horror Horror. It bothered me. I started being in
a dilemma on whether we should be doing this or not.
And the more I studied some of the things we'll
talk about today, the more I realized that what we
were doing was very, very dangerous. It was very dangerous.
Were we at times just telling ghost stories and there
(04:47):
really was nothing to it, sure, but things begin to
happen when, as you can guess, if you keep doing
it for multiple years, what happens you start pushing the envelope.
And we kept looking for stories and looking for experiences.
And it didn't take very long for me to understand
that these men that we were sending out, who were
dear friends of ours and we'd worked with for years,
(05:10):
that we were sending them into very dangerous situations. And
I'm going to give you some of the facts behind
that today in scripture. Because I didn't even know the
spiritual condition of the members of our team that we
were sending out. Some of them I did know were
men of faith, but I didn't think they were very
mature in their faith. Then there were some that I
(05:31):
didn't even know if they had ever been redeemed before.
And as we started pushing on these investigations again, like
a lot of the popular shows you see now, they
started encountering things that could not be explained. I remember
one particular, we went in to do an investigation of
the ghost of an old site war This is where
(05:54):
they would keep people that were mentally ill, and they
shut it all down. And when they shut down this
high hospital, they just kind of walked out of the
hospital and left it as is. So there were you know,
office desk everywhere, there were chairs everywhere there, and they
were the phones that were pulled out of the wall.
The bell phones. You know that some of you are
(06:15):
so young you don't even know what I'm talking about.
But we had landline phones at one time, and they
had bells in them, and it would it would that's
where the ring would come from. Uh. And they were
they had been pulled out of the wall. They were
laying around in all these rooms. And as our guys
were investigating these ghosts of this mental hospital, the phones
(06:37):
started ringing, and they would ring at different parts of
the hospital. And when they would go to the floor
where they heard the rings, it would then start ringing
on another floor. Uh. And these things were happening, and
they could not be explained. Now. At the time, I
wasn't fully aware of what we were doing. But but
I believe now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that
(07:00):
these men that we sent into this hospital were experiencing
demonic activity. And I came under so much conviction from
the Holy Spirit that we set down and I just
had to tell the guys. Into their credit. They all degree,
I mean agreed, some not as much as others, but
(07:21):
all of us finally agreed because I said, now, if
we're going to continue to do this. I can't be
part of it. We must stop doing this. I'm under
conviction because we are tampering with darkness, and we are
tampering with evil spirits. They are real and we should
not be doing this. We are placing these people and
(07:44):
our audience in danger. Now what do you mean by
you replacing the audience in danger? Well, I'll tell you why.
Because what happens when you're listening to something like this
and you're watching something like this, now you want to
go out and do it. And we were encouraging people
to go on ghost hunts or go after the fill
in the blank monster. A lot of it was just
(08:06):
fairy tales and it didn't mean anything, but there were
things that were quite real. And now here we are
with this platform, we're not only sending out people that
shouldn't be doing this. Now, we're encouraging total strangers to
go and do this. And I just couldn't. I just
could not do it any longer. So when I was
approached about doing this, I want to make it perfectly clear.
(08:29):
This is not me revisiting that. There might be some
pressure to do that, but I'm not going to do
that because it's dangerous. What I am going to do
is to be sure that we stay inside the realm
of spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare between angels and demons is
(08:50):
extremely real, and it is going on. It's real. Simple.
Paul talks about this in his letter to the Ephesians
in Ephesians chapter six. Some of you may be familiar
with this. Some of you may be hearing this for
the very first time. It's not up to debate, up
to debate, because scripture says it very clear. Look here,
the apostle Paul. You might be familiar some of you
(09:13):
with the armor of God. These are those scriptures where
you put on the full armor of God. But you
may not know why we're supposed to put on the
full armor of God. You may not know why. Maybe
you've been thinking about, well, you know, it's persecutions. I
need to do better with my sin nature. Now, what
(09:33):
Paul's specifically talking about is you must be prepared for
spiritual war. That's his main point, and that's not my opinion.
He tells this this. Listen to this, he said. Finally,
this is in verse ten of chapter six of Ephesians.
Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of
(09:53):
his might, put on the whole armor of God, that
you may be able to stand against the schemes of
the death. 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
(10:17):
evil in the heavenly places. So how do I know
that demonic activity exists? How do I know that every
day I'm entering into a spiritual war? Because the scriptures
make that clear. I've said this on my day job
(10:37):
many times. I don't need Bigfoot. I don't need space
people from another planet. I don't need ghosts haunting some area.
I don't need to worry about bigfoot. I don't need
any of that. The scriptures tell me all I need
to know. When I know that spiritual forces are existing
(10:58):
in another dimension and are allowed to come into my dimension,
and I'm warned in scripture that there's demonic activity all
around me, and there are angels and demons waging war.
I got plenty on the table, and that's what this
podcast is going to take on. And we hope to
(11:18):
educate you because you know, some of you may have
seen the posts that I put out promoting episode one.
I fear that, especially in the Western Church, that this
topic is not a topic to obsess over. And we'll
talk about this, but it's also not a topic to ignore.
And I'm afraid that many times in the Western Church
(11:41):
that the local church, which I love the local church
because Christ loves the local church, that we don't talk
about these things. But yet we send people out of
our congregations out into a spiritual war that we have
not prepared them to fight. So there is a balance.
So I want to take that on. Yes, we're going
(12:02):
to delve into this going forward on strange encounters. Yes,
I'm going to share with you stories about encountering demons.
I'll share a brief one with you. Even on this episode.
We will be interviewing people, we will be talking about
these things. But I want to be real cautious here,
(12:23):
yellow flag waving. This is not to cause you to
obsess over the spiritual realm. We should not obsess over it.
That The goal is not to have you looking for
demons around every corner, looking for Satan around every turn,
(12:43):
you know, having people that can mislead you and say,
oh I can see the spiritual rem I've got some
sort of touch from God. Be careful of these people, okay.
It it's dangerous to ignore spiritual warfare, okay, but it's
also dangerous to obsess over it. That's not the intention either.
(13:04):
You don't want to bring any glory to Satan and
his demons by obsessing over them and having an unhealthy
obsession with seeking them. That's problematic too. The goal of
this podcast is to educate you on this so that
you're aware of what's going on and you will be
(13:25):
able to go into the battle prepared. Okay, that's our goal.
So let's look at one thing when you talk about Satan,
Satan's real You know, there's a question I get quite often,
why did God create the devil? Well, he didn't. God
(13:45):
created an angel called Lucifer. Lucifer was a beautiful angel,
a very high ranking angel that decided that being a
high ranking angel was not good enough for him and
he and he convinced a third of God's angels, all
created beings by God for an overthrow to take God's
(14:07):
throne from him. God will share his glory with no one,
And of course Lucifer was expelled from heaven or from
the presence of the Lord with a third of the demons,
and then of course the war started. But here's one
thing I want you to know about Lucifer is, and
I've already mentioned it once. Lucifer is a created being. Okay,
(14:31):
he is. This is not star wars, This is not
Ying and Yang that that that you know mystical Eastern religion.
It's not that at all. God created the angels, who
then became a third of them demons. He created Lucifer,
who then became the devil because he became our accuser,
(14:54):
he became Satan, but because he became our adversary. But
it is Lucifer that we're dealing with, the angel, created
being by God. Now why rick is that important? I'm
will tell you why that's important. He's not God, he's
not the dark version of God. He's not the Force.
