The Unseen Realm - Part III

We're talking about the unseen realm still been in here for about a month.

Mazzon, you can cut that down even some more.

I think it's a little loud, right?

Y'all good with this?

Is this a good volume?

Yeah.

All right.

Cool.

So we've been talking about angels and demons, and we've been talking about how the unseen realm

interacts with our world today.

And one of the main ways that the unseen realm interacts with our today is demonic possession.

And so we're going to talk about demonic possession tonight.

Now, maybe you're interested in that.

Maybe you're like, oh, no, I should have skipped this Wednesday, but it's good.

You need to know about this because here's something I'm really passionate about is, is we tend to discredit this as something that just happened in Jesus's day.

When in reality, this has never stopped happening since Jesus's day.

We still see demonic possession in our world today.

So here's what I want to clarify.

I wrote this down.

I'm going to, I'm going to state this so that I don't get quoted out of context.

Okay.

Here's my clear statement.

Mental health issues are real and people need to take mental health seriously.

Everybody, you heard me say it.

Mental health issues are real.

We need to take mental health seriously.

I'm a huge advocate for that as someone who has struggled with his mental health for over a decade now.

I'm a huge advocate for that.

Now that I've stated that, I also believe that very often we attribute things to mental health problems that are more biblically explained by demonic possession.

So do we understand the difference there?

Not everyone who struggles with mental health or has mental health issues is possessed by a demon.

I'm not saying that.

What I am saying is that there are some extreme cases where people are trying to diagnose someone with mental health issues when in reality, the Bible would say,

actually, maybe they are possessed by a demon or at least demonically oppressed.

And so here's a simple question to start off with.

Who is susceptible to demonic possession?

The unsaved.

Yeah, that's right.

That's the plain clear answer.

Any person who is not a believer who does not have the indwelling Holy Spirit is susceptible to demonic possession.

You see this in 1 Corinthians 619.

The Bible says, or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God.

So you are not your own.

So the Bible is saying that your body is not even your own body.

So there's a whole nother argument to be had there for my body, my choice.

Actually, no, your body belongs to God.

You don't get to do whatever you want with it.

That's another sermon for another day.

Stay tuned.

But our body belongs to the Lord and says that if you're a believer, you are indwell by the Holy Spirit.

And so your house is occupied.

There's no vacancy there, right?

It is an occupied house.

2 Corinthians 614-16 says it this way.

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.

For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?

Now I want you to pay attention to this passage.

And as we're specifically talking about demonic possession, think about your house as a place that can be occupied.

And the first thing that said here is what partnership has there between righteousness with lawlessness?

The two cannot occupy the same house.

Do you see that?

There's no partnership there.

Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

What accord has Christ with bellio?

Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?

What agreement has the temple of God with idols?

For we are the temple of the living God.

As God said, I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

Now if you apply this to the topic of demonic possession, it's saying that you cannot have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you and also be occupied by a demon.

There is no partnership between them.

They can have nothing going on together.

If your house is filled by the Holy Spirit, you cannot have a demon.

And then 1 John 4, 1-4, the Bible says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.

For many false prophets have gone out into the world.

By this, you know the spirit of God.

Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.

And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.

This is the spirit of the Antichrist which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

Now listen to this last verse.

Okay, pay attention.

Little children, you were from God and have overcome them.

For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Now that's a comforting verse, right?

We love that verse.

Here's what I want to put to you, right?

Who is he talking about there?

When he says he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Who is he talking about?

The Holy Spirit, right?

Now John, if you look at this, John is writing this statement to Christians and it's meant to be that any Christian at any time can read this verse and it be true for them.

He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

If Christians can be possessed by demons, then this verse cannot be true, right?

Because he could be talking about anyone at that point.

He who is in you, well who is in me at this point?

Is it a demon or is it the Holy Spirit?

The only way that this verse can be true all the time is if the only person who is in you is the Holy Spirit and no one else.

So the Bible clearly teaches that it is not possible for Christians to be possessed by demons.

Praise the Lord, right?

Now you can still be oppressed by demons.

It happened all throughout the disciples ministries.

It happened to Jesus in his own ministry.

But the good news for us today is that we cannot be possessed by demons because we have the Holy Spirit.

So what does the Bible teach us about demonic possession?

Well there are a number of passages that we're going to go to.

