Spiritual Warfare Webinar - Lesson 1

Well, hello, everyone. I'm Bill Mounce.  I'm the president and founder of Biblical Training, and I'd like to welcome you to this webinar with Dr. Gerry Breshears.  We're actually recording his class on Spiritual warfare on July 24 and 25th, and we wanted to give you an introduction to what he'll be teaching and have a chance now for you to interact with him. Gerry and I are old friends from seminary days. He actually was the TA in my theology class who gave me a B. Wait a minute. You're not supposed to information. I know. Anyway, well, it wasn't the first and it wasn't the last anyway. But about 15 years ago, when I was pastoring in Spokane, I started to experience really significant spiritual warfare, and I didn't know what was going on. And I turned to Gerry for help and encouragement, and I'm glad that he was so helpful at that point, and I'm glad that we can now share his expertise on this topic with everyone around the world. This webinar is being recorded, just so you're aware of that. And we'll be sending out a link so you can rewatch or share the webinar with your friends. The way we're going to do this is that Gerry has a 20 minutes presentation, and then he's going to answer some of the questions that have already been submitted. And if there is time, he will answer other questions that you may have. Just use the Q and A fixture on Zoom to submit those questions. So we'll be here for about an hour. I should mention that our cost to record and produce the class, not the webinar, but the class is around $15,000, and many of you have given about 8000 so far, and I want to thank you for that. I appreciate it. And if you find Gerry's teaching helpful, would more of you consider donating? There'll be a follow-up email with a link to donate, or you can click on the link in the Zoom chat, which will take you to a place where you can donate. But we appreciate it. We love being able to give this stuff away for free. It's the only way that everyone in the world can access it, but it does come at a cost. So we appreciate those of you who follow our vision and help us do that. And by the way, we're going to have another webinar on August 1 with Dr. Chuck Coker on the topic of mentoring, and we'll include information about that webinar in our follow-up email. And the announcement for that webinar will also be posted on the Biblical Training website. So thank you, Gerry,  for taking the time to be with us today. I just want to pray as we begin here. Lord, we're grateful that we can come together in light of the work that Jesus Christ has done on our behalf. And we come in his name asking you, Holy Spirit, to enlighten our minds and empower our hearts that we can respond to the truth of your word. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So what I'd like to do is just start here with scripture. I think it's always a good place to begin. It's saying here in Ephesians chapter six, a very powerful passage, be strong in the Lord of his mighty power, put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil scheme. And here's the key. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, authorities, and powers of this dark world, against spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places. And what that's saying is that we are in a heavenly war and we're a part of that war and it gives some commands here. Therefore pull on the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand. We'll talk about this and then it goes on with these things. And these are all quotes from Isaiah about Messiah Jesus. And what he's saying here is to be prepared to win in this war is we need to put on Christ and Christ's likeness, both the fact that we're in the kingdom of light and then we put on Christ's likeness to be prepared to stand firm and take up the work of joining him in this process of crushing the serpent. So when I think about this, I've got another document that I think may have been shared. If not, I'll show you how to get it. This is a book four-page thing I put together a long time ago and it's an evolving document, basic prints for dealing with the demonic and this is what we're going to deal with today and then at length in the class that biblical training is doing and that will be available. And what we're saying here is in this war, the present state is Jesus triumphed over Satan and all his demons through his workemption, particularly canceling authority over us in the cross, his exaltation, the right hand of the Father. So the thing here is Satan knows, already condemned and his final destruction is sure. But the other side of that is the war is going on big time right now. So that's what we're in right now is we're in this war in God's world where Satan is the prince of this world and the one who is the occupying force to use that phrase. And he has taken people captive to do his will. And the question is, how do we respond to this? So here in just a few minutes, I want to summarize my basic approach to this. And this next sentence is incredible. The principal authority is that we are in the kingdom of Christ. Jesus is Lord and exalted far above all powers and authorities. Satan and his forces have no actual legal authority of a believer at all, period, zero. Despite his claims and how much he may take advantage of our sin, unbelief, weakness, ignorance, fear, he is disarmed. I'll show you that in the scripture. In just a minute we remember the Kingdom of Light, therefore all sins are forgiven, all condemnation ended. All cultic vows, promises, covenants, et cetera were rendered null and void when we came into Christ's kingdom. That's the foundation of what I'm thinking here. And I think we must never ever compromise this authority by agreeing with the demonic claim that sin gives demons actual legal authority to invade a believer or attach itself to your soul or body. So my summary thing is here believe God, disbelieve Satan, stand firm in Jesus, and resist the devil. But this idea that we're members of the Kingdom of Light is critically important. So I need to show this to you two key passages of many Colossians 1, and Colossians 2. So I want to take you to those passages. So Colossians chapter one, and I'll just use NIV. There's no significant difference in translation on these, but that's the most popular translation and Bill is currently a member of that translation team. So he's saying here give joyful thanks to the