May 7, 2025 • 27 mins
What’s your gut reaction when you come across a video of a preacher casting out demons? Do you roll your eyes and dismiss it as a hoax, or do you feel a sense of hope in witnessing someone break free from the dominion of darkness? In recent years, we’ve witnessed a surge on platforms like YouTube featuring self-proclaimed “Dragon Slayers” who have gained fame by publicly demonstrating their ministry of casting out demons during services and under the bright lights on stage. Apologist Jason Jiminez dropped by and shared his take on deliverance ministry, rightly calling for biblical discernment.
https://www.christianpost.com/voices/are-exorcisms-legitimate-in-our-day.html
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S1 (00:00):
Kurt and Kate mornings. Not just on the radio.
S2 (00:03):
It's a podcast too.
S1 (00:06):
What's your gut reaction when you come across a video
of a preacher casting out demons? Do you roll your
eyes and dismiss it as a hoax, or do you
feel a sense of of hope and witnessing someone break
free from the dominion of darkness? In recent years, we've
witnessed a surge on platforms like YouTube, etc., featuring self-proclaimed
(00:32):
dragon slayers who have gained fame by publicly demonstrating their
ministry of casting out demons during church services and under
the bright lights on the stage. So the the question is,
I mean, it really does beg a good question. What
about casting out demons? Is that something that is still
(00:52):
active today in the church? Is this something we as
believers need to be aware of. Always want to go
back to the Bible for these questions to be answered.
S2 (01:05):
Yeah, it's a topic that needs some nuance and I
think that Jason did a great job.
S1 (01:10):
Yeah, Jason Jimenez joined us for the conversation. He's the
founder and president of Stand Strong Ministries. He's an apologist,
which basically means he's a he's a defender of the
Christian faith. What is going on with this? Is this
just to get clicks? Is this just to get attention
for people or, you know, do we really have a
(01:32):
situation where people can be possessed by demons today and
we are called as believers, uh, to cast them out, etc.?
What is the Bible teaching? Because I'm just I'm going
back to the Bible. That's our foundation, God's word. We
read the Gospels there again. We see a lot of
demonic activity casting out demons. How do we process this?
(01:55):
How do we even begin to process this?
S3 (01:59):
Yeah, I mean, those are great questions. And I appreciate
you guys being brave enough to actually bring it in
the forefront on your show, because we know, as you
said in the opening, there is casting out of demons.
I mean, you see, right off the bat, when Jesus
started his Galilean ministry, one of the first things that
we actually see that's recorded in Mark 127 is that
he was commanding unclean spirits. Right? And they were obeying him.
(02:22):
So Christ was coming, bringing authority to basically clear a path,
clear a way, as he's proclaiming the gospel. And that's
one of the things that, as Christians, we have to
understand is that when you're dealing with spiritual warfare, there's
a lot of things in play there. And so when
we're talking about casting out demons, you're right. In these
demon slayers or these deliverance ministries, they tend to be
(02:45):
one dimensional, focusing on just solely what demons are doing
to people and figuring out their names and having some
maybe formula or methodology. And I mean, I can't read
their minds or their hearts of everybody as to why
they're putting it out there. They just want clicks or
they're just show or this is just performance. We've done
a lot of investigative work to where a lot of
(03:05):
the stuff is false. But having said all that, that
doesn't dismiss the reality of spiritual warfare, that there's a
real Satan who's a fallen angel who attacks or tries
to oppose the works of God, who tries to attack,
you know, attack his children and obviously the God of
this age. Second Corinthians four four is trying to blind
people who are unregenerated. And so demon activity, if you will,
(03:29):
or the context of spiritual warfare will look different depending
on who you're dealing with, what the context is and
what the background is.
S1 (03:39):
There's so much for us to think about here. Do
you have experience with deliverance ministry yourself? If so, I
think that would help us put it in context as well.
S3 (03:49):
Yeah, I mean, I do, Kurt, and I appreciate that
this is something even in our ministry. I've been in
ministry for almost 30 years as a pastor. But also
when I got into Christian apologetics, you know, I was
trained by the legendary doctor Norman Geisler and had written
books with him and traveled with him. And I love
the opportunity to have to be able to lay the
case out for Christianity, for people. But having said all that,
(04:11):
in my domain, we typically are very rational and very
exclusive in our thinking process to where we're focusing on
dismantling or demolishing a naturalistic argument or atheism, or why
Islam is a false religion, and there's a place for that.
But oftentimes we neglect to understand what's beneath it, what
(04:32):
is generating, if you will, these ideologies. And in my past,
when I look back at my childhood and even in
today's world, ministering, traveling this country, going into churches, yes,
we have got as presented opportunity for us to, you know,
come across an individual. I'll just give you an example
(04:52):
very quickly. I was recently in Ohio, and I was
actually teaching on spiritual warfare, and a pastor had taken
my my class and I was going to teach it
again later that that day in a conference. And his
daughter attended because that family had demonic activity since they
were very young. So when when they were newlyweds, raising kids,
(05:12):
having children, raising them, they would have these, these, these
apparitions or these phantom like figures that would appear in
the area where they lived, had a lot of demonic
activity because there was a lot of cultism. There was
just a lot of drugs and violence, you know, it
was very dark and they always felt plagued or oppressed
by it. Well, they eventually moved out of there. But
(05:35):
those stories, they didn't really know how to reconcile them.