(15:15):
He's a created being, which means there is a there's
there's a substantial gap between Lucifer and the God who
created him. Now, is he stronger than a human being?
You better believe it. We'll give you some examples of this.
Are there demons that went with Lucifer that are stronger
(15:35):
than some of the angels of God? Yes, not stronger
than all of them. Not stronger than than the Son
of God, and not stronger than God, the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit, of course not. But I want
you to take comfort in that. And here here's here's why.
I know many times I've been guilty of this too,
(15:56):
that we will be in a situation and we throw
around these terms. I've done it. Okay, So I'm not
talking down to you or talking at you. I'm talking
with you and we'll say, well, I'll tell you, Satan's
really given me a hard time right now? Well, probably not. Okay,
let me just go ahead and say that because Lucifer
is not omniscient. Lucifer is not omnipotent. Lucifer is not omnipresent.
(16:23):
Unlike God, Lucifer cannot be in multiple places all at
the same time. Lucifer, in order to come after you
and me, has to leave wherever he is and come
to where we are and not be there anymore. I'm
just gonna say I like to think that, you know,
I'm devoted to my Lord and Savior. I want to
(16:45):
be about his business. I want to have impact for
the Kingdom of God. But I don't quite think that
I rank Lucifer coming after me. Now his demon's coming
after me. Sure, but Lucifer, I just find it unlikely
that he's going to leave some of the places where
(17:05):
he's battling right now and say, well, I've got to
go find Rick Burgess, you know, on whatever street he
lives on, because that guy is so devoted to God
that he's really hurt me. Probably not Now, a third
of the angels being demons, yes, I've experienced them. I
have not a lot, but it has happened, and we'll
(17:28):
talk about that through in future episodes. Okay, But James
tells us in The Powerful Book of James, he kind
of gives us a little bit of a Hey, let
me give you some clarity. Maybe come down from you
thinking that you're so impactful for the Kingdom of God
that Lucifer has decided that he's coming after you. James says,
(17:52):
most of the problems we get into, really it's just
our sin nature. I mean, when I get up and
pray every day, I do pray against these cosmic forces
that God would put a protective headge around me and
around my family and around our business and around my friends.
I do all that, Sure, but the prayer that I
(18:12):
probably pray. That's the most important, as I pray to
God protect me against my biggest enemy, myself, my sin nature.
James talks about this, and he says, but each person
is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his
own desire. Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth
(18:35):
to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings
forth death. So I'm headed down this road of sin,
James says, not because Lucifer Satan, the devil is tempting you,
Not because God's tempting you, Not because the demons are
tempting you. Most of us find ourselves on a bad
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road simply because of our own wicked desires. So I
hope that brings you some peace, and you're going to
see some of the things that we talk about about.
The We're not sitting here like sitting ducks every day.
Oh no, you know what's going to happen to me.
I'm at the mercy of whatever the demons or Lucifer
(19:18):
wants to do today. Now, if you have not been redeemed,
if you're not under the authority of Jesus Christ, do
you have something to fear? Yes, yes you do, because
you don't have the protection. You're not under the authority
of Christ. You are a sitting duck. You are easy pickings.
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I don't think you're going to rank Lucifer as I said,
but for those demons, because and I'm going to show
you an example of that before we're done today. How
important that is. So now let's talk about who's in control.
I mean, can can Lucifer? Can the demons just do
whatever they want to do whenever they want to do
it to a person who is redeemed? The answer is no,
(20:07):
that they can't. Now one of these things, you know,
this part of the Bible seems to bother people more
than it comforts people. But I hope today it'll comfort you.
It's the Book of Job. We're currently doing the Book
of Job in a Wednesday Bible study. You can also
find on our website, Rick burgesshow dot com. We do
it every Wednesday. We're in Job. Now. I want you
(20:29):
to see this moment when we learn something else about
demons and Lucifer. Okay, this is in chapter one of
the Book of Job and it starts in verse six. Now,
there was a day when the sons of God, that's
the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and
Satan Lucifer also came among them. The Lord said to Satan,
(20:51):
underline that Satan hasn't said anything. The Lord says to Satan,
from where have you come? So can Satan, Lucifer, the
devil and his demons? Can they move around the earth?
The answer is yes. Satan answered the Lord and said,
from going to and fro on the earth, and from
(21:12):
walking up and down on it. So yes, they are
among us here on earth. Scripture tells us that. And
the Lord said to Satan. The Lord said to Satan,
Satan doesn't bring up Job. The Lord said to Satan,
have you considered my servant Job. There is none like
him on earth? A blameless and upright man. That doesn't
(21:32):
mean sinless. It just means he had no sin, that
he had not repented of, who fears God and turns
away from evil. Then Satan answered the Lord and said,
does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not
put a hedge around him? That's what I was talking about.
And his house and all that he has on every side.
You have blessed the work of his hands, and his
possessions have increased in the land but stretch out your
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hand and touch all that he has, and he will
curse you to your faith. Listen verse twelve, and the
Lord said to Satan, behold, all that he has is
in your hand, only against him. Do not stretch out
your hand. So Satan went out from the presence of
the Lord, who sets the boundaries for what Lucifer could
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and could not do the Lord, God Almighty. He couldn't
do anything that the Lord did not allow him to do. Now,
if you want to get that's a whole nother discussion
on why God allowed him to do it. I can
certainly go down that road, but for this podcast, that's
been explained in the Bible study. I'm happy to answer
(22:37):
that for you. But right now, the purpose of these
scriptures is to show you that Lucifer and his demons
have to appear before the Lord. The Lord sets the
boundaries on what they can and cannot do to the redeemed,
not to the lost, but to the redeemed. God sets
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the boundaries. Now, a lot of times we focus too much. Well,
I don't like the fact that God was allowing anything,
but don't miss the fact that it has to be
allowed that are to bring you peace. Okay, that are
to bring you peace. So we know that Lucifer is
not omnipotent, he's not omniscient, he's not omnipresent. We also
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know that the Lord God Almighty sets the boundaries for
what he can and he can't do. We also know
that most of the trouble we get into is because
of our own sin nature, not because we're under attack
from Satan and his demons. Okay, we got that. So
what are some things that we need to do that
(23:42):
would prepare us for the spiritual battle. Well, let's go
back to the beginning. Let's go back when all of
mankind fail because of a deception from Lucifer himself appearing
to the woman as a serpent. Let's go back to
the fall, Genesis chapter three. This is crucial, okay, And
(24:03):
Genesis chapter three we're learning. We're educating ourselves on how
Lucifer and his demons, how do the enemies of God work? Okay,
So we look here and we see that the serpent
Lucifer has now approached the woman and the serpent. This
is chapter three. And now the serpent was more crafty
(24:24):
than any other beast of the field that the Lord
God had made. He said to the woman, did God
actually say you shall not eat of any tree in
the garden? Now that that's that strategy that you need
to know. What what what the adversary and the demons
are going to test is how well we know the
(24:47):
promises of God? Do we really know what God said? Lucifer,
if you rank him, probably won't, but his demons follow
his instruction. The demonic forces that will come against you
always are going to take the gamble that you and
I don't really know what God said, so they can
(25:09):
deceive us with false prophets, false teachers, false theology, because
we don't know any better. What would you agree with
me that it is impossible to discern false teaching if
you don't know pure teaching. I would yes. So so
many times we do foolish things that allow these demonic
(25:31):
forces to come into our homes, which we're going to
cover on future episodes about spiritual house cleaning, come into
our lives. The reason why they're coming into our lives
is because they've been invited. And how were they invited?