Father. And what has the Father done? He has qualified me us you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the Kingdom of Light. So that's one kingdom here is the Kingdom of Light. But then he goes on for he and of course if I had more time I'd quiz you. He here is the father. So the Father has rescued us. And again, if I were having this be a class instead of a webinar, I would ask you past, present, or future. And you would all think about it and be confused for a minute and come and say past. And I'd say is that a command factor promise? And you'd think a bit and say well, that's a fact. Then I'd say is that a fact used to be true or a fact still true? And you'd think about it and say, well, that's a fact that's still true. You have been rescued. Father has rescued us from the dominion of darkness. That's the other kingdom. You got the dominion of the darkness. And he has brought us again past fact into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we've redemption, freedom and the forgiveness of sins. So the principle he's talking here in Colossians is we started life in the dominion of darkness and Satan is the spiritual head of that kingdom, that dominion. But he has rescued us from that and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves. And so what I'm saying, because we have this freedom because we have this forgiveness, is that the prince of this world, Satan, the devil, has no actual authority over us at all. The thing is though, is he does these lies to help us believe that because of things we have done or are doing that gives him right to control our life and to influence us. And that's a lie, but it's an effective lie. So that's the first thing I'm saying is that we are rescued from the immune darkness. We've been brought into the king of the Son he loves. And if I go on down in Colossians to chapter two and I come down here, this talks again where you began. You're dead in your sins and consider your flesh. So you began as dead. That means spiritually separated. It doesn't mean any conscious existence or no abilities. It means you're separated from spiritual death. We call it Colossians 213. So God has done seven things. God has done seven things for everyone who is in the kingdom of light. He made you alive together with Christ. So I used to be dead, now I'm alive. He forgave us all our sins. That's an effective lie is to think I have to do something more for my sins to be forgiven in the kingdom notes, it's a past fact. He's canceled the charge of legal indebtedness. So he made us alive. He forgave us all sins. He canceled charge of indebtedness that condemned us. Fourth, he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. So his charge of indebtedness because of our sin that condemned us, has been taken away, nailed to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities so disarmed, he made a public speculum, showed them for what they really are, triumphant over them by the cross. That's seven things that are true of every single believer. We're alive, forgiven, charge of indebtedness is canceled. That was taken away, nailed to the cross. Therefore the demonic powers are disarmed. He's shown them for what they really are and he's triumphed over them by the cross. Seven things are true for every single believer. So that's the first thing we're making here, is that Satan has no authority over us at all. He will claim it and use his lies to lead us into believing that he can do things to us that he really can't do. So that's the foundational principle for the whole spiritual warfare as I look at it. Then the question is, okay, there are a whole bunch of questions that come out of that. And the basic thing that Satan does is lies. So what I'm going to do in spiritual principle, basic patterns of ministry are found in Bible. Patterns that differ substantially are always suspect. So as I unpack this further and talk about this, I want to look at the example of what Jesus did as I go down on the thing. Here's a summary. All sin been forgiven in Christ. And so when I look at what Jesus did, and I go back to Matthew chapter four, because this shows us without a doubt that even if we haven't any sin in our life, we can be attacked by the devil. If Jesus can be attacked, we're going to get attacked too. So the tempter comes and he tempts him, I'm not going to look here, I'm not going to look at what the tempter does. I'm not what Jesus does. He written, man shall live by alone. But every mouth word that comes from the mouth of God. And what Jesus is doing here in response to the tempter's work is he is speaking scripture out loud to the devil. That's the first and primary thing we do when we're attacked by the devil or demons, whatever it is, we speak the word of God out loud to the devil. The devil didn't give up. He keeps going. He continues his temptation and Jesus does it again. Speaks the word of God out loud to the devil. This is the word of God is one of the spiritual weapons from Ephesians, chapter six. The devil does not give up. He tempts him further, and Jesus does it again. So my thing is speak the word of God out loud to the devil, repeat as necessary what verse do I use? Whatever is relevant to the particular passage that's coming, a particular temptation that's coming. And then he says Jesus does a second thing. He says, Get away from me. So he's saying that out loud to the devil or a demon, get away from me. And we would say by the authority of Jesus or something like that. So the first thing is speak scripture out loud to the devil. That's the sword of the Spirit. Command him to get away by the authority of Jesus. And then the third thing that Jesus does, he gets angels to come. Now, I don't know that we can do that, but what we can do, and I think the point is not to leave my attention on the demon, but come back and finish up with my attention on Jesus. So that's my practical outline of what to do when you're attacked by a demon, whatever it is, is speak the word of God out loud to the devil and then command him to get away in Jesus name and then bring my attention back to Jesus. Now, a question that comes up a lot of times is what I do if the devil doesn't go away? Well, you treat him like a two-year-old. You don't argue with him. You don't have to convince him of anything. The authority we have in Christ is that he has to go. And we just continue that reality of saying in Jesus name, go away. I refuse to give