And so when they encountered my seminar on spiritual warfare,
they knew right away that they needed to talk to me. Well,
come to find out, as I'm talking to the 17
year old girl, she would get into these fits of
rage all of a sudden. And the Lord laid on
my heart that this woman had a demon. And so
(05:57):
we cast it out of her, and she surrendered her
life to Christ. And so that's one of many instances
where we've been able to partake in those blessings, just
like we saw that Jesus did in his ministry. And
not only that, but he also directed his disciples in
Luke chapter ten and Matthew chapter ten to go out
there to also cast out demons. And we also see
(06:17):
that in the Great Commission. If you take Matthew 28
and Mark 16 together at the end of those passages,
when he was calling them out to make disciples and
to baptize them, he also to cast out demons. So
this is something, unfortunately, that a lot of Christians have
neglected to do. We can all do it. We all
have the authority in Christ to do it. We're commanded
to do it. But a lot of times people get
intimidated or overwhelmed and then sadly, sometimes in certain denominations
(06:42):
or influence, they kind of hijack it to some degree
and then make it so prevalent that they have these, quote,
deliverance ministries. And I'm not knocking all of them. But
we have to make sure, as you said earlier, which
I love, Kurt, look at what Scripture does teach about
it and then use it to judge whether this ministry
is following the biblical line. Yeah.
S1 (07:04):
That's so vitally important for us to keep in mind
no matter what we talk about as believers, but especially,
you know, this, this type of conversation, this, this topic itself, um,
I'm sure, Jason, you've you've heard people say some Bible scholars, commentators, preachers, pastors,
the way they explain this, they say, yeah, demonic activity
(07:28):
that we read about in the New Testament. That's because,
number one, the Son of God was walking the face
of the planet. Therefore, there was increased demonic activity. And
also it was a verification that Jesus was who he
says he was. So, uh, you know, him walking the
face of the planet kind of stirred everything up. Then
you've got his disciples and his followers. And so basically
(07:53):
that happened to establish the church. But then over time,
there was no need to continue that ministry. And you've
kind of answered it already with the Great Commission. But
just to reiterate this fact, I know we have some
people who may be thinking, okay, well, that was just
in the beginning of the church until the church got traction.
(08:13):
But we would be hard pressed, would we not to
find verification for that explicitly in the New Testament?
S3 (08:21):
Yeah. I mean, you know, I get that and I
have a lot of friends, as you said, who are
respected and I love them dearly and have learned from them.
But this is where I would differ from them. And
this is partly, I think, what Satan has done to
bring blindness, spiritual blindness, or lack of understanding. So there
is a there's a deep level of ignorance that we're
definitely which is one reason why now in the apologetics space,
(08:43):
I'm addressing this because I've seen where this rationale or
excusing away like, oh, like you said, it was a
special time and so the activity was heightened. A couple
of things there. Number one, if you actually see in
in Mark chapter nine, in Matthew 17, when Jesus came
down from the Mount of Transfiguration with the inner circle,
and there was this debate that was ensuing among the
religious leaders, some of the remaining disciples, and Jesus says,
(09:06):
what's going on here? And it was a father who
was pleading for his son to be, you know, repaired or,
you know, the casting out. And what we see is
this debate was going on of exorcism. One of the
things you have to understand, if you look at Second
Temple Judaism, there were strong indications that they understood spiritual
(09:28):
beings and what they refer to as unclean spirits. These
demons that we the Greek term is Damian. And they
were debating about how to remove this unclean spirit from
this child. So one that gives us an indication that
this was a practice that they were very familiar with
before Jesus came on the scene, the fact that he
was on scene. Yes, he's now teaching his disciples how
(09:49):
to do it and to do it properly, because in
that incident they said, how are you able to do it?
And we weren't. You could just say, oh, well, he
was just a son of God. He's God in the flesh.
He can do it. Of course that's true. But notice
what he says. It comes by prayer. And some other
manuscripts will insert the word fasting. So that's number one.
Number two, we actually see Paul in the book of
acts that Luke records him casting out demons. And then
(10:12):
number three, we actually see the book of revelation that
there will be an increase of demonic activity in church age,
not less.
S4 (10:20):
Thank you for taking some time to listen to this
episode of the Kurt and Kate Mornings podcast. We always
welcome a review with your thoughts and comments, and please
feel free to subscribe and follow us as well.
S1 (10:32):
I'm going to go to C.S. Lewis. Jason, famous quote
from him. There are two equal and opposite errors into
which our race can fall about. The devil's one is
to disbelieve in their existence, the other is to believe
and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.
(10:53):
They themselves are equally pleased by both of these errors.
And hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.
So whenever we talk about this, we have to be
careful not to give too many props to Satan and
his minions. But you know, we as human beings, we're
(11:15):
people of extremes. I mean, we tend to be extremists, right?
Either we don't talk about this at all, spiritual warfare
and demonic activity, or we talk about it too much.
We overemphasize it. So we have to walk down that
straight line. And hopefully in our conversation here this morning,
that's exactly what we are. What we're doing not glorifying Satan,
glorifying our God. And like Martin Luther said, right. Uh,
(11:38):
the devil is God's devil.
S3 (11:42):
Yeah. I mean, I really appreciate that because I think
oftentimes when you're encountering people, a lot of people have
a lot of questions. Let me just say this. For
a lot of the parents, grandparents listening, their kids have
a lot of these questions. I have the great joy
every summer to go to Colorado Springs multiple times, as
we have these sessions at Summit Ministries, where we train
(12:03):
16 to 25 year olds with biblical worldview training. And
every time, even if I'm not even teaching on the
topic of spiritual warfare, inevitably if I'm sitting there having
a meal with college students, they'll bring it up. They
either see a video on social media, on TikTok, something
that was very disturbing. One thing that I've been hearing
a lot of people talk about lately is voices in
(12:25):
their head. Is this me? Is this something that's, you know,
a demon? An unclean spirit of some sort? If that's
the case, how is that possible? All those type of things.
And so when we do approach these things, it's never
like to panic. As you said, or to freak out
or to obsess over. Is this a demon? Is that
a demon? Am I demonized? If that's the case, what
(12:46):
do I do? Can I cast it out myself? Or
do I go go see a specialist? You know what
I mean? Do I go to order that that holy
anointing oil that you know, that televangelist has on TV?
And so. And yes. And the enemy loves that because
he wants you to just start getting into this anxious
spirit and to start giving him more credit where credit
(13:06):
is not to be given. And so, yes, when we
do approach these things, this is why we said our
weapon is the Word of God. That's our sword or
the dagger. Quite. You know, frankly, oftentimes people think of
it as long sword, but it's more of a dagger
because it's it's hand to hand combat. So spiritual warfare
is very personal. But we are not to, uh, get
(13:30):
so sidetracked of making it into something more than it
actually is.
