Can a Believer Still Be Possessed by Demons?

Can a believer still be possessed by demons? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Hi, it's Bill Meyer along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. Our phone lines are open and you can call us right now for the next 25 minutes. Here's the phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673.

Now you can also watch us live on YouTube and Instagram right now. Check that out or email us. Well, and Bill often says, you know, you can see what Adriel's wearing in the studio if you want to go on YouTube, but today Bill is joining me, and so if you want to see what Bill is wearing, those are very, those are like Easter colors, I would say, Bill. It's a nice pastel, I think that's what it is, right?

It is pastel. Very stylish. Thank you very much.

So you can tune in and see Bill. It's great to have you here. Thanks to Coles. Appreciate that. Alright, we'd love to hear from you. Call us right now or email us at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up, let's go to a voicemail from one of our listeners.

This is Noel. My question is to resist temptation, because I've been tempted so many times, and I call upon the word of God after all time, but I don't know. I just need just to hear from you guys. Noel, thanks for reaching out, and may God bless you and be with you and grant you strength and the help of his Holy Spirit to resist temptation. It is truly a battle, and continue to call upon the name of the Lord.

Certainly, prayer is very, very important when we think about this battle. Jesus himself made that clear in the Sermon on the Mount, when he taught us how to pray, and he said, a part of our prayer, a part of the Lord's prayer is saying, lead me not into temptation, and recognizing that God is sovereign, that God is able to help us. To keep us from the pathway of temptation, you think also about what Jesus said later in Matthew's Gospel, in Matthew chapter 26, when he's praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, and he tells his disciples in verse 41, Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.

The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. And so a part of, I think, resisting temptation well is acknowledging our own weakness. You can't be arrogant or prideful or trust in yourself and do a good job in the fight against temptation. You cast yourself at the feet of the Lord and say, God, I need you, lead me not into temptation. By the way, I've written a little bit about this in my book, Praying with Jesus, especially unpacking that latter petition where we pray, lead us not into temptation. I give three tips in particular for avoiding temptation, just being wise practically. One is keeping our eyes in the right place. Oftentimes in the Bible, temptation begins with what we're looking at, with our eyes.

You see that way back in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve there. And so when we're experiencing that temptation, going straight to the cross, but also being quick to retreat. When we talk about the fight, there's an irony here because we talk about this fight that we're in, this battle against temptation. And in most fights, you know, retreating is, that's how you lose, right?

Yeah, that's, well, I'm not victorious, I have to retreat. But in the fight against temptation, retreat is victory. And it's interesting to me in the Bible, oftentimes you have these exhortations like in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 18, flee from sexual immorality, or Timothy in 2 Timothy 2, verse 22, flee youthful passions, pursue righteousness, faith, love. We're called to run from those things that we know are tempting us. And so not putting yourself in a position, Noel, where you know you're going to be easily tempted and succumb to temptation. And lastly, the thing that I say is, when it comes to this fight, we need to adopt the scorched earth policy. And I'm getting that idea from the New Testament. We're told not to put on or give any provision to the flesh. We're suffocating it. You know, those things that we see leading us down the wrong path, don't give any room to that.

Adopt a scorched earth policy. You need to take this really seriously. And so may God help you, and may God, as I said, by the grace of His Spirit, enable you to fight and to flee and to experience the strength of the Lord as you seek to honor Christ in your life.

God bless you. You know, I was just thinking of all the teenagers that we have listening or young adults who maybe are struggling right now because they have peer relationships where people are pressuring them to do things that are against God's will, contrary to God's will, and they really need to flee from some of those groups, right? Yeah, there are instances where, you know, we've talked about this on the broadcast before, Bill, you know, you think of what Proverbs says, bad company, evil company, corrupting good habits, and if that is, you know, one of the avenues of temptation for you, if you're not able to be around certain people without sinning, then yeah. It's not, it's not, you're not saying, you know, oh, you're just horrible and, you know, what you're saying is I'm not strong enough in my walk with Christ to be around these kinds of environments and not compromise. And so one of the amazing things, this is what's so beautiful about Jesus, we often, you know, talk about how in the Gospels Jesus is a friend to sinners, but he wasn't sinning with them. It wasn't like the way in which he cozied up with sinners was by just, yeah, let's sin together. No, he always changed the temperature of the room he was in, which is to say that, you know, when he's around these people, they're drawn to him, they're drawn to the holiness, they're drawn to the love that they see in him, the compassion. And so as he's around them, they're changing, he's not changing, they're changing, and man, may the Lord make each of us strong in the faith so that the people around us are drawn closer to the Lord.

Yeah, I mean, so important, Bill. Good counsel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, love to hear from you if you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life. You can call us right now at 833-THE-CORE, that's 1-833-843-2673. Maybe there's a Bible passage that's always kind of stumped you and you'd like some clarification on it. Well, Adriel, be glad to help you with that.