Because we did not know the scriptures well enough to
(25:51):
recognize when we were being deceived by a person that
was sent to us by a pastor that was sent
to us by a praise song that we shouldn't have
been singing. And before we know it, we're under deception
because we don't know the genuine article. Now, years and
years ago, had a great opportunity to interview someone in
(26:12):
Secret Service. Now, Secret Service also is in the counterfeit industry.
You know, they go, that's who you sin if there's
a counterfeit ring running false currency. Well, when they're training
the Secret Service to recognize the genuine article, they never
show them examples of counterfeit money. They never see those
(26:34):
those very wildly. What they do is they make sure
that they're familiar with the genuine article. They're so familiar
with the genuine article that they recognize the counterfeit immediately
because they know the original, they know the standard that. Well,
(26:54):
I'm going to just ask you, do you know the
word of God and do you know the promises of
God to the point that you can you can call
on them when you're being deceived or you're under attack. Well,
i will tell you from the very beginning, the demons
and Lucifer have been using the is that what God
(27:17):
really said? And they've been quite successful. With it because
too many times the person they're attacking doesn't know the answer.
So make sure that you know the answer if you
we always make sure that we're experts on so many things.
You better make sure that you're an expert. This is
a warning on the word of God because the demons
(27:38):
and Lucifer are hoping and they're betting that you don't.
So let's turn to Second Corinthians, chapter eleven. This is
important too on deception because so many times these demons
will present themselves as angels of light. We have to
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know the difference. It has happened so many times when
somebody you're going with, this person seems like they're okay. Well,
why is that important? Because demons that this goes back
to this ghost thing. Demons love to pretend to be
your grandmama that died and you're sure went on to glory,
(28:20):
And what they want you to do is to think
that your grandmother has come back to you. Are your mama,
are your daddy, or you're your child. You know, I
have a child that is in heaven, and it certainly
would mean a lot to me if somehow I thought
I could visit my child again, and I will one day.
But you know, a demon would love to convince me
that I could now through some person that claims they
(28:41):
can conjure him up or I thought I saw him
in our home or something like that. When these things,
if these things are happening to you, these are not
your relatives, these are not angels, these are demons. It's
all about deception. And you're sitting there going with they
don't look like a scary mom. They look like my grandmama.
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They look like me, mam. Well that's what they're hoping,
you think, Okay, and you'll say, well, what if it's
an angel, an angel, this is important Episode one. Let's
get this on the record. An angel throughout scripture will
always identify themselves. They'll always tell them tell you they're
from the Lord, and then they move into why they
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came to see you. Okay. You never find an angel
appearing like some kind of mist, you know, saying I'm
your grandmother, I'm your mama, I'm this person, this friend
of yours, I'm real mysterious. I moved through the room.
And see, that's all chaos, that's all attempt to fear
and intrigue in the supernatural with no clear understanding of
(29:47):
what they're doing and why they are there. I don't
care how wonderful they may seem, Paul warns us in
chapter eleven. And he warns us in verse fourteen when
he goes on to say that that we need to
understand that many times they will appear to us as
angels of light. He and here he's talking about false prophets.
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In thirteen, he says, for such men are false apostles,
deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ fourteen And
no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel
of light, so it is no surprise if his servants
also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Therein will correspond
(30:34):
to their deeds. He said, Look, false teachers always appear
like they're wonderful human beings, and they always act like that,
their apostles from Christ and teachers of Jesus. And he said,
no wonder because Satan is who really sent them, and
Lucifer always he's been known to present himself and his
servants do the same thing as angels of light. We
did an interview with a guide man. Anytime you hear
(30:56):
these things. Oh, I've got somebody. Angels have been appearing
to this god. Oh, we can't wait to hear from him.
And I'm going to tell you many times. Well, every
time that I've ever dealt with I go to these
verses and usually tell the person. You may think you're
talking to angels, but you're not. You may think you're
talking to space people, but you're not. You may think
(31:18):
you're talking to a ghost, but you're not. You're talking
to demons, because this is exactly how they work. But
if I can't recognize that, if I don't know, I
can't recognize this if I don't know. Okay, so you
start thinking to yourself, well, I think about the story
(31:39):
of Job. Is there anything after that where I can
see that there's demons or Lucifer once again being used
by God to test those that he loves and loves him. Yes,
the apostle Paul staying in Second Corinthians, if you go
(32:03):
over to a Second Corinthians chapter twelve, you may read
something that you go, I, I don't know about that.
That's a little that's a little alarming. It has to
do with Paul and the thorn in his flesh. You
may have heard of this before. Paul's been talking about
all the things he suffered because of his devotion to Christ, which,
by the way, we're allowed. And so he says this
(32:24):
verse seven of chapter twelve Second Corinthians, So to keep
me from becoming conceited. So there's the why to keep
me from becoming conceited. Because of the surpassing greatness of
the revelation, he was allowed to see the third heaven.
A thorn was given me in the flesh. Listen to this,
(32:47):
a messenger of Satan to harass me. Here comes the
why to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I
pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me,
but he the Lord, said to me, my grace is
(33:08):
sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
Now again, I know that may trouble you, but I
wanted to bring you peace. Because here's what's happening. Paul
is being humbled, and the Lord has decided that this
thorn in his flesh, whatever it was, was allowed because
(33:30):
he could get Paul to where he wanted him to be.
And he was even willing, just like Job, to use
a messenger of Satan to accomplish his goal of keeping
the Apostle Paul humble so that the Apostle Paul would
be more dependent on him, thus becoming more powerful by
being weaker and being totally dependent on Jesus once again,
(33:53):
Satan and his demons are simply tools that God uses
when he wants to. But he is completely in control
for the redeemed, for the redeemed, And I know that.
You say, well, I don't like the thought of God
sicking them on me for for lack of a better term,
(34:17):
but remember, he's gonna always be part of it. He's
in control. It's like I don't like the I don't
want to think about a pit bull getting after me.
And the guy comes in and he's got a pit
bull on the chain. Well, I don't want this pit
bull here at all. I understand that, But isn't it
great to see if somebody's got him on the chain.
So unless that person lets out enough chain, he can't
(34:39):
get you. He might be barking at you, he might
be scaring you, but unless the owner lets loose of
the chain, he can't kill you. Well, that's the way
you got to see the spiritual realm for those that
are redeemed. Are demons real? Yes? Is Loocier for real?