We're not actually going to go to this one but you can write it down for a later reference.

Mark chapter 9.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

It's an interesting story.

Mark chapter 9.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

It records a father who brings his son to Jesus because his son is mute and deaf and possessed by a demon.

And the demon not only made him mute and deaf but also gave the boy seizures.

And most telling in this account is that the father tells Jesus that the demon often causes the boy to convulse and seize whenever the boy got around fire and water.

Isn't that interesting?

Anytime the boy got around fire and water, the demon would seize him, calls him to convulse, and then Jesus goes on, or the father goes on explaining to Jesus, and he says,

And the demon has many times thrown him into the fire and the water trying to overcome him and destroy him.

And so that's an interesting thing.

When you start looking at demonic oppression or demonic possession in the Bible is that the demon wants to destroy the one it's inhabiting.

Do you get that?

Anytime they're around fire and water, the demon throws the boy in there because he can just go get a new house.

He can go find someone else.

What is the goal there?

Why would he want to do that?

Okay, maybe one reason.

Anybody else?

Any other thoughts?

Why would the demon go through the trouble of possessing someone for the sole purpose of killing that person if it just means he's going to have to find someone else to present?

What's the point behind that?

Is it just senseless killing or is there something more there?

I think it's because demons are fallen angels who have rebelled against God.

They hate God.

They wanted to overtake him, overthrow him with Satan.

And what are humans?

We are those who are made in the image of God.

And so it is natural for those who hate God to hate those who are made in his image and want to destroy them.

That's why this demon is trying to kill the boy.

It has nothing to do with he just hates this particular boy.

It's the fact that this boy is made in the image of God.

This demon wants to kill him, move on to someone else, kill that person and so forth and so on.

They hate those who are made in the image of God and try to destroy them.

But one of the best passages on demonic possession in the Bible is in Mark chapter five.

We're going to hang out there for the rest of our time.

So if you have your Bibles, you can open up.

It'll be on the screen.

Mark chapter five.

It's a lengthy section, but I'm going to read it for us.

The Bible says they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the garrisons.

And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat immediately, there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit.

He lived among the tombs and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain,

for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart and he broke the shackles in pieces.

And no one had the strength to subdue him.

Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.

And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him and crying out with a loud voice.

He said, what have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?

I adjure you by God, do not torment me.

Now it's interesting that the demon is in the name of God, trying to command the son of God to do something.

For he was saying to him, come out of the man, you unclean spirit.

And Jesus asked him, what is your name?

He replied, my name is Legion, for we are many.

And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.

Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside and they begged him saying, send us to the pigs, let us enter them.

So he gave them permission and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs.

And the herd, numbering about 2,000, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.

The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country and people came to see what it was that had happened.

And they came to Jesus and saw the demon possessed man, the one who had had the legions sitting there clothed and in his right mind.

And they were afraid.

Now what are some of the characteristics we see about demonic possession here?

This is an interesting case.

It's one of the longest, I think it is actually the longest case in the Bible of demonic possession and it's very enlightening.

I want you to notice one of the first things is that demonic possession, at least in this case, involves total isolation.

Now you saw that there.

It said that the man lived among the tombs.

He was living amongst the dead and he was there by himself, totally isolated.

And we actually see, if you read this account in Matthew and in Luke, they add another interesting detail.

The demon possessed man had such an influence over this region that people would avoid the region altogether.

The Bible says that they found an alternate route to take to get to their destination.

So he had some sort of influence on this region that caused people to take a different way.

And so if you notice what's going on here, you have a man who's possessed by a demon and it's such the case that people do not want to be in his presence.

There is something about this man that rubs them the wrong way and causes them to avoid him entirely.

This person ends up living an isolated life as a result of his demonic possession.

Another interesting thing to note here is that this man had supernatural strength.

The Bible says here that he was breaking the bonds and no one could contain him or overpower him because he was too strong.

Now, Paul's, we have no reason to believe that this happens in every single instance of demonic possession.

In fact, this is the only one in the Bible that I know of where someone has supernatural strength.

But here is what is interesting is if you look at demonic possession in the Bible,

it is often the case that the person who is possessed by the demon ends up getting some sort of supernatural ability.

In this case, supernatural strength.