Or maybe there's something in your church life that's a little bit concerning to you, something going on at your church that's either confusing or you're like, is this biblical? Hey, call us right now at 833-THE-CORE. Let's go to Ralph calling in from New York. Ralph, what's your question for Adriel? Hello, sir.

Wait. Can you hear me? Hey, Ralph, I can hear you. Hey, man, thanks for taking my call. I know I'm like a real caller, man. Oh, man, where am I welcome? Anyway, and Bill, how you doing, man? Good, good to hear from you, Ralph.

I got a question, my friend. Man, what are the marks of a true revival, I mean, in the church, because, you know, we live in America, the American gospel, the titillated churches, man. My wife and I get up, we pray for revival, but it does not start with us at heart, right? According to the scriptures, of course. I didn't want you to comment that comment. And according to scriptures, we pray for revival.

Why not? Certainly something that we should be, I think, praying for, Bill, is for God to pour his Spirit out upon us and upon our nation. And what does it look like when that happens? I think the first thing that I would want to say to you, Ralph, is it's rooted in the discovery of God's Word, really understanding the Word of God. And so there is no genuine revival apart from faithful Bible preaching, because the Spirit of God works together with the Word of God. And so you can have these movements that get big, and it seems really exciting, and maybe there's even these ecstatic miracles that seem to be taking place, but the question is, is that rooted in the scriptures? In other words, are people who were spiritually dead being made alive by the preaching of the Gospel? If that's not the case, then whatever this is, this sort of flash in the pan that we're seeing, it's going to be over with soon. One of my friends, and somebody who we often talk about on the broadcast, Dr. Michael Horton, who wrote the book Core Christianity, one of the things he's mentioned before we've had this conversation is you look at a lot of these places where there were revivals, quote-unquote, throughout the history of the Church, or the United States even, in the United States, and oftentimes after the fact there's more unbelief than there was before. It really is a great tragedy.

It just gets burned over. And so we have to ask the question, is this a genuine work of the Spirit of God? And again, I would go back to the Word of God has to be central. If the Word of God is not central, then no, it isn't. And when the Word of God is central, then what does it look like when the Spirit of God is at work in our lives? I think it looks like the manifestation of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, and so forth.

That's what we're looking for. We're looking for an understanding of God's Word that leads to the cultivation of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And it may not be this great big, you know, the news stations are showing up and there's, look at this revival that's happening.

No, it might not look like that at all. But I do think that that's happening throughout churches, throughout the United States and churches, where the Word of God is being faithfully preached and people are having an encounter with the Lord through the Word. And they're growing in their relationship with God, Ralph. And so I think for you and as you pray, right, say, God, illuminate your Word to me. Let me experience that life that your Word gives day by day as I read it. And give your church a passion for your Word and for faithful Bible preaching and open the hearts of men and women throughout the United States, throughout the world, to receive that Word.

That's what we need to see and that's when you have true quote-unquote revival. There's a church about five minutes from my house in my town that is just exploding right now. And one of the reasons is, Adriel, is that the pastor is really focusing on God's Word. He's a great teacher, he's a great communicator, but he's not particularly, you know, charismatic in that sense. But he's really helping people understand God's Word clearly. And what's fascinating to me is some of them are leaving a big megachurch where it's kind of all about, oh, friendship evangelism and, you know, lifestyle teaching, you know, apply your best life now. And they're leaving that big church to come to this church because they're hearing God's Word and there's revival happening. You know what's crazy to me is, I'm preaching through 1 Corinthians right now, and Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verses 1 through 5 says, look, 2 Corinthians says, when I came to you guys, I didn't come with wisdom of words.

It wasn't my clever rhetoric, it wasn't any of that stuff. In fact, I purpose not to know anything except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Imagine a pastor who shows up and says, look, there's really only one sermon I have.

It's Jesus and the cross. But he says, you know what, what that yielded was power, was the Spirit of God at work here, through the proclamation of the Gospel. And your faith should not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. And I can say, as a minister of the Gospel, I think this is a temptation we all have as pastors, is to try to, we've got to dress it up somehow. We want it to be attractive and attractional, and we just need to preach it clearly and let the Holy Spirit do His work. And that's what Paul said. He says, I didn't come to you with all that clever rhetoric that you guys are longing for. No, I came to you with Christ and Him crucified, placarding that. And boy, when we recover that, God does amazing things.

That's so well said. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Our phone lines are open if you have a question about the Bible, the Christian life, doctrine, theology. Hey, we're open to your questions right now at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Well, here it is, graduation season. A lot of high school students going through graduation ceremonies, graduation parties. And we have a wonderful resource that will help your young person, whether they're just graduating from high school, maybe they're in college right now, to thrive spiritually. Yeah, the resource is called How to Keep Your Faith After High School, and it's one of our Core Christianity booklets.