S1 (13:34):
What's interesting, too, in the New Testament, you have children
who are possessed by a demon, and that's how can
that possibly be? You're thinking, okay, well, it's just children.
How in the world could they be demon possessed? And
then you have the the other, uh, group of folks,
and some people are like, well, well, look, that was
(13:54):
just a physical ailment. Maybe they had epilepsy and they
thought it was a demon, but it wasn't really a demon.
How do you address these types of questions?
S3 (14:02):
Well, one is actually understanding our terms. So unfortunately I
do not like the term demon possession. This actually got
hijacked into the KJV. And so when you have the
word demon or daimonion, whereas that is a common term
that's used, which is just rendered in into the term demon,
which is actually not the forefront term that's used in
(14:25):
the Greek text. It's more pneumatica or pneuma or just
means a spirit. And then there's just different adjectives that
are applied to refer to it as an evil or
an unclean spirit. So the Bible actually in the original
language is very specific when it's introducing what we would
call a fallen angel, or an unclean spirit, or an
evil spirit in the spiritual realm, which goes into Ephesians
(14:48):
six verse 12, where we see this rank and file
that Paul actually lays out specifically. We can maybe touch
on that a bit later. But to draw back to
your question, Kurt, is we have to ensure that when
we're looking at the text and you look at the
KJV in every instance, it says possession, possession, possession. Now
when we render that term in English, it means control.
(15:11):
It means complete control or ownership or habitation. And that's
not in every instance when you actually see the Greek
text in the original language. And so because of that,
what we oftentimes like to do scholarly, when you're looking
at the original language, looking at the text and looking
at a case by case basis, depending on the person
that you're ministering to, that might need a casting out
(15:33):
of a demon or some form of deliverance is to
what degree is this evil spirit? What type of evil
spirit is influencing them? Manipulating them, controlling them. And so
we have to be very careful when you're dealing with
a non-believer versus a believer, where this was this believer
involved in occultism in the past, was there a curse?
(15:57):
Was there some type of involvement? Is there sexual sin?
Is there bitterness? Is there unforgiveness? Is there trauma? Was
there sexual abuse? And so when you start getting into
those layers and you start understanding the different types of
demons that are out there patrolling the world, trying to
oppose God, attack human beings, whether they're, again, non-believers or believers,
because that's those are levels that we have to understand.
(16:18):
We're dealing with spiritual warfare, and spiritual warfare isn't just
dealing with demons or Satan. Spiritual warfare is dealing with
this fallen world. First John 215 through 17. Our flesh
Romans chapter seven. The things that we want to do,
we don't do, and the things we should do, we don't,
as Paul laid out there. Oh, this wretched man, this
who would deliver me from this body of death? And
then there's the real enemy that we have to be
(16:38):
watchful and to resist, according to first Peter five eight,
who who prowls around like a roaring lion. So when
you're putting those things in context and you understand maybe
the demon or in this case, demons, as we see
in Mark chapter five, the legion of demons that are
that we're dealing with, that will put things in proper
context as to how to address the situation with an individual.
S1 (17:00):
Yeah, I'm so glad you pointed out. You know, it seems,
you know, sometimes we don't mention the obvious, but, you know, demons,
what are demons? They are the fallen angels that fell with, uh,
with Satan. So that's, you know, they sided with him.
In essence, we don't know how many there are, but
we do know that there were quite a few. Uh,
we also know that they are as fallen angels. They're
(17:23):
quite powerful. So, I mean, I just want to point
that out. So I'm glad you referred to that. Now,
I want to follow up on this as well. You
kind of addressed it here, but I want to highlight
it kind of set this, you know, so we can,
you know, put a highlight on it when it comes
to the believer. Can we be possessed by a demon
(17:43):
the way I have always viewed it and where I
land is we are gods. The devil does not own
us as true believers, but we can be oppressed as
opposed to possessed. What do you think?
S3 (18:00):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a that's a great start. Um,
but as you mentioned earlier, which I do appreciate it
as well, is we have this tendency with polarities, we
go extremes. It's either this or that. It's either this
or this is going to happen. The Scripture actually doesn't
teach that. And so the word possession, like I said,
is we get from the KJV. That's then eventually in
the NAS and elsewhere, the proper term is demonization, that
(18:24):
we actually use the word properly. So that way it
gives us a wide range. So when we're looking at
the text, we can't just lump every instance where there's
a demon and say that's possession. Therefore, if there's an
attack on a Christian, well, they can't be possessed, so
it can't be a demon. And then we exclude it.
We throw it out. That's not true. What we actually
see in Scripture when we're specifically dealing with the Christian,
if Satan could not harm us, manipulate us, deceive us,
(18:49):
create tension, division, and even in some cases demonize an individual,
then why does the Scripture warn us to be vigilant,
to be alert, in fact? Let me give the audience
an understanding of a passage in Ephesians chapter four, verse 27.
The context there prior to verse 27 says, do not
give Satan Satanas the, the, the great adversary, the accuser
(19:15):
of the brethren, right? The father of lies. This is
Satan himself, the mighty archangel who fell. It says, do
not give him an opportunity. Now the Greek term there
is topos. We get the term topography. It literally means
do not give him control. Do not give him rulership.
Do not give him ground. If you go. If you
then go into Ephesians chapter six and it says to
(19:37):
stand firm, we are not to give ground to the enemy.
Those are military terms. So the strategy here that we
see as Christians, when we are alert, just like militarily,
we understand what our enemy is doing, what they're trying
to do to attack us. And as Second Corinthians two
1011 says that we are not outsmarted or we're not
(19:57):
outwitted by the devil. The term that we that he
uses Paul multiple times is the wiles or the schemes.
The Greek term is methodia. So he actually has schematics.