You better believe it. Are angels real? Yes, Well, we
(35:00):
talk more about them, we will, But today I want
to establish that this spiritual warfare is real. It should
not be ignored, it should not be obsessed over. But
you got to know how it works. That's what this
podcast is all about. Okay. So to kind of get
us down to the end of our first episode, I
(35:21):
want you to go to Acts nineteen because this is
a warning that I want to leave with you until
the next time we're together. Everything I've been telling you
today only applies to the redeemed. If you are not redeemed,
if you are not under the authority of Jesus Christ,
then this spiritual warfare that's going on is something you
(35:41):
should be gravely concerned about. So in Acts chapter nineteen,
we see something very very interesting involving these sons of
a very well known Pharisee. He had seven sons, the
apostle Paul had been doing miracles, and they were jealous
of Paul. He had been casting out demons, and we're
going to talk about that in future episodes. You're gonna
(36:02):
hear me interview people that have cast out demons. Okay,
that's coming. But in this case they wanted to also
cast out demons. Okay, so this is verse thirteen of
chapter nineteen. Now they are jealous of Paul. That's their
whole motivation. Okay. So in verse thirteen, the scriptures tell us,
(36:23):
then some of the Jewish exorcists undertook to evoke the
name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying,
I call on you by the name of Jesus, who
Paul proclaims seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Skiva.
We're doing this. But when they called on an evil
(36:46):
spirit to come out of a man Verse fifteen should
be very troubling to anybody that is listening to this
or watching this that is not redeemed. Listen, but the
evil spirit answer these men, Jesus, I know this is
an evil spirit, a demon. Jesus I know, and Paul
(37:10):
I recognize demotion for Paul, but he makes it. But
who are you? Let me tell you, whoever is listening
to this and watching this, you don't want to hear
that these evil spirits recognized Jesus because they used his name.
(37:30):
They recognized Paul because he belonged to Jesus. He did
not recognize them, or it didn't recognize them. Now what
happened next? Rick Well and the man in whom the
evil spirit had possessed leaped on them, mastered all of them,
overpowered them so that they fled out of the house,
(37:53):
naked and wounded. They used the name of Jesus. Why
didn't it work? It didn't work. I'm gonna say that again.
It did not work. Why when Paul used the name
of Jesus it worked. Why because the apostle Paul belonged
to Jesus. The apostle Paul was redeemed, so the power
(38:19):
of the name of Jesus was available to Paul. These
other pretenders just wanted to see a show. They wanted
to go play games with evil spirits. They wanted to
play games with demons. They wanted some notoriety that they
were able to cast out demons. So they thought that
(38:41):
they would just do what Paul had done. That they
would roll up against an evil spirit. They would say
to that evil spirit, in the name of Jesus, that
Paul calls upon come out of this man. But they
got a much different result. The reason why the evil
spirit did not leave the man. Not only did it
(39:03):
not leave, it inhabited the body of a man, which
is real. This does happen, and it jumped on seven men,
seven grown men. And these trust me. These demons when
they possess somebody, they have magnificent strength, okay, and they
(39:23):
have rankings just like the angels do. Some are stronger
than others. And strip these seven guysnaked. Now why do
they strip people neked? Have you ever noticed that? You know?
Anytime someone is deranged, and many times they are just
possessed of a demon. Mental illness is real. I'm not
(39:44):
saying it's not, but in many cases this is just demonic.
When you see the evil of the world today, why
did this person slaughter all these innocent people in cold blood?
Because they're likely possessed with the demon. This is evil,
is what it is. Okay. All they do is destroyed, murder,
kill still, and so you'll see a lot of times
(40:04):
when someone is possessed of a demon, or they've allowed
a demon in through allow themselves, their mind to be
altered by drugs or alcohol, whatever the case may be,
and they've opened themselves up to demonic forces. What happens
a lot. They strip themselves naked, These demons strip these
guys naked. Why because of the original fall in the garden. See,
you know that at one time, the original man and
(40:27):
woman that God created, they were naked and unashamed. But
when sin came into the garden, what happened. Clothe ourselves,
hide our shame. And what these demons are doing is
they're trying to present you as shameful and naked right
before God. You see that all the time. It is
a trait to look for if you want to see
(40:48):
demonic forces. Did the people strip themselves naked? Are they
running around naked? And usually it has to do with that.
They're once again taking what God called pure and they're
exploiting the fall of mankind. And how naked this now
is something to be ashamed of. It's not something that
we're comfortable with anymore because of our sin. And they're
(41:10):
revealing that again. They're accusing here you are naked before God.
So the name of Jesus had no power in the
hands of these sons because they didn't belong to Jesus.
If you don't belong to Jesus, you can shout Jesus's
name in your house all you want to when it's
(41:32):
under demonic attack, and it's not going to accomplish anything
because you don't belong to Jesus. These demons will look
at you when you're hollering that out when you've waited
too late and they've over they've taken over your home
or taken over your life, or they've taken over your children,
or they've taken over your marriage, and you'll start shouting Jesus, Jesus,
(41:53):
in the name of Jesus, leave my family along, leave
us alone. And if you don't belong to Jesus, those
demons are going to say, Jesus, we know, but who
are you. You don't belong to Jesus and they're not
going anywhere. So if we're going to prepare for this battle,
(42:15):
we must prepare ourselves by first making sure that we
belong to Jesus, because without the protection of Jesus, you
are sending yourself out day after day into a spiritual
battle that you cannot win. And it's real. I mean,
(42:38):
if you could see the cosmic war that is going
on around you on a daily basis, if God allowed
you to see it, you could not handle it. I
could not handle it. So are there supernatural forces all
around us? The answer is yes. Is it Bigfoot, is
(43:02):
it space aliens? Is it ghost? No? But that didn't
make it any less real. So I hope that you'll
go on this journey with us on episodes that are
still to come, and become educated and understand the seriousness
(43:24):
of these strange encounters.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
You just heard the premiere episode of Strange Encounters with
Rick Burgess. To hear future episodes, you just need to
subscribe to this brand new show from Rick Burgess and
the folks at Blaze Media. Just search for Strange Encounters
wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe and don't miss
the next episode of Strange Encounters with Rick Burgess.
Hey, this is Adler from the Rick Burgess Show. You
are about to hear the premiere episode of Strange Encounters
with Rick Burgess. It's a brand new show and the
folks at Blaze Media wanted to give you a taste
of what's to come. Come along as we search for
the truth, hear stories from people with first hand experience,
and use the truth of the Bible to win the
spiritual war going on all around us. To hear future episodes,
(00:23):
you just need to subscribe to this brand new show
from Rick Burgess and the folks at Blaze Media. Just
search for Strange Encounters wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe.
And now here's the very first episode of Strange Encounters
with Rick Burgess.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Welcome to Strange Encounters. I'm your host, Rick Burgess. This
is our first episode. So let's talk about what this
podcast will be all about. Okay, first of all, I
want to clarify what the podcast is not. We are
not going to be talking about ghost We're not going
to be talking about Bigfoot. We're not going to be
(01:06):
talking about space aliens from another planet. I know those
things are popular, and I know they get a lot
of views, but what I would like to talk about
is something that is supernatural. It is very serious and
it is very real. Angels and demons and a lot
(01:26):
of the things that people talk about when they talk
about space aliens, when they talk about I think I
thought I saw the ghost of a loved one. There's
some sort of ghost haunting this or haunting that I
believe that I, you know, saw some sort of monster
or creature. Most of this, I do believe that people
have experiences. Don't misunderstand me. I have talked to I
(01:51):
have seen interviews of very credible people, and I believe
that they're telling us the truth. Now, we first have
to weed out all the people that are just making
stuff up to get attention and know that they're out there.
I'm talking about people that have experienced something, and they've
experienced something that I do believe them that was supernatural.
(02:12):
That's really not the question. Do we encounter the supernatural? Well,
the answer is yes, But does that mean that we
are encountering space aliens, ghost, bigfoot monsters fill in the blank.