you attention. I'll give my attention to Jesus. So that's my baseline. And in this document, I've got a lot more stuff in here in the class, I have a lot more materials into it and I've got some basic things here. You might say, in dealing with a demon or Jesus, I acknowledge that this temptation may be empowered demons of a spirit of sauce. I want nothing to do with them. Then you speak the truth. I confess you triumph over the demon evil spirit of the power of your cross, the purchase of forgiveness for all my sins by your death, by resurrection, and then to the demon. So this is speaking scripture out loud to this devil demon. In the name of authority, Jesus, I command you to get over me now. Lord Jesus Christ asks you, send these demons and evil spirits away from me and then turn attention to Jesus. Lord Jesus Christ, I thank you for hearing answer my prayer. These are the inning to my life that may give demons opportunity in my life. Please fill me new with your Holy Spirit that may be empowered to live out your life and joyful obedience to you and freedom from the sin and harassment. That's the basic ideas. There's a lot more to it than that. And this is in this document. I'll be in the class. One of the things I want to do is just give you some bibliography. This is John Mark Coleman's book live no lies. It's a book that deals with ordinary everyday spiritual warfare that's just done through the lies of the world, the flesh and the devil. It's a great book. Sam Storms Understanding Spiritual Warfare. Sam is in Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City area, longtime friend, and this is a good guide to how to deal in spiritual warfare. Another friend, Clint Arnold, has a really good book. Three crucial questions about spiritual warfare. Clint Arnold's. Dean at Talbot Seminary was fine. New Testament scholar, an outstanding man of God. And then finally, a resource that I think is helpful is Michael Heiser, the Unseen Realm. He's dealing with the fact that there are other spiritual beings that are on the dark side. So Camash and Bahal and Ashra, and he's got a whole theology of this. And then finally, if you go to my website, bersheers. Net, and it'll look a little different because this picture comes up different anytime, but bershiers net, my last name Net. And if you look, you see a whole bunch of links here, and one of those links is Spiritual Warfare Resources. And if you click on that, it will take you to a folder that has a number of things in it. They'll be helpful and you can always email me at gerry@breshears.net.  And BiblicalTraining,  of course, a fine organization has material, and the Spiritual warfare webinar is leading to the class that we will do. So that's coming up. Hey, Gerry,  can I interrupt just a quick second? Were you trying to show I did and I forgot to share my screen, didn't I? Okay, would it be let me run it? Yes, I tell my students. Please. So John Mark Comer's Live No Lies Understanding Spiritual Warfare by Sam Storms three Crucial Questions by Clint Arnold unseen Realm by Michael Heiser And then my website, www.breshears.net, and the Spiritual Warfare Resources is down here in one of the links. And if you click on that link. It will take you to a number of papers, including that one I've been referring to. Thanks. So we have some questions that have been presented that I want to refer to here just briefly. One of the questions is II Corinthians 12. I can't pronounce a name here, I would even try. Ruhonda is the first name. Why didn't Paul be healed of the two Corinthians twelve messenger from Satan? And the answer there very simply is he had had this exalting experience of being tarried up into the heavens and God gave him this to keep him humble. There's a purpose for whatever the thorn in the flesh is. We don't know what the thorn in the flesh was, whether that's Jewish adversaries or some sort of physical malady or something. But God says specifically this is to help you remember that I am your source of power, not the spiritual experiences you've had. Another question is it possible Christian, to have the authority to drive out demons? And the answer is yes. Let me show you here why I think this is true. If I come over here to Bible and I look at Ephesians chapter one, and look at this passage, we see here in Ephesians chapter one that Father raised Christ from the dead, seating his right hand in heavenly realms and right hand far above. And he names all kinds of demonic things. It says, And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him behead over everything. This is saying that Jesus has authority over all the demonic powers. And then if you keep reading here in Ephesians chapter two and God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. I think this is saying that we are seated with Christ in heavenly authority. And the same authority that he has over the demonic powers here we have by virtue of being seated with Him in the heavenly realms. And I think we do have that authority. So I think we do have the authority to do that. And I think every believer has that some are more competent in using that authority. But I think we all have it question about the unseen realm. I think Mike's interpretation of spiritual beings is correct. I think there are powerful spiritual beings that can do all kinds of things on the dark side. And people say, why do you think those spiritual beings, those gods are real? And I take them back to Exodus chapter seven and you know, this is where he is coming. And Lord said to Moses, aaron, when Pharaoh says you perform a miracle, throw down your staff and it'll become a snake. So they do that. Aaron threw his staff down, it becomes a snake. Okay, but what happens? Pharaoh summoned his wise sorcerers and the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts. Each one threw down a staff and it became a snake. Now that's the power of the gods demonstrated dramatically, is turning staffs into snakes, which is no small accomplishment, but God is more powerful. Erin's staff swallowed up their staffs. So I think these demonic powers are real. They are malevolent, evil personal beings and they hate Jesus and they want to attack us. So there's all kinds of details in Mike's stuff. I don't agree with myself 10% of the time, and I don't agree with Mike 10% of the time, but his basic world of view is correct. And in the spiritual warfare class I will go through his basic material the