In another case, a very interesting case from the book of Acts,

there was a slave girl who was possessed by a demon who had the gift of divination, the Bible says.

And Paul eventually cast the demon out of that young woman and she loses the ability to perform the divine arts

and do divination and all that kind of stuff.

Which is interesting that it's only when she's possessed by the demon that she has some sort of supernatural ability.

And so it does seem that the person who is possessed by a demon has some other, otherworldly supernatural something going on with him.

This might not always be the case, but we have examples in the Bible where it is the case,

which, you know, there's something to be said there for those who do practice the occult and divination.

It might be that they're not always fooling people.

It could be that they're actually in touch with the demonic realm, possibly possessed by a demon,

and therefore have some sort of supernatural ability that causes them to be able to perform divine arts.

Something to think about, you know?

It's easy to dismiss everything in our world that doesn't fit nicely into our nice little modern materialistic boxes.

But if you're going to be a Bible-believing Christian, you have to come to terms with the fact that there are things beyond our understanding

that are at power and operating in our world today.

And rather than dismiss them sometimes, it's best to just say,

I can actually see a biblical category for this.

I don't understand it entirely, but maybe it's there, which is why we're going to talk about Bigfoot next week.

No, I'm joking. Could you imagine?

But seriously, if you want to talk about Bigfoot next week.

So another key characteristic here, I want you to note this, is extreme depression.

You see that with the man. This is a tragic tale.

The man, the Bible says, was constantly crying day and night.

And now this is not to say, again, I'm going to make a clear statement.

This is not to say that every person who struggles with depression is possessed by a demon.

I've struggled with depression for over 10 years now, and I can confidently say I'm not possessed by a demon.

I have the Holy Spirit dwelling within me.

So just because you're depressed or struggle with depression does not mean you are possessed by a demon.

However, what's interesting is one of the key characteristics, I think in almost every case of demonic possession in the Bible,

is some form of extreme depression and overwhelming sadness.

Another interesting characteristic that you see here is self-harm and self-destruction.

The Bible says that this man was night and day cutting himself with stones,

inflicting great pain upon himself. And so I think that this is going to apply across the board to every demonic possession.

Not just, you know, tailored specifically to this man, but every person who's possessed by a demon,

I'm going to say has self-destructive tendencies, or at least the appearance of self-destructive tendencies from the outside.

In the case of the boy who was possessed by a demon, it was the demon throwing him into the water in the fire.

But to all the onlookers, it would look like the boy threw himself.

Do you see the difference there? You wouldn't be able to tell.

And so I think this man, he's crying night and day, he's cutting himself. Why?

It goes back to what we were saying before.

The demonic forces who have opposed God and hate God want to destroy and inflict pain on those who are made in his image.

And so this man is cutting himself.

So listen, today you don't have to look for a man who's cutting himself with rocks in a cave,

and that's the key characteristic you're looking for.

But I would say when you start to analyze from a biblical perspective and you see someone who maybe has a lot of these other markers of demonic possession,

and then you also see that they have self-destructive, self-harmed tendencies in their life,

it gives even more credence to the possibility that they are possessed by a demon.

Does that make sense?

So they're not having to be cutting themselves with stones,

but they will have self-destructive, self-harming tendencies.

And then what's interesting, another characteristic here I think that you have to really dig in to see,

is that there's this sporadic sanity or clarity with this man.

In other words, one moment he's totally fine, he's himself,

and then the next moment he's overtaken by the demon and he lashes out.

You know, one moment he's there crying in the cave, another he's breaking chains and like nobody's able to hold him down and things like that.

He's even crying.

Now if you're a demon who's cutting yourself, I doubt that you can feel the pain that that man's inflicting upon himself.

So who's doing the crying here?

It's actually the man, right?

He sees what his life has become, he sees how he is absolutely tormented and his life is ruined by this demonic possession that he's encountering,

and so he's weeping and crying.

That's a moment of clarity where he recognizes that he is not himself, that something else is going on here,

but that same man who has this moment of clarity also will try to use the name of God to command God to do something.

So there's this in and out kind of a drastic mood shift you can think of it.

And then another very interesting characteristic that you see here is a familiarity with Jesus and his power.

We might think of all demonic possession as people who are just atheists who deny God entirely.