I'm going to tell you, I would say no. I
don't believe that any of those things are real. I
believe it all falls under what we know to be
(02:34):
true if you have a biblical worldview, and I do
and so do many others, is that it really isn't
up for debate whether the supernatural exists, because we know
that it does. So. I spent thirty one years hosting
a show called The Rick and Bubba Show. Thirty one
years that we did that. It was a wonderful run,
(02:56):
loved it. I'm currently hosting a daily show called The
Rick Burg Show. And I remember back when I was
doing The Rick and Bubba Show, we had a very
popular segment called the Thirteen Working Days of Horror, and
it was all in good fun that we would start out,
you know, talking about ghost stories, and then we would
(03:17):
send members of the team out to investigate those ghost stories.
And there's tons of shows that do that now and
they're very popular. But it didn't take long because I
was so new to the faith. I had not been
redeemed very long, so I didn't know much about spiritual warfare,
and I thought, well, what's the harm. You know, we're
doing these things. Everybody seems to like them. We all
(03:39):
like being scared fill in the blank. But I will
tell you that from the time I was a little boy.
I had a very strong, you know, a strong feeling
about horror movies and haunted houses. I didn't like them
at all. I sensed, even as a child that there
was something wrong with this, and there was an oppressive
(04:01):
spirit with it all, and I didn't want any part
of it. But as I grew up, I still didn't
care for it all that much. But I didn't take
it very serious. And this was one of those occasions,
and it became a very very popular series on that
show that I did for thirty one years. But as
I began to grow in my faith, I began to
(04:24):
be more and more uncomfortable with the thirteen working days
of horror Horror. It bothered me. I started being in
a dilemma on whether we should be doing this or not.
And the more I studied some of the things we'll
talk about today, the more I realized that what we
were doing was very, very dangerous. It was very dangerous.
Were we at times just telling ghost stories and there
(04:47):
really was nothing to it, sure, but things begin to
happen when, as you can guess, if you keep doing
it for multiple years, what happens you start pushing the envelope.
And we kept looking for stories and looking for experiences.
And it didn't take very long for me to understand
that these men that we were sending out, who were
dear friends of ours and we'd worked with for years,
(05:10):
that we were sending them into very dangerous situations. And
I'm going to give you some of the facts behind
that today in scripture. Because I didn't even know the
spiritual condition of the members of our team that we
were sending out. Some of them I did know were
men of faith, but I didn't think they were very
mature in their faith. Then there were some that I
(05:31):
didn't even know if they had ever been redeemed before.
And as we started pushing on these investigations again, like
a lot of the popular shows you see now, they
started encountering things that could not be explained. I remember
one particular, we went in to do an investigation of
the ghost of an old site war This is where
(05:54):
they would keep people that were mentally ill, and they
shut it all down. And when they shut down this
high hospital, they just kind of walked out of the
hospital and left it as is. So there were you know,
office desk everywhere, there were chairs everywhere there, and they
were the phones that were pulled out of the wall.
The bell phones. You know that some of you are
(06:15):
so young you don't even know what I'm talking about.
But we had landline phones at one time, and they
had bells in them, and it would it would that's
where the ring would come from. Uh. And they were
they had been pulled out of the wall. They were
laying around in all these rooms. And as our guys
were investigating these ghosts of this mental hospital, the phones
(06:37):
started ringing, and they would ring at different parts of
the hospital. And when they would go to the floor
where they heard the rings, it would then start ringing
on another floor. Uh. And these things were happening, and
they could not be explained. Now. At the time, I
wasn't fully aware of what we were doing. But but
I believe now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that
(07:00):
these men that we sent into this hospital were experiencing
demonic activity. And I came under so much conviction from
the Holy Spirit that we set down and I just
had to tell the guys. Into their credit. They all degree,
I mean agreed, some not as much as others, but
(07:21):
all of us finally agreed because I said, now, if
we're going to continue to do this. I can't be
part of it. We must stop doing this. I'm under
conviction because we are tampering with darkness, and we are
tampering with evil spirits. They are real and we should
not be doing this. We are placing these people and
(07:44):
our audience in danger. Now what do you mean by
you replacing the audience in danger? Well, I'll tell you why.
Because what happens when you're listening to something like this
and you're watching something like this, now you want to
go out and do it. And we were encouraging people
to go on ghost hunts or go after the fill
in the blank monster. A lot of it was just
(08:06):
fairy tales and it didn't mean anything, but there were
things that were quite real. And now here we are
with this platform, we're not only sending out people that
shouldn't be doing this. Now, we're encouraging total strangers to
go and do this. And I just couldn't. I just
could not do it any longer. So when I was
approached about doing this, I want to make it perfectly clear.
(08:29):
This is not me revisiting that. There might be some
pressure to do that, but I'm not going to do
that because it's dangerous. What I am going to do
is to be sure that we stay inside the realm
of spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare between angels and demons is
(08:50):
extremely real, and it is going on. It's real. Simple.
Paul talks about this in his letter to the Ephesians
in Ephesians chapter six. Some of you may be familiar
with this. Some of you may be hearing this for
the very first time. It's not up to debate, up
to debate, because scripture says it very clear. Look here,
the apostle Paul. You might be familiar some of you
(09:13):
with the armor of God. These are those scriptures where
you put on the full armor of God. But you
may not know why we're supposed to put on the
full armor of God. You may not know why. Maybe
you've been thinking about, well, you know, it's persecutions. I
need to do better with my sin nature. Now, what
(09:33):
Paul's specifically talking about is you must be prepared for
spiritual war. That's his main point, and that's not my opinion.
He tells this this. Listen to this, he said. Finally,
this is in verse ten of chapter six of Ephesians.
Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of
(09:53):
his might, put on the whole armor of God, that
you may be able to stand against the schemes of
the death. 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
(10:17):
evil in the heavenly places. So how do I know
that demonic activity exists? How do I know that every
day I'm entering into a spiritual war? Because the scriptures
make that clear. I've said this on my day job
(10:37):
many times. I don't need Bigfoot. I don't need space
people from another planet. I don't need ghosts haunting some area.
I don't need to worry about bigfoot. I don't need
any of that. The scriptures tell me all I need
to know. When I know that spiritual forces are existing
(10:58):
in another dimension and are allowed to come into my dimension,
and I'm warned in scripture that there's demonic activity all
around me, and there are angels and demons waging war.
I got plenty on the table, and that's what this
podcast is going to take on. And we hope to
(11:18):
educate you because you know, some of you may have
seen the posts that I put out promoting episode one.
I fear that, especially in the Western Church, that this
topic is not a topic to obsess over. And we'll
talk about this, but it's also not a topic to ignore.
And I'm afraid that many times in the Western Church
(11:41):
that the local church, which I love the local church
because Christ loves the local church, that we don't talk
about these things. But yet we send people out of
our congregations out into a spiritual war that we have
not prepared them to fight. So there is a balance.
So I want to take that on. Yes, we're going
(12:02):
to delve into this going forward on strange encounters. Yes,
I'm going to share with you stories about encountering demons.
I'll share a brief one with you. Even on this episode.
We will be interviewing people, we will be talking about
these things. But I want to be real cautious here,
(12:23):
yellow flag waving. This is not to cause you to
obsess over the spiritual realm. We should not obsess over it.
