Demons

[Guest LCPGUY]

My brothers and sisters:

I hear many Christian leaders telling us to go and cast out demons. The demon of lust. The demon of alcohol. The demon of tobacco. The demon of poverty, etc., etc, ad infinitum.

They tell us to pull down strongholds.

Did Jesus ever tell us, or His disciples to do that? Did Paul, Peter, James, John, Luke ever tell us to do that? I know that many have cast out demons, but were we ever told to do so? Is it scriptural? I can't find it. Please correct me if I have missed something here.

Thanx guys and guyettes.

Bro John

[refugepsa91]

this is kinda a touchy subject for me...I'll try to explain why. I don't think there is a demon behind every bad thing a person does. I'm not saying one can't be involved. I went to a church where every little thing that went wrong it was a demon attacking you...from stubbing your toe to your credit card debt. So they would have alter calls where they would pray for that demon to leave you. Face it some things are just plain our own fault. Although others are not. confusing isn't it.

As far as casting out demons I would not try it...although I think we as a whole can cast out demons by just being a good witness to people.

I am interested is seeing more on this....good topic guy

Love and Blessings,

Angel

[Guest LCPGUY]

Sis Angel,

I agree with you.

I think the best way to combat demons is to stand strong and verbally and loudly just PRAISE THE LORD!!! They hate that!!!

But my question wasn't should we do it, or how should we do it, rather, were we told to do so in the Bible?

Love you sis, :il:

Bro John

[hippo's hope is HIM]

hmmm awesome question, my mentor tells me that too.......

I don't know for sure, but here are some thoughts.

God did not give us a spirit of fear.....

God is not the author of confusion....

uhh I know that we have the power to tread upon the scoprions, the snake and the adder, and the young lion ect. So if we have that power, what would we use it on, other than demons???

as for binding them in the name of Jesus, and casting them out. Biblically, I am totally unsure. but..if they cannot stand to hear the name of Jesus, cause there is power in His name!!! the demons must flee. So what other way is there to do it other than binding them in Jesus name, and sending em out?

oh and I can't remember the verse...but the story of the false prophet dude, and he was trying to cast out a demon, and the demon was all I know Jesus, but who are you?.......see Jesus they know. We have no authority...it is all in Jesus's name, so we must claim His name.

also, we are to test the spirits, if they are not of God.....or maybe is causing one to stumble then wouldn't that be a spirit or something?

were we told to do it??? hmmmm.

I dunno, great question Bro :il: I wish I knew more about this subject.

[BoldlyProclaimingChrist]

I don't believe we are able to bind demon spirits and I know we should not talk to them. We must do everything through Jesus because there truly IS power in His name.

I think that way of thinking that there are demons for everything bad is to exempt us from responsiblity of sin. You may as well say "the devil made me do it". I think it's a copout. We are sinners, rotten to the core - our hearts cannot be trusted. We can do our own sinning just fine without Satan that's how rotten we are. If the angels won't even jeer at Satan, who do we think we are to try and bind him if we are lower than the angels?

[Guest LCPGUY]

I don't believe we are able to bind demon spirits and I know we should not talk to them. We must do everything through Jesus because there truly IS power in His name.

I think that way of thinking that there are demons for everything bad is to exempt us from responsiblity of sin. You may as well say "the devil made me do it". I think it's a copout. We are sinners, rotten to the core - our hearts cannot be trusted. We can do our own sinning just fine without Satan that's how rotten we are. If the angels won't even jeer at Satan, who do we think we are to try and bind him if we are lower than the angels?

WOW!!!

Boldly

Bro John

[Guest kitkat]

Here are a two scriptrues referencing what Jesus said about casting out demons.

Matthew 10:8 "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons:: Freely ye have received, freely give."

Mark 16:17 "These signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out demons".

This is something that I am careful with. I think that there are those that have enough faith to cast out demons. I believe that we as Christians can cast out demons in Jesus name.