armor of God. Stella Oaklos asks about the armor of God is being Christlike. So when we put on the armor, we're putting on our salvation in Christ, therefore we have redemption and forgiveness of sin. And then the Christ like character is what ephesians four through six is talking about, is becoming more like Jesus. So that's what the armor is. Roger Ciswick says with the world seeming losing its faith, how do mere believers prepare and cope with the anti everything biblical and fight the good fight? And what I'd like to suggest at this spot again, I'm a Bible guy. That's why I like biblical training. If I go to Revelation, chapter twelve, here's another picture of that heavenly war, war in heaven. Michael is archangels fought against the dragon and drank, his angels fought back. And this is talking about the victory that Jesus had. Michael devil is not strong enough. They lost their place in heaven and the dragon is thrown down and he's on there. But here is the key thing, this loud voice in heaven, this is God's voice. And here's the thing right here they that's us tramped over him, the devil and his angels. And here's the three things by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of their testimony and they did not love their lives so much as a string from death. That's the key right here we come by the blood of the Lamb, the work of Jesus, that gives us redemption and forgiveness of sin that I showed you in Colossians one, by the word of our testimony, the sword of the Spirit, where we speak by calm reannouncement the truth that Jesus is Lord. And we will not back down in the pressure that comes from the devil, the world of flesh and the devil, even if it costs us her life, because we know life for us is not a loss, but actually an addition, because we are ushered in the very presence of Jesus. This is our basic method and authority that comes right here. Seems to me another question. Ed Taylor how do you determine if someone's anxiety or distress? There's also something spiritual, emotional or physical. My base assumption it's multimodal, it probably comes from all of those in many cases. So the way I look and there's a similar question how do you tell the stronghold of sin is something to be confessed or demonic stronghold that needs deliverance. What I do is I listen to people's stories, and I'm listening for three things. I'm listening for an accusing voice, and I hear people saying all kinds of things. Yeah, I just hear this thing, and it just says, you're such a snake. I mean, you stink, you're so fat, you can't do anything right. That's an accusing voice. And I listen for those things. I listen for oppressive presences, and that can be anything from there's a dark thing in the corner of my room to there's something on my chest and I can't even move. And I listen for occultic involvement. And I'll just take accusing voice when I hear somebody say, they just mentioned this, they're just hearing something like, you can't do anything right. Everything you do is mess it up. You'd be better, just better be dead. That accusing voice, I stop and I look at that voice. I have the person look at the voice. And my base commitment is that demons hate to be looked at in the name of Jesus, and they fuzz like a little dog will fuzz in front of a big dog. And so I just begin asking questions. You mentioned this voice that says you can't do any right, and you'd probably better off dead. The world be better off without you. What is that? When do you hear it? What does it sound like? What kind of context is in? I start looking at that in the name of Jesus, and I'll do basic prayers. Lord Jesus, show us what we need to know. Holy Spirit, illuminate for Bill. I'll use that name since my friend Bill Mounts is on the call here. And I'm just asking questions, and I'm helping the person look at that voice in their inner world. And then I'll do things like, what is that voice saying right now? Because what happens if it's a demonic voice and we're looking at him with Jesus? It will fuzz, it will get upset. And I can't tell what's going on, but the person I'm working with can. And I say, okay, what I want you to do now is I want you to look at that voice, holy Spirit, show us what's going on, because it's part of what he does. And what do you think, Bill? Is that you or is that something else, that voice? And it's my fundamental convention that demons are present evil personal beings, and when you speak to them in the command of Jesus to present themselves, that they will. And the demon will respond in a personal way where an anxiety won't, and people can tell the difference in their own thinking between themselves and something that's not them. There's more to it. And listen to full class, and I'll take you through more of that. The does that mean does that guarantee the demon will go away? I think you can command a demon and it will go away. Can be a little more complex than that sometimes, but I assume that it'll come back. So my thing is that I want to tell them that what will you do if the demon does come back? Because if it does come back, you do the same thing. Speak scripture out loud, command to get away in Jesus name, and then take your attention back to Jesus and his people. Tom Awald says how do we find the biblical correct position between the demon under every rock crowd and those who we ignore or flat out deny, demonstrate. And my kind of sarcastic answers read the Bible. Not everything is a demon, but some things are. And if it is a demon, we can deal with it. If it's not a demon, we can deal with it in different kinds of ways. But that's part of I think it's helpful with understanding a biblical picture is that there is a reality to the demonic realm. And if Jesus can be attacked by demon, and he was repeatedly, then we can be attacked by a demon. And the fact that we're temple the Holy Spirit, which is true, does not guarantee us immunity from demonic attack. We're in a war. And that's why Paul tells in Ephesian chapter six, to stand firm, to resist or oppose the demon and to respond to them. So what do you do about forces in the world? Donna Moore asks. It seems to me that there are demonic realities, demonic powers. I think there are high level, what would some people call territorial spirit, like Artemis is the territorial spirit of Ephesus in Acts chapter 19. I think those are around today. But my thing is those are not our war. Paul does not take down Artemis. Paul