That The goal is not to have you looking for
demons around every corner, looking for Satan around every turn,
(12:43):
you know, having people that can mislead you and say,
oh I can see the spiritual rem I've got some
sort of touch from God. Be careful of these people, okay.
It it's dangerous to ignore spiritual warfare, okay, but it's
also dangerous to obsess over it. That's not the intention either.
(13:04):
You don't want to bring any glory to Satan and
his demons by obsessing over them and having an unhealthy
obsession with seeking them. That's problematic too. The goal of
this podcast is to educate you on this so that
you're aware of what's going on and you will be
(13:25):
able to go into the battle prepared. Okay, that's our goal.
So let's look at one thing when you talk about Satan,
Satan's real You know, there's a question I get quite often,
why did God create the devil? Well, he didn't. God
(13:45):
created an angel called Lucifer. Lucifer was a beautiful angel,
a very high ranking angel that decided that being a
high ranking angel was not good enough for him and
he and he convinced a third of God's angels, all
created beings by God for an overthrow to take God's
(14:07):
throne from him. God will share his glory with no one,
And of course Lucifer was expelled from heaven or from
the presence of the Lord with a third of the demons,
and then of course the war started. But here's one
thing I want you to know about Lucifer is, and
I've already mentioned it once. Lucifer is a created being. Okay,
(14:31):
he is. This is not star wars, This is not
Ying and Yang that that that you know mystical Eastern religion.
It's not that at all. God created the angels, who
then became a third of them demons. He created Lucifer,
who then became the devil because he became our accuser,
(14:54):
he became Satan, but because he became our adversary. But
it is Lucifer that we're dealing with, the angel, created
being by God. Now why rick is that important? I'm
will tell you why that's important. He's not God, he's
not the dark version of God. He's not the Force.
(15:15):
He's a created being, which means there is a there's
there's a substantial gap between Lucifer and the God who
created him. Now, is he stronger than a human being?
You better believe it. We'll give you some examples of this.
Are there demons that went with Lucifer that are stronger
(15:35):
than some of the angels of God? Yes, not stronger
than all of them. Not stronger than than the Son
of God, and not stronger than God, the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit, of course not. But I want
you to take comfort in that. And here here's here's why.
I know many times I've been guilty of this too,
(15:56):
that we will be in a situation and we throw
around these terms. I've done it. Okay, So I'm not
talking down to you or talking at you. I'm talking
with you and we'll say, well, I'll tell you, Satan's
really given me a hard time right now? Well, probably not. Okay,
let me just go ahead and say that because Lucifer
is not omniscient. Lucifer is not omnipotent. Lucifer is not omnipresent.
(16:23):
Unlike God, Lucifer cannot be in multiple places all at
the same time. Lucifer, in order to come after you
and me, has to leave wherever he is and come
to where we are and not be there anymore. I'm
just gonna say I like to think that, you know,
I'm devoted to my Lord and Savior. I want to
(16:45):
be about his business. I want to have impact for
the Kingdom of God. But I don't quite think that
I rank Lucifer coming after me. Now his demon's coming
after me. Sure, but Lucifer, I just find it unlikely
that he's going to leave some of the places where
(17:05):
he's battling right now and say, well, I've got to
go find Rick Burgess, you know, on whatever street he
lives on, because that guy is so devoted to God
that he's really hurt me. Probably not Now, a third
of the angels being demons, yes, I've experienced them. I
have not a lot, but it has happened, and we'll
(17:28):
talk about that through in future episodes. Okay, But James
tells us in The Powerful Book of James, he kind
of gives us a little bit of a Hey, let
me give you some clarity. Maybe come down from you
thinking that you're so impactful for the Kingdom of God
that Lucifer has decided that he's coming after you. James says,
(17:52):
most of the problems we get into, really it's just
our sin nature. I mean, when I get up and
pray every day, I do pray against these cosmic forces
that God would put a protective headge around me and
around my family and around our business and around my friends.
I do all that, Sure, but the prayer that I
(18:12):
probably pray. That's the most important, as I pray to
God protect me against my biggest enemy, myself, my sin nature.
James talks about this, and he says, but each person
is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his
own desire. Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth
(18:35):
to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings
forth death. So I'm headed down this road of sin,
James says, not because Lucifer Satan, the devil is tempting you,
Not because God's tempting you, Not because the demons are
tempting you. Most of us find ourselves on a bad
(18:57):
road simply because of our own wicked desires. So I
hope that brings you some peace, and you're going to
see some of the things that we talk about about.
The We're not sitting here like sitting ducks every day.
Oh no, you know what's going to happen to me.
I'm at the mercy of whatever the demons or Lucifer
(19:18):
wants to do today. Now, if you have not been redeemed,
if you're not under the authority of Jesus Christ, do
you have something to fear? Yes, yes you do, because
you don't have the protection. You're not under the authority
of Christ. You are a sitting duck. You are easy pickings.
(19:43):
I don't think you're going to rank Lucifer as I said,
but for those demons, because and I'm going to show
you an example of that before we're done today. How
important that is. So now let's talk about who's in control.
I mean, can can Lucifer? Can the demons just do
whatever they want to do whenever they want to do
it to a person who is redeemed? The answer is no,
(20:07):
that they can't. Now one of these things, you know,
this part of the Bible seems to bother people more
than it comforts people. But I hope today it'll comfort you.
It's the Book of Job. We're currently doing the Book
of Job in a Wednesday Bible study. You can also
find on our website, Rick burgesshow dot com. We do
it every Wednesday. We're in Job. Now. I want you
(20:29):
to see this moment when we learn something else about
demons and Lucifer. Okay, this is in chapter one of
the Book of Job and it starts in verse six. Now,
there was a day when the sons of God, that's
the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and
Satan Lucifer also came among them. The Lord said to Satan,
(20:51):
underline that Satan hasn't said anything. The Lord says to Satan,
from where have you come? So can Satan, Lucifer, the
devil and his demons? Can they move around the earth?
The answer is yes. Satan answered the Lord and said,
from going to and fro on the earth, and from
(21:12):
walking up and down on it. So yes, they are
among us here on earth. Scripture tells us that. And
the Lord said to Satan. The Lord said to Satan,
Satan doesn't bring up Job. The Lord said to Satan,
have you considered my servant Job. There is none like
him on earth? A blameless and upright man. That doesn't
(21:32):
mean sinless. It just means he had no sin, that
he had not repented of, who fears God and turns
away from evil. Then Satan answered the Lord and said,
does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not
put a hedge around him? That's what I was talking about.
And his house and all that he has on every side.