There are times when I feel like Satan is trying to wrestle me to the ground by instilling fear or confusion in me, etc. and if this goes on for several days, I eventually get enough of it and tell him to just get out of my house in Jesus name. That he has no place in my home because I'm a child of God and usually after I do that, then it's not too long before the fear, etc. is gone. I know this sounds odd, but when I'm struggling with fear, there is a certain place in our living room, that I feel that Satan is. I've never ever visibly seen a spirit or anything that resembled a spirit, but I always feel that when Satan is hassling me with fear or whatever, I SENSE that he is in a certain part of my living room. This does not happen often, but when it does, that's when I tell him to get out of my house.

Other than that, as of now, I don't make a practice of speaking to Satan. I just rely on the Lord.

Also, I think some people concentrate on the activity of demons too much, when they should be thinking about how awesome and powerful Jesus is and how Jesus can set them free from bondage.

I've known some people that blame demons for every single thing that happens in a persons life. They're so much into identifying and confronting demons that they've forgotten about the Lord.

Another reason why I'm careful about this is because it says in the Bible if a demon is cast out of a man and that man is delivered of that demon, but he allows that sin to come back into his life, that seven other demons will enter into him and as a result, he is worse off than he was before.

To me that's pretty scary.

I know there are some people who are probably called by God to cast out demons, but I myself am afraid to engage with it. My trust is in God for deliverance if I need it.

God Bless,

Kitkat

:hug:

[gypc]

NIV....Eph6:10-12 "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his MIGHTY POWER. 11) Put on the full armor of GOD so that YOU can TAKE YOUR STAND AGAINST the DEVILS SCHEMES. 12) For our STRUGGLE is not against flesh and blood but AGAINST the RULERS, AGAINST the AUTHORITIES, AGAINST the POWERs of this dark world and AGAINST the SPIRITUAL FORCES of EVIL in the HEAVENLY REALMS"

The RULERS..the AUTHORITIES....the POWERS...SPIRITUAL FORCES of EVIL are all spiritual. Our fight or struggle is with these.

KJV Matthew 16:23 "But he turned and said unto PETER, Get thee behind me Satan, thou art an offence unto me , for thou savourest not the things that be of God but those that be of man"

Jesus knew there was an evil spirit behind the words of Peter so he got rid of it before he continued.

NIV-Luke !10:17 "The seventy-two returned with joy and said Lord, even the demons SUBMIT to us IN YOUR NAME. 18) I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I HAVE GIVEN YOU AUTHORITY to TRAMPLE ON SNAKES and SCORPIANS and to OVERCOME ALL THE POWER OF THE ENEMY, nothing will harm you. HOWEVER, do not rejoice that THE SPIRITS SUBMIT TO YOU but rejoice that YOUR NAMES are WRITTEN IN HEAVEN"

The authority we have over evil spirits is a friut of the fact that our names are written in heaven. They rejoiced because they had power over demons with the name of Jesus but Jesus was trying to tell them that the only reason they had that power was because God has written their names in heaven.

It's like this, if there was a big party at the best place in the world and the only way you could get in was if the President wrote your name on a list. You walk to the door, the man sees your name and lets you in. Then you boast "out of all the people in the world, I GOT IN" then the main man comes to you and says "Hey pal, the only reason you had authority to come in, is because I WROTE YOUR NAME DOWN. Not because your better than any one else"

God gives us discernment and we use the power of his name to take authority over a situation in the spiritual realm. If someone is bound by lust, we don't beat it out of him. That's fight against the flesh. However, We don't just say "well I'll be praying" We have the authority to tell that thing to hit the road.

What many of us try to do is cast out devils in every thing. "There's the devil!....here's the devil!......Get the devil!But if we have fully sumbitted ourselves to God, he will reveal to us when we should take this authority and resist.

In his love,

Brian

[Guest Calamity]

My brothers and sisters:

I hear many Christian leaders telling us to go and cast out demons. The demon of lust. The demon of alcohol. The demon of tobacco. The demon of poverty, etc., etc, ad infinitum.