Like if you watch any movie and I don't watch movies like this, but horror movies or movies that have possessions in them,

even from the commercials you can see it's like some little girl who's on the ceiling looking like a spider

and she's cursing the name of God and like laughing at that idea.

And what's interesting is you never see anything like that in the Bible.

Every time a demon comes into contact with Jesus, none of them are ever like, you're not really Jesus, you're not really God,

I'm going to curse you.

They all immediately recognize who Jesus is, what his power is, and what he's capable of.

I mean the Bible even tells us the demons believe in God and they shudder.

That's right.

So these atheists who are like denying God, not even the devil does that.

Not even the demons do that.

They all believe in God and they shudder.

And so listen, when you're thinking about someone who may or may not be possessed by a demon,

it doesn't have to be someone who is openly and outwardly opposed to Christ or has no familiarity.

Sometimes it's people who say they do believe in Jesus.

Sometimes it's people who go to church.

There have been countless cases of people possessed by a demon who will enter into a church house and be there.

Now there's normally some disruption that goes along with that.

But, well, I was going to say something.

I shouldn't say it.

Oh, Michael says to say it.

I was going to say some churches, a demon can feel more at home than a Christian.

Now that I've said it, I'm going to be off YouTube and Facebook, but Michael asked for it.

So that's another sermon for another day.

But these are some of the main characteristics that you see in this passage.

And I think what's really interesting is, again, we have this tendency to think we're modern scientific people.

This doesn't really happen.

Maybe you hear about this in a remote village in Nepal or something, but not here, not in America.

I actually believe that I have had an encounter with a demon possessed person.

I was at a person's house and I was ministering to a person and we were having a conversation and I was trying to minister to this person.

And one second, normal conversation, we were sitting maybe this far from each other.

The next second, this person lunged at me, started screaming at the top of his lungs and started screaming about death and killing people.

And then started talking about Jesus.

I was like, that is crazy.

I don't know what I just witnessed, but I continued talking.

And the same thing happened again.

Totally normal conversation. And then all of a sudden lash out, jump, screaming, shouting, and then back to Jesus.

This is a person who is totally isolated from other people.

This is a person who has self-destructive tendencies.

This is a person who has drastic mood swings and outbursts of violence.

And a person who has moments of clarity and sadness that leads to weeping and crying and others where the person wants to kill and murder.

And this type of thing, I never went back to that house by the way, but that is the type of thing where we are quick to try to put it into a category that would fit us nicely.

When in reality the Bible says if you will look at all the evidence around you, it seems most likely that that person is possessed by a demon.

Now that is again something that we struggle with.

And I said at the beginning that every single unbeliever is susceptible to demonic possession.

But let me ask you another question. Do you think there are some people who are more susceptible than others to demonic possession?

We are getting some nods.

Do we think that some people are more susceptible than others?

Or is it like all unbelievers are equally susceptible?

There you go.

Some people invite it.

Right. So 1 Peter 5a verse that you are all very familiar with.

The Bible says be sober minded, be watchful.

Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.

So if you are not a sober minded person, if you are not watchful, meaning if you are not paying attention to your life and the things that you are practicing and the things that you are participating in and the things that you are doing.

The Bible says you are more likely to be a target of the devil and by extension the demonic forces who seek to do the will of their father, the devil.

Which means I think that if you have a person who is living an open, unrepentant sin, who is engaging the darkness of this world, who is giving themselves to the evil of this world.

And especially those who are tied to spiritual practices and occult practices.

Now it doesn't even have to be occult because there are forms of spirituality today that seem innocent and harmless on the surface, right?

But every form of spirituality that is not biblical spirituality is tapping into demonic spirituality.

Do we understand that?

Like spirituality, that does exist, but if it is not biblical spirituality, it is demonic in nature.

And so if you have a person who is giving themselves to those kinds of things, I think you are inviting it like Jay said.

Think about a person who is just harmlessly playing around with a Ouija board, right?

They think there is no big deal.

I don't believe any of this stuff anyways.

But that is an occult practice.

And when you are engaging in that and you are not so reminded, you are not watchful, what is going to happen?

You are just inviting the demonic into your life by doing that kind of thing.

I mean I think another example, if you think back to 1 John 4 that we covered earlier.

This passage is obviously warning us not to be misled by false prophets who speak lies out of the mouths of men.

But I think there is more to it than that.