speaks Jesus and gives people deliverance from the demons that are afflicting them. And I think our war is not against the high order, prince of Persia type things. From Daniel. Chapter ten. Our thing is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, to bring freedom from sin and to bring order into communities. But I recognize that there are political powers that are actually serving the demonic realm. Now, it doesn't mean that everybody differs from me politically is empowered by demon, though sometimes inclined to think about that. But when we speak gospel and do good in our communities, we're doing spiritual warfare against the world. And then last question from Donna that I've got here. And then our panel has some stuff I understand angels and demons are created spiritual beings, and that's true. The thing is, though we don't know that demon or fallen angels, we do know there are fallen angels, they're mentioned in scripture, it's read it from Revelation chapter twelve. But it never says that demons are fallen angels. And so people say, well Gerry,  if they're not fallen angels, what are they? And I give you a correct biblical answer. I don't. Know, bible doesn't tell me what demons are, except they're personal malevolent, they hate Jesus and they try to take us out and render us ineffective in the spiritual war that's going on. But they are personal beings. They are not omniscient. They're not omnipresent, but there are a lot of demons. So they can almost like they're omniscient or omnipresent. So what I would talk about here is these forces of darkness. There are different kinds of things, but fundamentally the one truth that counts is I can say to a demon, my boss beat up your boss, get away from me. And that's kind of the bottom line. So we're a half hour into this webinar and I'm going to turn over to our panel and people in the Q and a crew and somebody's a moderator here, and I'm going to defer that moderator. Well, I can see some of the questions, Gerry,  so I've been paging through them here's. One says, you mentioned that we're in a heavenly war. And I agree. But I recently read one scholar who pointed out that spiritual warfare language in scripture denotes that it's defensive, not an offensive posture. And his concern is that the spiritual warfare has been co opted to fuel culture wars, that we must actively seek and destroy evil. Is this an issue that you've dealt with? Well, I think we can be co opted into trying to bring demonic stuff into the normal world, kind of battle over political agendas and that sort of thing. But to say that spiritual warfare is exclusively defensive, I think is a serious mistake. And where I'd go is I'd come back to again the example of Jesus. Matthew, chapter four. What does he do? He speaks scripture out loud to the devil. That's offensive. He says, Get away from me, Satan. That's offensive. If I go to Ephesians, chapter six, and I talk about the struggle here, putting on the full armor of God, this, as I said, is Christ and Christ likeness. But the final thing here is take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and this sword of the Spirit, and is the word of God that Jesus used to speak against that. And when we come back up here and let me use a different translation here, ESP is a little clearer here back in verse 13. To withstand or to resist and to stand firm. When we withstand or stand against the devil by speaking the word of God out loud, that is an offensive weapon. So there are both defensive and offensive weapons. But I think to bring the culture wars, a lot of that's going on, certainly the war is for the supremacy of Jesus Christ, and we need to be involved in that by doing good. I could say a lot more, but I'll leave that. Other questions. KJ wanted to know what you thought about Frank Peretti's work. Frank Preddi in my judgment is he takes the idea that if I have sin in my life, I give demon authority in my life, and he kind of overdoes it. Everything goes wrong right from my car. Not starting is a demon that's slathering claws in the carburetor of my car. I think it goes too far in giving demons credit for things that demons are not doing while at the same time thinking we are in a war, and it is real and it's a battle for truth, fundamentally. So standing and living the truth is a primary thing. But I think he's too fascinated with demons, and that can actually lead to a fearfulness that's a real problem. So I'm not a fan of Predy in his material, his present darkness and such. I'm pretty sure I know how you're going to answer this question, but Victor asked about how do you thwart attacks from demons when you dream? I had an attack last night. What do I do? I will never go to sleep. That'll take care of that. Okay. Dreams are things that are you can control to a point by your bedtime routine. When you go to bed and spend some time just celebrating, doing spiritual inventory and start thinking the goodness of God that I've experienced today, the things, opportunities I've had to serve him my day and end up with a prayer of gratitude and a cleansing of things that we may have done that have been sinful or defiling. And I'm preparing with that celebration that takes care of some. But dreams are really complex, and they have all kinds of sources, and the fact that I'm having bad dreams isn't necessarily a demon attacking me. If there's dark dreams, then coming back and trying to come back and stand firm in the victory of Jesus Christ and just that resistant spirit to a demonic realm, I think is a helpful thing to do. All right, here's a really interesting question. Oya oki. I'm sorry if I can't say the name right, the distinction between demonic possession and demonic oppression. I remember in doing the ESV, this was a fascinating discussion, and one of the translators was concerned that if we went with demonic I don't know if you know this about the ESV, but the ESP doesn't talk about demonic possession much. It's more demonic oppression because the translator didn't want people to have an excuse. Well, the demon made me do it. So what's the difference between possession and oppression? And is that a legitimate distinction? Yeah, well, this is English language, not biblical language. There are a number of biblical phrases demonized as a kind of a transliteration of the more common, or he has an evil spirit or something. When I think in English, possession has three meanings. It has