You have blessed the work of his hands, and his
possessions have increased in the land but stretch out your
(21:55):
hand and touch all that he has, and he will
curse you to your faith. Listen verse twelve, and the
Lord said to Satan, behold, all that he has is
in your hand, only against him. Do not stretch out
your hand. So Satan went out from the presence of
the Lord, who sets the boundaries for what Lucifer could
(22:17):
and could not do the Lord, God Almighty. He couldn't
do anything that the Lord did not allow him to do. Now,
if you want to get that's a whole nother discussion
on why God allowed him to do it. I can
certainly go down that road, but for this podcast, that's
been explained in the Bible study. I'm happy to answer
(22:37):
that for you. But right now, the purpose of these
scriptures is to show you that Lucifer and his demons
have to appear before the Lord. The Lord sets the
boundaries on what they can and cannot do to the redeemed,
not to the lost, but to the redeemed. God sets
(22:58):
the boundaries. Now, a lot of times we focus too much. Well,
I don't like the fact that God was allowing anything,
but don't miss the fact that it has to be
allowed that are to bring you peace. Okay, that are
to bring you peace. So we know that Lucifer is
not omnipotent, he's not omniscient, he's not omnipresent. We also
(23:21):
know that the Lord God Almighty sets the boundaries for
what he can and he can't do. We also know
that most of the trouble we get into is because
of our own sin nature, not because we're under attack
from Satan and his demons. Okay, we got that. So
what are some things that we need to do that
(23:42):
would prepare us for the spiritual battle. Well, let's go
back to the beginning. Let's go back when all of
mankind fail because of a deception from Lucifer himself appearing
to the woman as a serpent. Let's go back to
the fall, Genesis chapter three. This is crucial, okay, And
(24:03):
Genesis chapter three we're learning. We're educating ourselves on how
Lucifer and his demons, how do the enemies of God work? Okay,
So we look here and we see that the serpent
Lucifer has now approached the woman and the serpent. This
is chapter three. And now the serpent was more crafty
(24:24):
than any other beast of the field that the Lord
God had made. He said to the woman, did God
actually say you shall not eat of any tree in
the garden? Now that that's that strategy that you need
to know. What what what the adversary and the demons
are going to test is how well we know the
(24:47):
promises of God? Do we really know what God said? Lucifer,
if you rank him, probably won't, but his demons follow
his instruction. The demonic forces that will come against you
always are going to take the gamble that you and
I don't really know what God said, so they can
(25:09):
deceive us with false prophets, false teachers, false theology, because
we don't know any better. What would you agree with
me that it is impossible to discern false teaching if
you don't know pure teaching. I would yes. So so
many times we do foolish things that allow these demonic
(25:31):
forces to come into our homes, which we're going to
cover on future episodes about spiritual house cleaning, come into
our lives. The reason why they're coming into our lives
is because they've been invited. And how were they invited?
Because we did not know the scriptures well enough to
(25:51):
recognize when we were being deceived by a person that
was sent to us by a pastor that was sent
to us by a praise song that we shouldn't have
been singing. And before we know it, we're under deception
because we don't know the genuine article. Now, years and
years ago, had a great opportunity to interview someone in
(26:12):
Secret Service. Now, Secret Service also is in the counterfeit industry.
You know, they go, that's who you sin if there's
a counterfeit ring running false currency. Well, when they're training
the Secret Service to recognize the genuine article, they never
show them examples of counterfeit money. They never see those
(26:34):
those very wildly. What they do is they make sure
that they're familiar with the genuine article. They're so familiar
with the genuine article that they recognize the counterfeit immediately
because they know the original, they know the standard that. Well,
(26:54):
I'm going to just ask you, do you know the
word of God and do you know the promises of
God to the point that you can you can call
on them when you're being deceived or you're under attack. Well,
i will tell you from the very beginning, the demons
and Lucifer have been using the is that what God
(27:17):
really said? And they've been quite successful. With it because
too many times the person they're attacking doesn't know the answer.
So make sure that you know the answer if you
we always make sure that we're experts on so many things.
You better make sure that you're an expert. This is
a warning on the word of God because the demons
(27:38):
and Lucifer are hoping and they're betting that you don't.
So let's turn to Second Corinthians, chapter eleven. This is
important too on deception because so many times these demons
will present themselves as angels of light. We have to
(27:59):
know the difference. It has happened so many times when
somebody you're going with, this person seems like they're okay. Well,
why is that important? Because demons that this goes back
to this ghost thing. Demons love to pretend to be
your grandmama that died and you're sure went on to glory,
(28:20):
And what they want you to do is to think
that your grandmother has come back to you. Are your mama,
are your daddy, or you're your child. You know, I
have a child that is in heaven, and it certainly
would mean a lot to me if somehow I thought
I could visit my child again, and I will one day.
But you know, a demon would love to convince me
that I could now through some person that claims they
(28:41):
can conjure him up or I thought I saw him
in our home or something like that. When these things,
if these things are happening to you, these are not
your relatives, these are not angels, these are demons. It's
all about deception. And you're sitting there going with they
don't look like a scary mom. They look like my grandmama.
(29:01):
They look like me, mam. Well that's what they're hoping,
you think, Okay, and you'll say, well, what if it's
an angel, an angel, this is important Episode one. Let's
get this on the record. An angel throughout scripture will
always identify themselves. They'll always tell them tell you they're
from the Lord, and then they move into why they
(29:22):
came to see you. Okay. You never find an angel
appearing like some kind of mist, you know, saying I'm
your grandmother, I'm your mama, I'm this person, this friend
of yours, I'm real mysterious. I moved through the room.
And see, that's all chaos, that's all attempt to fear
and intrigue in the supernatural with no clear understanding of
(29:47):
what they're doing and why they are there. I don't
care how wonderful they may seem, Paul warns us in
chapter eleven. And he warns us in verse fourteen when
he goes on to say that that we need to
understand that many times they will appear to us as
angels of light. He and here he's talking about false prophets.
(30:10):
In thirteen, he says, for such men are false apostles,
deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ fourteen And
no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel
of light, so it is no surprise if his servants
also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Therein will correspond
(30:34):
to their deeds. He said, Look, false teachers always appear
like they're wonderful human beings, and they always act like that,
their apostles from Christ and teachers of Jesus. And he said,
no wonder because Satan is who really sent them, and
Lucifer always he's been known to present himself and his
servants do the same thing as angels of light. We
did an interview with a guide man. Anytime you hear
(30:56):
these things. Oh, I've got somebody. Angels have been appearing
to this god. Oh, we can't wait to hear from him.
And I'm going to tell you many times. Well, every
time that I've ever dealt with I go to these
verses and usually tell the person. You may think you're
talking to angels, but you're not. You may think you're
talking to space people, but you're not. You may think
(31:18):
you're talking to a ghost, but you're not. You're talking
to demons, because this is exactly how they work. But
if I can't recognize that, if I don't know, I
can't recognize this if I don't know. Okay, so you
start thinking to yourself, well, I think about the story
(31:39):
of Job. Is there anything after that where I can
see that there's demons or Lucifer once again being used
by God to test those that he loves and loves him. Yes,
the apostle Paul staying in Second Corinthians, if you go
(32:03):
over to a Second Corinthians chapter twelve, you may read
something that you go, I, I don't know about that.
That's a little that's a little alarming. It has to
do with Paul and the thorn in his flesh. You
may have heard of this before. Paul's been talking about
all the things he suffered because of his devotion to Christ, which,
by the way, we're allowed. And so he says this
(32:24):
verse seven of chapter twelve Second Corinthians, So to keep
me from becoming conceited. So there's the why to keep
me from becoming conceited. Because of the surpassing greatness of
the revelation, he was allowed to see the third heaven.
A thorn was given me in the flesh. Listen to this,
(32:47):
a messenger of Satan to harass me. Here comes the
why to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I
pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me,
but he the Lord, said to me, my grace is
(33:08):
sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
Now again, I know that may trouble you, but I
wanted to bring you peace. Because here's what's happening. Paul
is being humbled, and the Lord has decided that this
thorn in his flesh, whatever it was, was allowed because
(33:30):
he could get Paul to where he wanted him to be.