I think it means that it is possible that you could be one who receives one of those evil spirits into your life

and then you begin to spread the lies that John is calling us to pay attention to.

To make note of, to be sure that we are not part of that.

That is why he says you have to test every spirit because if you are not careful, you could invite a bad spirit into your life.

So the Bible is saying don't just accept some new word or new teaching.

Don't just jump into every fad that has the air of spirituality to it.

The Bible says test the spirits because there are many evil spirits in our world today

that have actually taken up the residence in many false prophets who spread lies today.

So demonic possession, it does still happen.

We live in a modern scientific world and our world wants us to believe that everything fits into these nice categories,

but that is not the case.

There are many people who struggle with mental health and have real psychiatric diseases that have nothing to do with demonic possession.

Y'all heard me say it right?

But again, there are many people today who have been diagnosed with a disease that they do not have.

That science has made up for the sake of naming something that the Bible has already described.

I mean, for instance, one of the reasons I think very often behind dramatic changes in behavior and attitude,

self-destructive tendency, violent outbursts, multiple personalities,

you can call it whatever thing you want from the DSM, whatever volume we're on now.

But the Bible says there's actually another category that needs to be considered here.

And so here's what I want to do as we end. I want to ask this question.

It might make you uncomfortable, but that's okay because the Bible makes us uncomfortable sometimes.

What do we do?

As Christians today, if we believe that there is someone in our life who matches up a lot of these characteristics that we've described here today,

and we say they're taking all the boxes,

and I'm worried they might be possessed by a demon, what do you do as a Christian?

Pray for them? Okay. Anybody else?

This is where it's going to make you uncomfortable.

First and foremost, before we get into uncomfortable things,

it's always important that we ask God for discernment and wisdom.

We need that because we get it wrong a lot.

We'll talk more about that on Sunday, but wisdom is, I think, the only thing in the Bible that says if you pray for it, God will give it to you.

No conditions. If you want patience, yeah, put you in a circumstance, you're going to have to learn patience.

The Bible says if you ask God for wisdom, he'll give you wisdom. And so we need to be praying for wisdom and discernment so that we can test the spirits

and know that it's not just our own sinful heart or our own tendencies or our own desire to believe something that's leading us to form a conclusion.

We need God to guide us and direct us as we seek to discern whether or not someone is actually possessed by a demon.

But then there's something else you can do.

You seek the wisdom, you seek discernment, you certainly pray for them, as Teresa has said,

and I think you should pray for any single person in your life that you believe is possessed by a demon.

You pray and ask God to cast that demon out of them. What else can you do?

Witness?

Nobody wants to say it.

How about command the demon to leave?

Is that like an exorcism? Yeah, good question, Mom. Yes, it is.

In many ways, it is exactly an exorcism.

See, Christians don't like to talk about this today because we're like, oh man, they've made movies about that that are just like really cringe.

We don't want to even think about that.

Is there biblical reason to believe that Christians have the authority to cast out demons?

Yeah, yeah.

If you look at Jesus' ministry, the Bible makes it very clear that he was doing everything he did because his ministry was empowered by whom?

The Holy Spirit, right? More specifically, the Holy Spirit.

Everything Jesus did was by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Who indwells Christians today?

The Holy Spirit, the same spirit that empowered Jesus to cast out demons.

It's the same spirit who lives in us today.

More than that, think about the Great Commission, right?

Before Jesus ever said, now go and make disciples of all nations, what immediately came before that?

Anybody know what he said?

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore go and do this.

So Jesus has all power and all authority and then he commissions his followers to go in his authority and do things in his name.

The Bible says in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 that we are ambassadors for Christ.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

What's an ambassador?

If I'm an ambassador for the US but I'm stationed in Costa Rica, what does that mean about me?

I have the right to speak for him, right?

If I'm a representative of the US and ambassador of the US in Costa Rica, I have power and authority to speak on behalf of the one I'm representing.

And the Bible says you are ambassadors for Christ in this world.

You don't have authority in and of yourself.

Do we understand that?

We have no power and no authority in and of ourselves.

The power comes from the fact that we have the Holy Spirit in dwelling us.

And the authority comes from the fact that we have been sent in the name of Jesus to make disciples of all nations and to bring about the kingdom of God here on earth.

That is what we're called to do.