He has ways of how to attack us. But when
we are alert and watchful and standing strong with God's
Word in the mighty power of God, Ephesians 610, we
will resist him. When Christians don't resist the enemy, when
(20:21):
they give in to bitterness, when they give in to unforgiveness,
if there's been trauma, if there's been sexual abuse, if
they have really been fixated or involved in occultism, you know,
like I always tell people, if you get too close
to the fire, you'll eventually get burned. And that's the
same thing when it comes to the spiritual realm with
the demonic. The closer you play with them, the more
(20:41):
intense it's going to be.
S1 (20:42):
See if.
S3 (20:43):
That's yourself.
S1 (20:44):
Yeah, exactly. I'm with you. I'm tracking. In fact, I
was going to ask you about that. What are some
ways that we can open the door to this type
of activity in our lives, even as believers?
S3 (20:56):
Yeah. The first thing Kurt and Kate is as Christians,
because this is what Paul warns us in context, Ephesians
four in second Corinthians chapter two 1011. Unforgiveness and anger. Bitterness.
For a Christian, those are very dangerous things. When you
allow a root of bitterness to spring forth in your life.
The enemy will use that now to whatever degree you
allow him. But that doesn't mean that you lose your salvation,
(21:18):
that he kicks out the Holy Spirit. Because when you're
dealing with spirits, they're not spatial. So this isn't about
like 98% is God's and 2% is Satan. That's not
how the spiritual realm works. This is all about influence
and perpetrating some type of lies or deception to come
into your life that can really start eating away at you.
We're a body soul, so the soul and the body
(21:39):
are together. You can't have one without the other. And
so when they're being affected, if you will, in the
spiritual realm and you're starting to deal with like I
was talking to an individual who started to open himself
to these voices that are saying, hey, we're your friend.
We love you. You're being rejected by the church. And
why don't you start drinking? Drinking will help you. So
you started to drink and like, start sleeping with your girlfriend.
(22:01):
So he started sleeping with his girlfriend. And it's like
you need to really, like, go out there on social
media and trash your leaders. And so he went out
there and was like correcting them and being high and mighty,
and I'm better than you are. And the more he
fed into that, the more they said, okay, do you
want to be able to now have certain abilities to
where you could be special? And we just want to
share this with you and nobody else. And so he
gave himself over and he started to do some weird things.
(22:24):
And he started to be, you know, like insightful about
what people are thinking. And he started to astral project
in the spiritual realm. He started to see things outside
of where he lived, you know, and those were demons
are giving him these abilities because he kept feeding into
it and he was not turning to God's Word. He
was not praying in the power of the Holy Spirit.
(22:45):
He was not confessing his sins. He was not in
a community of other believers. And the enemy took advantage
of that.
S1 (22:50):
One of the things I. I wanted to ask you about, Jason, um,
can we as normal, average, everyday Joe type believers, do
we have the authority? Do we have the power to
cast out a demon? And how do we do it?
How do we even know this is the problem without
(23:12):
getting ourselves in the weeds?
S3 (23:15):
The answer, simply put, is we are all as Christians
who are indwelt with the power of the Holy Spirit
who believe Jesus Christ is our Savior, the Savior of
the world, right, who take away the sins of the people,
or acts 412 that there is no other name given
among men by which we must be saved. And yes,
with that authority as God's children. And that's one of
the things, let me just say real quickly, in spiritual warfare,
(23:38):
when the first level, when you look at is it's
cosmic dualism. So it's Satan versus God. But let's be
very clear, Satan is a created being. He's an evil, corrupt,
fallen being. God is eternal, absolute, perfect, and in him
dwells truth and goodness. And so there's no competition here.
There's no comparison. Satan is not the opposite of God. Okay?
(24:02):
But in Scripture, when this cosmic dualism, you actually see
that we are children of the kingdom, or we are
children of light, that we have been saved as as
Jesus told Paul that you will preach the gospel and
they will go from the dominion of Satan, um, to me,
to my kingdom. And so when we are representing Christ,
(24:22):
we are advancing his kingdom until he returns. He's the
King of King and the Lord of Lords. So when
we are paving the way to preach the gospel, we
are to pray against the dominion of darkness. This is
in fact, what Jesus actually prays in the garden against
the dominion of darkness. Now, when you are confronted, or
if a demon manifests itself, let me just be very
(24:44):
clear to encourage your audience. You in Christ, have the
ability in his name to rebuke them and to resist them,
and they cannot take ownership. And don't freak out to think, well,
if I said the wrong word. In fact, when you
look at Scripture, there's times where there was a verbal rebuke,
(25:05):
there was times where Jesus touched the person that was demonized.
There was other times he didn't. There was times, as
we see in Mark chapter five, verse nine, that he
wanted to know the name, but you don't see that
in every occurrence. So it's not like you're trying to
find a methodology or formula to do it. So just be,
you know, cautious about that. And the other thing is,
if you are in an environment where you're not familiar
(25:26):
and you don't feel like you can do what God
has called you to do. Then. Then back off. Pray
for protection. God will send his guardian angels to protect
you from these demons that won't harm you. And then
look to people who maybe are a little bit more
mature or wise in this area for guidance.
S1 (25:42):
See, this is good. This is wisdom. And this is, uh,
you know, not there again. We're not, uh, running scared.
We have the God of the universe on our side,
but we want to avoid presumption and the best thing
that we can do. So it seems to me, Jason,
(26:03):
is we go back to the very basics. The. It's
really it's simple, yet sometimes it can be challenging. It's simple,
yet it's very deep and effective. And that is walk
closely with the Lord, your walk with the Lord, walking
with God, walking with the Lord Jesus, keeping that relationship
(26:25):
strong each and every day. Our whole life flows out
of that. And part of our life as believers is
engaging in spiritual warfare. Not necessarily the demonic. Toe to toe.
But it could include that. But everything comes out of
our relationship with the Lord as we depend upon him.