And he was even willing, just like Job, to use
a messenger of Satan to accomplish his goal of keeping
the Apostle Paul humble so that the Apostle Paul would
be more dependent on him, thus becoming more powerful by
being weaker and being totally dependent on Jesus once again,
(33:53):
Satan and his demons are simply tools that God uses
when he wants to. But he is completely in control
for the redeemed, for the redeemed, And I know that.
You say, well, I don't like the thought of God
sicking them on me for for lack of a better term,
(34:17):
but remember, he's gonna always be part of it. He's
in control. It's like I don't like the I don't
want to think about a pit bull getting after me.
And the guy comes in and he's got a pit
bull on the chain. Well, I don't want this pit
bull here at all. I understand that, But isn't it
great to see if somebody's got him on the chain.
So unless that person lets out enough chain, he can't
(34:39):
get you. He might be barking at you, he might
be scaring you, but unless the owner lets loose of
the chain, he can't kill you. Well, that's the way
you got to see the spiritual realm for those that
are redeemed. Are demons real? Yes? Is Loocier for real?
You better believe it. Are angels real? Yes, Well, we
(35:00):
talk more about them, we will, But today I want
to establish that this spiritual warfare is real. It should
not be ignored, it should not be obsessed over. But
you got to know how it works. That's what this
podcast is all about. Okay. So to kind of get
us down to the end of our first episode, I
(35:21):
want you to go to Acts nineteen because this is
a warning that I want to leave with you until
the next time we're together. Everything I've been telling you
today only applies to the redeemed. If you are not redeemed,
if you are not under the authority of Jesus Christ,
then this spiritual warfare that's going on is something you
(35:41):
should be gravely concerned about. So in Acts chapter nineteen,
we see something very very interesting involving these sons of
a very well known Pharisee. He had seven sons, the
apostle Paul had been doing miracles, and they were jealous
of Paul. He had been casting out demons, and we're
going to talk about that in future episodes. You're gonna
(36:02):
hear me interview people that have cast out demons. Okay,
that's coming. But in this case they wanted to also
cast out demons. Okay, so this is verse thirteen of
chapter nineteen. Now they are jealous of Paul. That's their
whole motivation. Okay. So in verse thirteen, the scriptures tell us,
(36:23):
then some of the Jewish exorcists undertook to evoke the
name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying,
I call on you by the name of Jesus, who
Paul proclaims seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Skiva.
We're doing this. But when they called on an evil
(36:46):
spirit to come out of a man Verse fifteen should
be very troubling to anybody that is listening to this
or watching this that is not redeemed. Listen, but the
evil spirit answer these men, Jesus, I know this is
an evil spirit, a demon. Jesus I know, and Paul
(37:10):
I recognize demotion for Paul, but he makes it. But
who are you? Let me tell you, whoever is listening
to this and watching this, you don't want to hear
that these evil spirits recognized Jesus because they used his name.
(37:30):
They recognized Paul because he belonged to Jesus. He did
not recognize them, or it didn't recognize them. Now what
happened next? Rick Well and the man in whom the
evil spirit had possessed leaped on them, mastered all of them,
overpowered them so that they fled out of the house,
(37:53):
naked and wounded. They used the name of Jesus. Why
didn't it work? It didn't work. I'm gonna say that again.
It did not work. Why when Paul used the name
of Jesus it worked. Why because the apostle Paul belonged
to Jesus. The apostle Paul was redeemed, so the power
(38:19):
of the name of Jesus was available to Paul. These
other pretenders just wanted to see a show. They wanted
to go play games with evil spirits. They wanted to
play games with demons. They wanted some notoriety that they
were able to cast out demons. So they thought that
(38:41):
they would just do what Paul had done. That they
would roll up against an evil spirit. They would say
to that evil spirit, in the name of Jesus, that
Paul calls upon come out of this man. But they
got a much different result. The reason why the evil
spirit did not leave the man. Not only did it
(39:03):
not leave, it inhabited the body of a man, which
is real. This does happen, and it jumped on seven men,
seven grown men. And these trust me. These demons when
they possess somebody, they have magnificent strength, okay, and they
(39:23):
have rankings just like the angels do. Some are stronger
than others. And strip these seven guysnaked. Now why do
they strip people neked? Have you ever noticed that? You know?
Anytime someone is deranged, and many times they are just
possessed of a demon. Mental illness is real. I'm not
(39:44):
saying it's not, but in many cases this is just demonic.
When you see the evil of the world today, why
did this person slaughter all these innocent people in cold blood?
Because they're likely possessed with the demon. This is evil,
is what it is. Okay. All they do is destroyed, murder,
kill still, and so you'll see a lot of times
(40:04):
when someone is possessed of a demon, or they've allowed
a demon in through allow themselves, their mind to be
altered by drugs or alcohol, whatever the case may be,
and they've opened themselves up to demonic forces. What happens
a lot. They strip themselves naked, These demons strip these
guys naked. Why because of the original fall in the garden. See,
you know that at one time, the original man and
(40:27):
woman that God created, they were naked and unashamed. But
when sin came into the garden, what happened. Clothe ourselves,
hide our shame. And what these demons are doing is
they're trying to present you as shameful and naked right
before God. You see that all the time. It is
a trait to look for if you want to see
(40:48):
demonic forces. Did the people strip themselves naked? Are they
running around naked? And usually it has to do with that.
They're once again taking what God called pure and they're
exploiting the fall of mankind. And how naked this now
is something to be ashamed of. It's not something that
we're comfortable with anymore because of our sin. And they're
(41:10):
revealing that again. They're accusing here you are naked before God.
So the name of Jesus had no power in the
hands of these sons because they didn't belong to Jesus.
If you don't belong to Jesus, you can shout Jesus's
name in your house all you want to when it's
(41:32):
under demonic attack, and it's not going to accomplish anything
because you don't belong to Jesus. These demons will look
at you when you're hollering that out when you've waited
too late and they've over they've taken over your home
or taken over your life, or they've taken over your children,
or they've taken over your marriage, and you'll start shouting Jesus, Jesus,
(41:53):
in the name of Jesus, leave my family along, leave
us alone. And if you don't belong to Jesus, those
demons are going to say, Jesus, we know, but who
are you. You don't belong to Jesus and they're not
going anywhere. So if we're going to prepare for this battle,
(42:15):
we must prepare ourselves by first making sure that we
belong to Jesus, because without the protection of Jesus, you
are sending yourself out day after day into a spiritual
battle that you cannot win. And it's real. I mean,
(42:38):
if you could see the cosmic war that is going
on around you on a daily basis, if God allowed
you to see it, you could not handle it. I
could not handle it. So are there supernatural forces all
around us? The answer is yes. Is it Bigfoot, is
(43:02):
it space aliens? Is it ghost? No? But that didn't
make it any less real. So I hope that you'll
go on this journey with us on episodes that are
still to come, and become educated and understand the seriousness
(43:24):
of these strange encounters.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
You just heard the premiere episode of Strange Encounters with
Rick Burgess. To hear future episodes, you just need to
subscribe to this brand new show from Rick Burgess and
the folks at Blaze Media. Just search for Strange Encounters
wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe and don't miss
the next episode of Strange Encounters with Rick Burgess.
Host
Rick Burgess
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