The problem is Christians don't even believe in spirituality anymore.

We're materialists.

And we especially don't like to think about things like having power from the Holy Spirit.

Now we'll say it in church, right? We'll make it sound all nice.

We'll go, I know the Holy Spirit has got power.

The power of the Spirit.

We preach it.

We'll say amen to that.

There's power in the light.

Yeah, amen preacher.

Do we ever once, ever live like there's any power involved in the Holy Spirit in dwelling us?

How often do you think Christians live by the power of the Spirit in their life?

Think about your own life.

When is the last time that you felt the Holy Spirit empowered you to do something in your life?

And you can say, I only did that and was able to do it by the power of the Spirit.

I think Francis Chan was right when he said that the Holy Spirit is the forgotten aspect of the Trinity.

We don't pay him any attention.

We don't think about him.

Most of the time he's referred to as it.

God, the Holy Spirit is God.

We understand that.

I'm going to have to do a lesson on the Trinity for everyone.

The Holy Spirit is God.

But we don't treat him like he's God.

Most of the time we call him it.

And so what I want you to understand is that you do actually have the power from the Holy Spirit and the authority in the name of Jesus to command a demon to leave someone.

Now it doesn't mean that the demon has to listen to you.

It doesn't mean that the demon has to leave.

And I would encourage you, if you were not 100% absolutely certain of your salvation, never, ever try to cast out a demon.

And I say that specifically because of the sons of Sceva.

Anybody remember that story?

The sons of Sceva from the book of Acts?

Very interesting story.

We're going to get to it in Gospel group reading in a couple of weeks.

But there were seven sons of Sceva.

Sceva was a Jewish priest at the time and his sons were going around doing exorcisms.

But what they saw was that Paul and the apostles had a lot more authority and they were much more successful at the exorcisms than they were.

And so here's what they did.

They found a guy who was possessed by demons and they said to the demon,

I adjure you by the name of Jesus whom Paul proclaims.

So notice the distance there, right?

Hey, in the name of that guy that Paul talks about, leave him.

There's no power there.

There's no authority there.

There's no connection to Jesus there.

You're trying to use a name of a person that you have no association with.

And so here's what really happened and what's really scary and interesting is that the demon actually responds.

And the demon says, Jesus I know and Paul I recognize.

But who are you?

That would be terrifying, right?

If you're trying to cast a demon out on someone, he's like, I don't even know your name.

And what happens is the demon lashes out at them, overtakes them, strips them naked and they go running naked and wounded out of the city.

The reason it failed is because they were not believers.

They did not have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and they had no authority to use the name of Jesus because they were not his disciples.

So here's what I would encourage you to do.

If you're not 100% absolutely certain, not a shadow of doubt in your mind that you are saved, don't mess around with this.

It's not something to play with.

You know, they like to make it all Hollywood in the movies and they think you got to have a priest.

He's got to have a cross.

He's got to have holy water.

There has to be this big scene.

He's going to go in the bedroom and someone's going to crawl on a wall in the ceiling.

And the Bible is like, it doesn't work like that.

You don't need to be a priest.

You don't need holy water.

Whatever that is.

Another sermon.

The Bible says, if you are a follower of Jesus, indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God and an ambassador for Christ here on earth, you don't need any of that stuff.

Tell it to leave in the name of Jesus.

If it doesn't listen to you, you pray.

You should do that before and you should do that after because the Bible says also in Mark chapter 9, when the disciples are trying to cast the demon out of the little boy, you remember, who was thrown into fire and water.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

They said, we weren't able to do it.

And Jesus says to them, this kind cannot be cast out by anything but prayer.

So pray before, pray during, pray after, but make sure that you're praying.

Pray for anyone you believe is demonically possessed.

And if it's so bad and you're actually interacting with someone, do not be afraid to tell the demon to leave.

Don't.

It doesn't have to be weird.

It doesn't have to be a spiritual movie thing.

You have the Holy Spirit.

You have the authority of Christ.

And so this is what the Bible teaches us about demonic possession.

It is a real thing that still happens in our world today that we have largely ignored for the past century and a half, probably two centuries now at this point.

And all we've done by doing that is just let spiritual darkness spread further and further in our own country and around the world.

So that's all I have to say about demonic possession for tonight.

Gene McKinney hit us with a word of wisdom as we close.