(26:45):
That is the way we can be bold and courageous
without being presumptuous. And I just I think that you've
encouraged a lot of us to to be that that
guy or that gal and, and, you know, have the
banner of the Lord above us and to engage in
spiritual warfare in a way that that honors God and
(27:07):
we don't need to be running scared.
S2 (27:09):
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S2 (00:03):
It's a podcast too.
S1 (00:06):
What's your gut reaction when you come across a video
of a preacher casting out demons? Do you roll your
eyes and dismiss it as a hoax, or do you
feel a sense of of hope and witnessing someone break
free from the dominion of darkness? In recent years, we've
witnessed a surge on platforms like YouTube, etc., featuring self-proclaimed
(00:32):
dragon slayers who have gained fame by publicly demonstrating their
ministry of casting out demons during church services and under
the bright lights on the stage. So the the question is,
I mean, it really does beg a good question. What
about casting out demons? Is that something that is still
(00:52):
active today in the church? Is this something we as
believers need to be aware of. Always want to go
back to the Bible for these questions to be answered.
S2 (01:05):
Yeah, it's a topic that needs some nuance and I
think that Jason did a great job.
S1 (01:10):
Yeah, Jason Jimenez joined us for the conversation. He's the
founder and president of Stand Strong Ministries. He's an apologist,
which basically means he's a he's a defender of the
Christian faith. What is going on with this? Is this
just to get clicks? Is this just to get attention
for people or, you know, do we really have a
(01:32):
situation where people can be possessed by demons today and
we are called as believers, uh, to cast them out, etc.?
What is the Bible teaching? Because I'm just I'm going
back to the Bible. That's our foundation, God's word. We
read the Gospels there again. We see a lot of
demonic activity casting out demons. How do we process this?
(01:55):
How do we even begin to process this?
S3 (01:59):
Yeah, I mean, those are great questions. And I appreciate
you guys being brave enough to actually bring it in
the forefront on your show, because we know, as you
said in the opening, there is casting out of demons.
I mean, you see, right off the bat, when Jesus
started his Galilean ministry, one of the first things that
we actually see that's recorded in Mark 127 is that
he was commanding unclean spirits. Right? And they were obeying him.
(02:22):
So Christ was coming, bringing authority to basically clear a path,
clear a way, as he's proclaiming the gospel. And that's
one of the things that, as Christians, we have to
understand is that when you're dealing with spiritual warfare, there's
a lot of things in play there. And so when
we're talking about casting out demons, you're right. In these
demon slayers or these deliverance ministries, they tend to be
(02:45):
one dimensional, focusing on just solely what demons are doing
to people and figuring out their names and having some
maybe formula or methodology. And I mean, I can't read
their minds or their hearts of everybody as to why
they're putting it out there. They just want clicks or
they're just show or this is just performance. We've done
a lot of investigative work to where a lot of
(03:05):
the stuff is false. But having said all that, that
doesn't dismiss the reality of spiritual warfare, that there's a
real Satan who's a fallen angel who attacks or tries
to oppose the works of God, who tries to attack,
you know, attack his children and obviously the God of
this age. Second Corinthians four four is trying to blind
people who are unregenerated. And so demon activity, if you will,
(03:29):
or the context of spiritual warfare will look different depending
on who you're dealing with, what the context is and
what the background is.
S1 (03:39):
There's so much for us to think about here. Do
you have experience with deliverance ministry yourself? If so, I
think that would help us put it in context as well.
S3 (03:49):
Yeah, I mean, I do, Kurt, and I appreciate that
this is something even in our ministry. I've been in
ministry for almost 30 years as a pastor. But also
when I got into Christian apologetics, you know, I was
trained by the legendary doctor Norman Geisler and had written
books with him and traveled with him. And I love
the opportunity to have to be able to lay the
case out for Christianity, for people. But having said all that,
(04:11):
in my domain, we typically are very rational and very
exclusive in our thinking process to where we're focusing on
dismantling or demolishing a naturalistic argument or atheism, or why
Islam is a false religion, and there's a place for that.
But oftentimes we neglect to understand what's beneath it, what
(04:32):
is generating, if you will, these ideologies. And in my past,
when I look back at my childhood and even in
today's world, ministering, traveling this country, going into churches, yes,
we have got as presented opportunity for us to, you know,
come across an individual. I'll just give you an example
(04:52):
very quickly. I was recently in Ohio, and I was
actually teaching on spiritual warfare, and a pastor had taken
my my class and I was going to teach it
again later that that day in a conference. And his
daughter attended because that family had demonic activity since they
were very young. So when when they were newlyweds, raising kids,
(05:12):
having children, raising them, they would have these, these, these
apparitions or these phantom like figures that would appear in
the area where they lived, had a lot of demonic
activity because there was a lot of cultism. There was
just a lot of drugs and violence, you know, it
was very dark and they always felt plagued or oppressed
by it. Well, they eventually moved out of there. But
(05:35):
those stories, they didn't really know how to reconcile them.
And so when they encountered my seminar on spiritual warfare,
they knew right away that they needed to talk to me. Well,
come to find out, as I'm talking to the 17
year old girl, she would get into these fits of
rage all of a sudden. And the Lord laid on
my heart that this woman had a demon. And so
(05:57):
we cast it out of her, and she surrendered her
life to Christ. And so that's one of many instances
where we've been able to partake in those blessings, just
like we saw that Jesus did in his ministry. And
not only that, but he also directed his disciples in
Luke chapter ten and Matthew chapter ten to go out
there to also cast out demons. And we also see
(06:17):
that in the Great Commission. If you take Matthew 28
and Mark 16 together at the end of those passages,
when he was calling them out to make disciples and
to baptize them, he also to cast out demons. So
this is something, unfortunately, that a lot of Christians have
neglected to do. We can all do it. We all
have the authority in Christ to do it. We're commanded
to do it. But a lot of times people get
intimidated or overwhelmed and then sadly, sometimes in certain denominations
(06:42):
or influence, they kind of hijack it to some degree
and then make it so prevalent that they have these, quote,
deliverance ministries. And I'm not knocking all of them. But
we have to make sure, as you said earlier, which
I love, Kurt, look at what Scripture does teach about
it and then use it to judge whether this ministry
is following the biblical line. Yeah.