ownership, it has domination, and it has influence. And everybody agrees that a demon cannot own a believer. So can I be possessed in a sense of owned? No. But a demon can make me think I'm owned by a demon, but I cannot be owned by a demon. I'm transferring the dominion of darkness, the kingdom of light on the other end. The third, a demon can influence or attack or harass if it can influence us through temptation or accusation, deception. I mean, we're worn in scripture. Those can all happen. We can be influenced or attacked. The question is the middle one, the second one can a Christian be dominated by demon? And that's where there's genuine debate. Can a demon speak through the mouth of a believer who's genuinely saved and has the Holy Spirit? My answer is yes, because I've seen it happen. There's nothing in Bible that says it can't happen. But that's a point of real debate, and we'll go into it in the class. So a demon cannot be owned, possessed in that sense, can be influenced, tempted, accused, deceived, but dominated. That's a point of debate. And that's where the word oppression is used, as a demon can oppress you means you can be influenced or dominated, but cannot be owned or possessed. All right, I had an interesting question come in about how can you tell when the spiritual warfare is actually happening? And keep this real short. Gerry  knows my story that I went through a very difficult church experience, and it actually is hard for me to walk into a traditional church building because of what's happened in the past. But I went to church the other day. It was a great church. One of my board members is the elder there, is a really good preacher. And I sat down in the church, and all of a sudden I started doing this. I started fidgeting. I couldn't stop fidgeting. And my wife and my chairman both saw it and went, are you okay? I don't know. Okay, is that the kind of oppression thing, or did I just I don't know. How can you tell when it's possession or influence? What I do is I look and say something. This could be a variety of things. This could be trauma, and you've had trauma in your life. You and I both know that around church. And because of that trauma, just like once something's bad happened to you, walk into a similar situation, you start getting an Olympic fear response just because this feels like what happened when I got hit. So it could be that kind of a thing. And there's trauma. Informed counseling can help relieve that sort of thing. It can just be normal emotional anxiety. I'm not sure what's going on here. It could be a demonic attack. And differentiating between those two is, again, where I start assessing in myself. Holy Spirit, show me what's going on, if there's something demonic, and then I speak truth. Speak the scripture out loud. I'm a child of Lord Most High. I'm a citizen, the kingdom of light. Demons have no authority over me. Anything demonic. I demand now that you present yourself and leave this place immediately. I will not deal with you in Jesus name, get away from me and then come back to Jesus. Lord Jesus Christ. I realize I'm in your kingdom. I am your child. I love being a part of your goodness, and I just want your goodness to be in me right now. That's the kind of process I go through when I'm facing those. And the fear may not go away because it's a limbic, something to deal with, something demonic will not get rid of a limbic response. That's post traumatic stress syndrome or something. Yeah. The thing I didn't do then is I didn't say it out loud. I think out loud is a good thing to do. There's nothing magical about it, but the more senses I get involved, the more whole person I respond. I think it's more effective that kind of way. Okay. Jonathan Walker it's an interesting question. He said, I have a family who attended a church that focuses on Deliverance Ministries. Healings, casting out demons. I don't think I put healing in there, but certainly casting out demons. Christians are said to be oppressed by spirits or to be under generational curses. Their idea of spiritual warfare doesn't look compatible with what I'm seeing here in the Bible. Here's his question. How do you recommend talking with fellow believers where there's such serious disagreement? Well, these are places with a genuine disagreement among believers and they range all the way from these things just don't happen today to this is the central thing. And where I want to follow through, just to speak in general terms, is when I'm looking at Paul in, say, Acts 19, for example, they're in Ephesus, what he is doing primarily is proclaiming the power of Jesus Christ. He's preached the gospel that you can be delivered from the dominion of darkness, come into the kingdom of light. And this is through the work of Jesus Christ. And people align with Jesus. And as he's doing that, this is a place as clear, full of demonic worship there in Ephesus, temple of Artemis and such. And there are a lot of people who have demonic things involved in their life. And so what we find here in Acts chapter 19 is god is doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul. And you get this great thing, even handkerchiefs able to touch his skin, carried his sick, dizzy leave, and able spirits came out. I mean, it's amazing what's going on. And you get these Jewish exorcists try to use Jesus as a magic name and they get beat up, which I think is really funny. Jesus is not a magic name, but what's happening. This became known to all the residents of his Jews and Greek fear fell in the name of Jesus Christ extalled. And many believers came, confessed, divulge or practices, and they got rid of demonic stuff. And the lord became continued, increased. The heart of this is gospel ministry and in this context of having people be transferred from darkness to light, demonic stuff is departing. But the focus is not demonic deliverance, the focus is on bringing people into the kingdom of light and Christ likeness. And then when the demons are there, you deal with them. But the number one thing is getting people into Jesus Christ in Christ likeness. The demonic thing is a sidelight. So when Jesus sends the disciples out and they see that they can cast out demons, they come back. Whoa. Even the demons respond to us. Jesus says, Calm down, rejoice, your name is written the Lamb's book of life. We've always got a rejoice in Jesus and our position in the kingdom and we start rejoicing in demons