They tell us to pull down strongholds.

Did Jesus ever tell us, or His disciples to do that? Did Paul, Peter, James, John, Luke ever tell us to do that? I know that many have cast out demons, but were we ever told to do so? Is it scriptural? I can't find it. Please correct me if I have missed something here.

Thanx guys and guyettes.

Bro John

I think a lot of what some preachers call "demons" are actually works of the flesh. They're listed in Galatians, and cover a wide array of things:

NIV

Galatians 5

19The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

I do believe demons are completely real, and that they can and do, bother Christians, but I think the devil gets a little more credit than he deserves sometimes.

[keslc]

NIV....Eph6:10-12 "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his MIGHTY POWER. 11) Put on the full armor of GOD so that YOU can TAKE YOUR STAND AGAINST the DEVILS SCHEMES. 12) For our STRUGGLE is not against flesh and blood but AGAINST the RULERS, AGAINST the AUTHORITIES, AGAINST the POWERs of this dark world and AGAINST the SPIRITUAL FORCES of EVIL in the HEAVENLY REALMS"

The RULERS..the AUTHORITIES....the POWERS...SPIRITUAL FORCES of EVIL are all spiritual. Our fight or struggle is with these.

KJV Matthew 16:23 "But he turned and said unto PETER, Get thee behind me Satan, thou art an offence unto me , for thou savourest not the things that be of God but those that be of man"

Jesus knew there was an evil spirit behind the words of Peter so he got rid of it before he continued.

NIV-Luke !10:17 "The seventy-two returned with joy and said Lord, even the demons SUBMIT to us IN YOUR NAME. 18) I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I HAVE GIVEN YOU AUTHORITY to TRAMPLE ON SNAKES and SCORPIANS and to OVERCOME ALL THE POWER OF THE ENEMY, nothing will harm you. HOWEVER, do not rejoice that THE SPIRITS SUBMIT TO YOU but rejoice that YOUR NAMES are WRITTEN IN HEAVEN"

The authority we have over evil spirits is a friut of the fact that our names are written in heaven. They rejoiced because they had power over demons with the name of Jesus but Jesus was trying to tell them that the only reason they had that power was because God has written their names in heaven.

It's like this, if there was a big party at the best place in the world and the only way you could get in was if the President wrote your name on a list. You walk to the door, the man sees your name and lets you in. Then you boast "out of all the people in the world, I GOT IN" then the main man comes to you and says "Hey pal, the only reason you had authority to come in, is because I WROTE YOUR NAME DOWN. Not because your better than any one else"

God gives us discernment and we use the power of his name to take authority over a situation in the spiritual realm. If someone is bound by lust, we don't beat it out of him. That's fight against the flesh. However, We don't just say "well I'll be praying" We have the authority to tell that thing to hit the road.

What many of us try to do is cast out devils in every thing. "There's the devil!....here's the devil!......Get the devil!But if we have fully sumbitted ourselves to God, he will reveal to us when we should take this authority and resist.

In his love,

Brian

Gypc, I have to give you props for your post! I was just about to post a big long post, pretty much saying the same thing, thanks for doing that for me!

It is so easy to fall into becoming a "ghost buster" (demon buster) and get all worked up that way, but that takes our focus off of the Lord, which is what satan wants. Or to fall into "Look what I did!" and not to acknowledge the authority of Christ. OF course the demons love that as Hippo pointed out about the jewish leader who tried to cast out demons and the demon asked "who are you? We know who Christ is" and they attacked him. Same with us, why would they care what Katie (me) has to say to them, but when it is God using me, they listen up.

What many of us try to do is cast out devils in every thing. "There's the devil!....here's the devil!......Get the devil!But if we have fully sumbitted ourselves to God, he will reveal to us when we should take this authority and resist.

You are absolutely right though about the need to listen to the Lord and what, when, how He leads us in these situations.