S1 (07:04):
That's so vitally important for us to keep in mind
no matter what we talk about as believers, but especially,
you know, this, this type of conversation, this, this topic itself, um,
I'm sure, Jason, you've you've heard people say some Bible scholars, commentators, preachers, pastors,
the way they explain this, they say, yeah, demonic activity
(07:28):
that we read about in the New Testament. That's because,
number one, the Son of God was walking the face
of the planet. Therefore, there was increased demonic activity. And
also it was a verification that Jesus was who he
says he was. So, uh, you know, him walking the
face of the planet kind of stirred everything up. Then
you've got his disciples and his followers. And so basically
(07:53):
that happened to establish the church. But then over time,
there was no need to continue that ministry. And you've
kind of answered it already with the Great Commission. But
just to reiterate this fact, I know we have some
people who may be thinking, okay, well, that was just
in the beginning of the church until the church got traction.
(08:13):
But we would be hard pressed, would we not to
find verification for that explicitly in the New Testament?
S3 (08:21):
Yeah. I mean, you know, I get that and I
have a lot of friends, as you said, who are
respected and I love them dearly and have learned from them.
But this is where I would differ from them. And
this is partly, I think, what Satan has done to
bring blindness, spiritual blindness, or lack of understanding. So there
is a there's a deep level of ignorance that we're
definitely which is one reason why now in the apologetics space,
(08:43):
I'm addressing this because I've seen where this rationale or
excusing away like, oh, like you said, it was a
special time and so the activity was heightened. A couple
of things there. Number one, if you actually see in
in Mark chapter nine, in Matthew 17, when Jesus came
down from the Mount of Transfiguration with the inner circle,
and there was this debate that was ensuing among the
religious leaders, some of the remaining disciples, and Jesus says,
(09:06):
what's going on here? And it was a father who
was pleading for his son to be, you know, repaired or,
you know, the casting out. And what we see is
this debate was going on of exorcism. One of the
things you have to understand, if you look at Second
Temple Judaism, there were strong indications that they understood spiritual
(09:28):
beings and what they refer to as unclean spirits. These
demons that we the Greek term is Damian. And they
were debating about how to remove this unclean spirit from
this child. So one that gives us an indication that
this was a practice that they were very familiar with
before Jesus came on the scene, the fact that he
was on scene. Yes, he's now teaching his disciples how
(09:49):
to do it and to do it properly, because in
that incident they said, how are you able to do it?
And we weren't. You could just say, oh, well, he
was just a son of God. He's God in the flesh.
He can do it. Of course that's true. But notice
what he says. It comes by prayer. And some other
manuscripts will insert the word fasting. So that's number one.
Number two, we actually see Paul in the book of
acts that Luke records him casting out demons. And then
(10:12):
number three, we actually see the book of revelation that
there will be an increase of demonic activity in church age,
not less.
S4 (10:20):
Thank you for taking some time to listen to this
episode of the Kurt and Kate Mornings podcast. We always
welcome a review with your thoughts and comments, and please
feel free to subscribe and follow us as well.
S1 (10:32):
I'm going to go to C.S. Lewis. Jason, famous quote
from him. There are two equal and opposite errors into
which our race can fall about. The devil's one is
to disbelieve in their existence, the other is to believe
and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.
(10:53):
They themselves are equally pleased by both of these errors.
And hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.
So whenever we talk about this, we have to be
careful not to give too many props to Satan and
his minions. But you know, we as human beings, we're
(11:15):
people of extremes. I mean, we tend to be extremists, right?
Either we don't talk about this at all, spiritual warfare
and demonic activity, or we talk about it too much.
We overemphasize it. So we have to walk down that
straight line. And hopefully in our conversation here this morning,
that's exactly what we are. What we're doing not glorifying Satan,
glorifying our God. And like Martin Luther said, right. Uh,
(11:38):
the devil is God's devil.
S3 (11:42):
Yeah. I mean, I really appreciate that because I think
oftentimes when you're encountering people, a lot of people have
a lot of questions. Let me just say this. For
a lot of the parents, grandparents listening, their kids have
a lot of these questions. I have the great joy
every summer to go to Colorado Springs multiple times, as
we have these sessions at Summit Ministries, where we train
(12:03):
16 to 25 year olds with biblical worldview training. And
every time, even if I'm not even teaching on the
topic of spiritual warfare, inevitably if I'm sitting there having
a meal with college students, they'll bring it up. They
either see a video on social media, on TikTok, something
that was very disturbing. One thing that I've been hearing
a lot of people talk about lately is voices in
(12:25):
their head. Is this me? Is this something that's, you know,
a demon? An unclean spirit of some sort? If that's
the case, how is that possible? All those type of things.
And so when we do approach these things, it's never
like to panic. As you said, or to freak out
or to obsess over. Is this a demon? Is that
a demon? Am I demonized? If that's the case, what
(12:46):
do I do? Can I cast it out myself? Or
do I go go see a specialist? You know what
I mean? Do I go to order that that holy
anointing oil that you know, that televangelist has on TV?
And so. And yes. And the enemy loves that because
he wants you to just start getting into this anxious
spirit and to start giving him more credit where credit
(13:06):
is not to be given. And so, yes, when we
do approach these things, this is why we said our
weapon is the Word of God. That's our sword or
the dagger. Quite. You know, frankly, oftentimes people think of
it as long sword, but it's more of a dagger
because it's it's hand to hand combat. So spiritual warfare
is very personal. But we are not to, uh, get
(13:30):
so sidetracked of making it into something more than it
actually is.
S1 (13:34):
What's interesting, too, in the New Testament, you have children
who are possessed by a demon, and that's how can
that possibly be? You're thinking, okay, well, it's just children.