responding. We're actually drawing our attention, being drawn from Jesus to demons and Satan wins in a small way at that point we deal with demonic, I mean, that's real. But we are a point to come back to worship and serving Jesus and I want to get my attention off of demons as soon as possible and onto Jesus. One question came in from Wally, what's going on in Mark nine after transfiguration come up my prayer. The disciples had been given the power to exercise demons. They couldn't exercise this one. Jesus said it takes prayer and in later Greek manuscripts it adds and fasting. But what's going on there is there a two level kind of thing and this again is one, this place for a lot of variation and understanding. So the teacher does all these kinds of things. I ask your disciples cast out and they are not able. And Jesus deals the demon and he does very simply. He addresses the demon deaf and mutant deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again. It's a simple command, no name, no point of occupation, that kind of stuff, just a simple command of the demon. And it comes out and the disciples ask him privately, how come we couldn't do it? And he said, this kind cannot come anything but prayer. And like you say in the King James, when you look at that, it adds in and fasting. So look at King James and we get that same story but prayer and fasting. And most people are going to argue that and fasting is later. But when you this is the thing that's interesting. Come back to NIV, come back to Matthew, chapter 17 and I come to the same story. Bring the boy here. Jesus victim came out disciple, came to private and said, why couldn't you drive it out? He says, Because you have so little faith. So these are two accounts of the same story done as often, done with slightly different emphasis out of a more complicated story. In Mark it says by prayer, in Matthew it says by faith. And I think what happens here is, I think the demons sorry. I think the disciples, they do have the authority to cast out the demons. Mark, chapter three, makes that clear. But I think what happens is you also need not only the authority, but you need the competence and confidence to do it. So in a mother of a two year old, the mom has authority, in fact, but many times the kid has authority because the mom isn't shortened of authority and hasn't the competence or the confidence to do it. And dads are even worse than moms, many cases. And I think what happens is that these disciples are so freaked out by what they were seeing that they lost their confidence, their faith, and they weren't able to get rid of the demon. I think that's what happened. They don't pray. Jesus doesn't pray before he kicks out the demon. But if our life is characters by prayer and faith, I'm confident in my position in the Lord Most High. I'm seated the right hand, and then I come with that confidence and then some competence. How to deal with demonic, I think that's the key to it. All right, there's a question about strongholds in believers, and ask the question this way. We all have our favorite sins, we all have chinks on our armor, whatever metaphor you want to use. We all have areas where we are weak in faith. And it seems that Satan really likes to latch onto those areas, and that's how he works his way in, in his influence. So I'm I'm assuming for him response, that's an accurate assessment. Yep. What I think is going to happen is I think that the Devil will take advantage of anything that we give him. That picture. Let me just show you screen again here from this document that I've been using. I think believers may be deceived, accused and tempted and may yield to demonic attacks or given demons influencer lives, though they don't have to. Demons do not have authority to do these things to me, but through our weakness, and I think a fundamental thing is an evil spirit can empower, energize, encourage, or exploited believers own sinful desires, unbelief weakness, ignorance, or fear. And if I'm doing things that are sinful or not, god honoring Satan will empower me to do more of it. He will exploit my own doubts. I think that's what he does. And that's where strongholds come. That's a phrase from two Corinthians ten. And if I look in Scripture, an example of this is Ephesians, chapter four, verse 25. He said, in your anger, do not sin, and do not sin. Go down while you're still angry. Because if I hang on to my anger, which would be sin, I give the devil a foothold or an opportunity, depending on how you translate topos there. So I think that our sin gives the Devil an opportunity. That's the ESV translation, giving opportunity or foothold. Same kind of thing. So I think if we have sin and our weakness in our life, that gives the devil an opportunity to empower us in our weakness and our sin, I think that's what happens. Is that answering the question? Do you think? Yeah, it's kind of a situation where it's like someone's anger almost. It feels like it has a life of its own and it's taking over. And that's demonic oppression, right? Yes. That can be. Can be. Yeah. Okay. That can be emotional thing too. And that's why I want to come back and look at it through the light of the Holy Spirit, the power of Jesus Christ, and have the person I'm working with look in their inner world and then ask that question, is that power? Is that me or is that something else? Holy Spirit, show me what's going on here. And I think people can discern whether that really is them or something else. If it's something else, what is it? And it may be demonic. If it is, we can deal with it. Speak scripture out loud, command it, get away. Bring my attention back to Jesus. Michael asked the question, what do you say to evangelicals who don't believe Satan is a personal being, but rather as a representation of evil? I wish that were true. Actually taken back to Matthew, chapter four, the creature that attacks Jesus there is clearly personal. When I look at passages like, well, obviously Genesis, chapter three, now that's a serpent there, and people say it's allegorical, but whatever it is, it's speaking to Eve. If I look at the characterization, say in Job, chapter one, the accuser there, the Satan, is speaking with. So it certainly is personal. Something that's an angel. That's the kind of make sure we check all the possibilities. I think that character shows and what it does to Job. I think that is the devil, but it's personal. Zechariah, chapter three, the