How in the world could they be demon possessed? And
then you have the the other, uh, group of folks,
and some people are like, well, well, look, that was
(13:54):
just a physical ailment. Maybe they had epilepsy and they
thought it was a demon, but it wasn't really a demon.
How do you address these types of questions?
S3 (14:02):
Well, one is actually understanding our terms. So unfortunately I
do not like the term demon possession. This actually got
hijacked into the KJV. And so when you have the
word demon or daimonion, whereas that is a common term
that's used, which is just rendered in into the term demon,
which is actually not the forefront term that's used in
(14:25):
the Greek text. It's more pneumatica or pneuma or just
means a spirit. And then there's just different adjectives that
are applied to refer to it as an evil or
an unclean spirit. So the Bible actually in the original
language is very specific when it's introducing what we would
call a fallen angel, or an unclean spirit, or an
evil spirit in the spiritual realm, which goes into Ephesians
(14:48):
six verse 12, where we see this rank and file
that Paul actually lays out specifically. We can maybe touch
on that a bit later. But to draw back to
your question, Kurt, is we have to ensure that when
we're looking at the text and you look at the
KJV in every instance, it says possession, possession, possession. Now
when we render that term in English, it means control.
(15:11):
It means complete control or ownership or habitation. And that's
not in every instance when you actually see the Greek
text in the original language. And so because of that,
what we oftentimes like to do scholarly, when you're looking
at the original language, looking at the text and looking
at a case by case basis, depending on the person
that you're ministering to, that might need a casting out
(15:33):
of a demon or some form of deliverance is to
what degree is this evil spirit? What type of evil
spirit is influencing them? Manipulating them, controlling them. And so
we have to be very careful when you're dealing with
a non-believer versus a believer, where this was this believer
involved in occultism in the past, was there a curse?
(15:57):
Was there some type of involvement? Is there sexual sin?
Is there bitterness? Is there unforgiveness? Is there trauma? Was
there sexual abuse? And so when you start getting into
those layers and you start understanding the different types of
demons that are out there patrolling the world, trying to
oppose God, attack human beings, whether they're, again, non-believers or believers,
because that's those are levels that we have to understand.
(16:18):
We're dealing with spiritual warfare, and spiritual warfare isn't just
dealing with demons or Satan. Spiritual warfare is dealing with
this fallen world. First John 215 through 17. Our flesh
Romans chapter seven. The things that we want to do,
we don't do, and the things we should do, we don't,
as Paul laid out there. Oh, this wretched man, this
who would deliver me from this body of death? And
then there's the real enemy that we have to be
(16:38):
watchful and to resist, according to first Peter five eight,
who who prowls around like a roaring lion. So when
you're putting those things in context and you understand maybe
the demon or in this case, demons, as we see
in Mark chapter five, the legion of demons that are
that we're dealing with, that will put things in proper
context as to how to address the situation with an individual.
S1 (17:00):
Yeah, I'm so glad you pointed out. You know, it seems,
you know, sometimes we don't mention the obvious, but, you know, demons,
what are demons? They are the fallen angels that fell with, uh,
with Satan. So that's, you know, they sided with him.
In essence, we don't know how many there are, but
we do know that there were quite a few. Uh,
we also know that they are as fallen angels. They're
(17:23):
quite powerful. So, I mean, I just want to point
that out. So I'm glad you referred to that. Now,
I want to follow up on this as well. You
kind of addressed it here, but I want to highlight
it kind of set this, you know, so we can,
you know, put a highlight on it when it comes
to the believer. Can we be possessed by a demon
(17:43):
the way I have always viewed it and where I
land is we are gods. The devil does not own
us as true believers, but we can be oppressed as
opposed to possessed. What do you think?
S3 (18:00):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a that's a great start. Um,
but as you mentioned earlier, which I do appreciate it
as well, is we have this tendency with polarities, we
go extremes. It's either this or that. It's either this
or this is going to happen. The Scripture actually doesn't
teach that. And so the word possession, like I said,
is we get from the KJV. That's then eventually in
the NAS and elsewhere, the proper term is demonization, that
(18:24):
we actually use the word properly. So that way it
gives us a wide range. So when we're looking at
the text, we can't just lump every instance where there's
a demon and say that's possession. Therefore, if there's an
attack on a Christian, well, they can't be possessed, so
it can't be a demon. And then we exclude it.
We throw it out. That's not true. What we actually
see in Scripture when we're specifically dealing with the Christian,
if Satan could not harm us, manipulate us, deceive us,
(18:49):
create tension, division, and even in some cases demonize an individual,
then why does the Scripture warn us to be vigilant,
to be alert, in fact? Let me give the audience
an understanding of a passage in Ephesians chapter four, verse 27.
The context there prior to verse 27 says, do not
give Satan Satanas the, the, the great adversary, the accuser
(19:15):
of the brethren, right? The father of lies. This is
Satan himself, the mighty archangel who fell. It says, do
not give him an opportunity. Now the Greek term there
is topos. We get the term topography. It literally means
do not give him control. Do not give him rulership.
Do not give him ground. If you go. If you
then go into Ephesians chapter six and it says to
(19:37):
stand firm, we are not to give ground to the enemy.
Those are military terms. So the strategy here that we
see as Christians, when we are alert, just like militarily,
we understand what our enemy is doing, what they're trying
to do to attack us. And as Second Corinthians two
1011 says that we are not outsmarted or we're not
(19:57):
outwitted by the devil. The term that we that he
uses Paul multiple times is the wiles or the schemes.
The Greek term is methodia. So he actually has schematics.
He has ways of how to attack us. But when
we are alert and watchful and standing strong with God's
Word in the mighty power of God, Ephesians 610, we
will resist him. When Christians don't resist the enemy, when
(20:21):
they give in to bitterness, when they give in to unforgiveness,
if there's been trauma, if there's been sexual abuse, if
they have really been fixated or involved in occultism, you know,
like I always tell people, if you get too close
to the fire, you'll eventually get burned. And that's the
same thing when it comes to the spiritual realm with
the demonic. The closer you play with them, the more
(20:41):
intense it's going to be.