accuser there is personal to say it's just a personification of stuff in this world. When I look at the scripture statements, it presents it as much more than that. And in the webinar sorry, in the class, we'll spend some more time unpacking the Walter Wink or Nt, right? Type thing where that's just a personification of evil in this world. I think it's actually a personal malevolent leader of the spiritual forces of darkness. All right. Have time for just a few more questions. And there's actually been quite a few along this line, and I think you've already answered, but so many people are asking it. People want to know when something moves, just like, well, when a person is intimidated to the point of worry and our pieces interrupted, is that demonic activity? There's been a lot of questions like that. At what point as we go through the process, do we stop and say, okay, there's something else going on here other than me just being a worrier or whatever? Again, what I assume is this is multimodal. It comes from motion, it comes on family line type stuff, it comes from personality type things. It comes from what I'm hanging out with, the influence of the world in my life. All those things can be a peace and worrying and Satan can work through any of those things and he can empower those things. If I tend to be a worrier, he will encourage me to worry. And so what I do is I look at that thing and that's where I just speak to the worry piece of me and Holy Spirit. Show me if there's something demonic behind that. If so, I want nothing to do with it. I just speak to anything demonic. Speak. Present yourself now and be gone. In Jesus name, I've command, I will not give you attention. I refuse to listen to any voice of dark realm. I'll listen to only voices that are the voice of Jesus and consistent with the voice of Jesus. So those are the kind of things I do in respond to that. But part of what Satan does is gives to worry about it that it might be the devil and we end up worrying, oh, I wonder if that's a demon kind of stuff. And I want to give as much as possible, I want to refuse attention to demons. I want to give my attention to Jesus Christ. So I want to walk in his power. Too simple an answer, but that's what I can do in a brief time here. Yeah, I should say there's been a lot of good questions coming across and just for those of you who are watching, I want you to know that we'll try to get to them, we'll try to answer them, get your answers available one way or another on BT. So we will try to get to these things. The questions. Let me see, I get one more. Derek Prince, I don't know that name. Oh yeah, he's a British guy, does a lot of spiritual warfare stuff, good stuff. Derek Prince would be one along many who methodologically do things different than I do. One of the methodologists Common Deliverance Ministry is what I call interview the demon. Means I need to command the demon to present itself. And I start asking a series of questions what's your name? What's your point of entry? What sin are you standing upon? What are your associates? What are your authorities? And I am fundamentally opposed to interviewing demons. The only place in scripture you find Jesus ever asking him information for the demon is Mark, chapter five. And after he tells the demon to get out, it objects and he says, what is your name? And it says Legion, which isn't really a name, but a description. Jesus does not use that information at all. And I fundamentally object to the idea that I have to get information for the demon. I don't think you do. I work with the person to help them resist and stand firm. I speak to a demon only to rebuke it and tell it to get away in Jesus name. One time in the work that I've done, I ask a demon its name, because the woman I was working with that was really important to her to know the name of this thing had been harassing her for years. So I commanded demon to reveal its name to her, and it did. And then just like Jesus, we ignored that, went ahead and guarded its influence in her life. Derek Prince thinks you need to interview demons and find out the generational sin or whatever that gives it. And I just don't think you need to deal with demons. I think you just open yourself to being manipulated and taken off into dark places. So I do not interview demons. All right, last question, Gerry.  Are demons restricted by place and location? You have the Prince of Persia, but can they be restricted to a room in a house or to a bottle or whatever? We don't have scriptural data on that, so I'm quick to say, I don't know. We do see things like Prince of Persia, that's a high order spiritual being that has some authority over the realm of Persia and works for the King of Persia. In Old Testament, we see people coming back to the high places again and again. In Mark chapter five, don't kick us out of this place. They say they want to go to the pigs. So I think demons feel comfortable in an area. I don't think they're restricted to an area, but I do think they tend to be localized, so that's where I'd come at that. But I don't put a lot of stake in things unless it's an emphasis in scripture. So I do think demons feel at home in certain places, but I don't build a lot from that. All right, hey, this has been great, Gerry.  Thank you. And thank you for everyone for your questions. Remember, we'll be taping this in a couple of weeks, and if you would like this kind of information to be made available to the world, we appreciate your donations. There's a link in the Q and A, it's givebutter.com interesting name, and certainly we will answer a lot more of these questions in the full class when we do in a couple of weeks. And if I can just add on here, I just want to say, Bill, to you and Steve and the other that are involved here. Biblicaltraining.org is an amazing organization that's pulled together a huge amount of incredible quality material and made it available to the world for free in its amazing ministry. And I just feel tremendously honored and privileged to be a part of the team. Thank you, Bill and the team, for what you do in serving the world in this way. Thank you, I appreciate it. I guess I could mention, Gerry,  that your theology class is just in its final stages. It'll be in the academy program. And if you all want to hear Gerry  talk about systematics and gen general, that will be there as well. So thank you, everyone, and may the Lord be with you. Amen.