S1 (20:42):
See if.
S3 (20:43):
That's yourself.
S1 (20:44):
Yeah, exactly. I'm with you. I'm tracking. In fact, I
was going to ask you about that. What are some
ways that we can open the door to this type
of activity in our lives, even as believers?
S3 (20:56):
Yeah. The first thing Kurt and Kate is as Christians,
because this is what Paul warns us in context, Ephesians
four in second Corinthians chapter two 1011. Unforgiveness and anger. Bitterness.
For a Christian, those are very dangerous things. When you
allow a root of bitterness to spring forth in your life.
The enemy will use that now to whatever degree you
allow him. But that doesn't mean that you lose your salvation,
(21:18):
that he kicks out the Holy Spirit. Because when you're
dealing with spirits, they're not spatial. So this isn't about
like 98% is God's and 2% is Satan. That's not
how the spiritual realm works. This is all about influence
and perpetrating some type of lies or deception to come
into your life that can really start eating away at you.
We're a body soul, so the soul and the body
(21:39):
are together. You can't have one without the other. And
so when they're being affected, if you will, in the
spiritual realm and you're starting to deal with like I
was talking to an individual who started to open himself
to these voices that are saying, hey, we're your friend.
We love you. You're being rejected by the church. And
why don't you start drinking? Drinking will help you. So
you started to drink and like, start sleeping with your girlfriend.
(22:01):
So he started sleeping with his girlfriend. And it's like
you need to really, like, go out there on social
media and trash your leaders. And so he went out
there and was like correcting them and being high and mighty,
and I'm better than you are. And the more he
fed into that, the more they said, okay, do you
want to be able to now have certain abilities to
where you could be special? And we just want to
share this with you and nobody else. And so he
gave himself over and he started to do some weird things.
(22:24):
And he started to be, you know, like insightful about
what people are thinking. And he started to astral project
in the spiritual realm. He started to see things outside
of where he lived, you know, and those were demons
are giving him these abilities because he kept feeding into
it and he was not turning to God's Word. He
was not praying in the power of the Holy Spirit.
(22:45):
He was not confessing his sins. He was not in
a community of other believers. And the enemy took advantage
of that.
S1 (22:50):
One of the things I. I wanted to ask you about, Jason, um,
can we as normal, average, everyday Joe type believers, do
we have the authority? Do we have the power to
cast out a demon? And how do we do it?
How do we even know this is the problem without
(23:12):
getting ourselves in the weeds?
S3 (23:15):
The answer, simply put, is we are all as Christians
who are indwelt with the power of the Holy Spirit
who believe Jesus Christ is our Savior, the Savior of
the world, right, who take away the sins of the people,
or acts 412 that there is no other name given
among men by which we must be saved. And yes,
with that authority as God's children. And that's one of
the things, let me just say real quickly, in spiritual warfare,
(23:38):
when the first level, when you look at is it's
cosmic dualism. So it's Satan versus God. But let's be
very clear, Satan is a created being. He's an evil, corrupt,
fallen being. God is eternal, absolute, perfect, and in him
dwells truth and goodness. And so there's no competition here.
There's no comparison. Satan is not the opposite of God. Okay?
(24:02):
But in Scripture, when this cosmic dualism, you actually see
that we are children of the kingdom, or we are
children of light, that we have been saved as as
Jesus told Paul that you will preach the gospel and
they will go from the dominion of Satan, um, to me,
to my kingdom. And so when we are representing Christ,
(24:22):
we are advancing his kingdom until he returns. He's the
King of King and the Lord of Lords. So when
we are paving the way to preach the gospel, we
are to pray against the dominion of darkness. This is
in fact, what Jesus actually prays in the garden against
the dominion of darkness. Now, when you are confronted, or
if a demon manifests itself, let me just be very
(24:44):
clear to encourage your audience. You in Christ, have the
ability in his name to rebuke them and to resist them,
and they cannot take ownership. And don't freak out to think, well,
if I said the wrong word. In fact, when you
look at Scripture, there's times where there was a verbal rebuke,
(25:05):
there was times where Jesus touched the person that was demonized.
There was other times he didn't. There was times, as
we see in Mark chapter five, verse nine, that he
wanted to know the name, but you don't see that
in every occurrence. So it's not like you're trying to
find a methodology or formula to do it. So just be,
you know, cautious about that. And the other thing is,
if you are in an environment where you're not familiar
(25:26):
and you don't feel like you can do what God
has called you to do. Then. Then back off. Pray
for protection. God will send his guardian angels to protect
you from these demons that won't harm you. And then
look to people who maybe are a little bit more
mature or wise in this area for guidance.
S1 (25:42):
See, this is good. This is wisdom. And this is, uh,
you know, not there again. We're not, uh, running scared.
We have the God of the universe on our side,
but we want to avoid presumption and the best thing
that we can do. So it seems to me, Jason,
(26:03):
is we go back to the very basics. The. It's
really it's simple, yet sometimes it can be challenging. It's simple,
yet it's very deep and effective. And that is walk
closely with the Lord, your walk with the Lord, walking
with God, walking with the Lord Jesus, keeping that relationship
(26:25):
strong each and every day. Our whole life flows out
of that. And part of our life as believers is
engaging in spiritual warfare. Not necessarily the demonic. Toe to toe.
But it could include that. But everything comes out of
our relationship with the Lord as we depend upon him.
(26:45):
That is the way we can be bold and courageous
without being presumptuous. And I just I think that you've
encouraged a lot of us to to be that that
guy or that gal and, and, you know, have the
banner of the Lord above us and to engage in
spiritual warfare in a way that that honors God and
(27:07):
we don't need to be running scared.
S2 (27:09):
Thanks for listening to Curt and Kate Mornings podcast. Please
take a minute to follow, subscribe and review us. And
no matter where in the world you are, you can
listen to us live from 6 to 9 a.m. weekdays
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.