I think that this is really important, especially for young people as they're transitioning into college. And it's great because it focuses on the gospel, on the importance of belonging to a true church and understanding what that even is. It's sad so many young people go off to college and they don't get plugged into a solid church. This is going to help them understand the kind of church that they want to get plugged into. But also recognizing the centrality of the grace of God in the Christian life.

Get a hold of this resource. If you've got a son or daughter who's graduating or a friend or a grandchild, get a hold of this resource. I think it'll help to equip them to continue to walk with the Lord even as they enter into young adulthood.

Once again, it's called How to Keep Your Faith After High School. You can find that by going to corechristianity.com forward slash offers. It's free. We'd love to get this into your hands. And again, you can pass it along to a young person that you know.

It will really be a big help to them. How to Keep Your Faith After High School. Well, we do receive voicemails here at Core Christianity, but here's one that came in from one of our listeners named James. Hi, Pastor Adrian. Very thankful for your radio ministry.

I have a question. Can a believer be demon-possessed? And should I consider finding a new church if my pastor believes a believer can be demon-possessed and uses his experience to interpret the scriptures?

Thank you for your time. Well, when you say his experience, I hope it's not personal experience. Like, I was a Christian or am a Christian, and you know every once in a while I get demon-possessed, that kind of a thing. If that's the case, then for sure find a new church. But even if it's just like, no, this is how I interpret the Bible, I do think that this is... it does raise some questions, some concerns in my mind.

I don't believe that someone who is regenerated by the Holy Spirit, who is a child of God, justified by faith alone in Jesus Christ, I don't believe that that person can be possessed by Satan, by the devil. And, you know, the text that I oftentimes go to is in John's first letter in 1 John 5. He says in verse 18, We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. And I think there, in particular, John is talking about, it's not that we don't struggle with sin. Earlier, in chapter 1, he says, you know, if anyone says that he's without sin, he deceives himself, the truth is not in him. But here he's talking about those who totally abandon the faith, who apostatize. That's the kind of sinning he's talking about. That's made clear, I think, in chapter 2, because there are a group of people who had abandoned the church, essentially. He's saying, look, they went out from us, but they were not of us.

If they were really of us, they would have continued with us. And so, no, those who belong to Jesus are kept by Jesus. They're not surrendered to Satan. You remember what Jesus himself said in the Gospels, you know?

No one is able to snatch my sheep out of my Father's hand. And so, a believer can be attacked by the evil one. I mean, there is that reality of spiritual warfare. We can feel a kind of spiritual oppression, I think, especially if we're dabbling in sin.

You know, that's one of the ways, I think, that God disciplines us. But I don't believe that for the true believer that they're ever abandoned to Satan, that they're ever possessed. You know, sometimes the question is raised, well, what about Judas?

You know, it says that Satan entered him. And there's an example of someone who was in close proximity to Jesus and to the teaching of Jesus, but who didn't embrace it the way he should have. And so I do think that there are people that can be around the church and, you know, around Christianity who are demon-possessed. But we're talking about someone who is truly a child of God by faith.

No, that person cannot be demon-possessed. Thank you for your question. Well said. This is CORE Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. By the way, we're going to be recording a second episode of the CORE after our live program ends here in just a few minutes. So we'd love to have you call in if you have a question. Maybe you weren't able to get through in the last 20 minutes. You can still call us for the next 35 minutes or so at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Becky calling in from Florida. Becky, what's your question for Adriel?

Hi there, Pastor. So I'm a believer and we have a national daughter, my husband and I, who is also a professor of Christ and loves the Lord. But she believes that she wants to be a tattoo artist and she's getting ready to go off to college. We've held her off and she also wants to get tattoos and piercings. And we haven't allowed that, but she is 18 now. And so originally her reason was she wanted to get a sparrow to remind her of her favorite verse, and it was going to be a way to talk to people.

But as we kind of dug in, it looks like she's planning to get more and she would really like to get piercings. And we've told her we don't feel comfortable with that. We really want to just study more and understand her reason. They don't seem like very good reasons. To be honest, it has to do with expressing herself and feeling more like herself. Things like that are the reasons she's giving.

But I also know that there's many strong believers that have tattoos and then there's many people, especially at our church, who really look down on it in almost a legalistic way. So I really just want to give her the right answer. I don't want to turn her away from Christ by being legalistic and saying something I shouldn't, and I just don't know how to handle this. Becky, thank you so much for that question, and God bless you. I recognize that this is a tough situation because your daughter is 19. I mean, she's making decisions for herself now.

It's so wonderful to hear that she loves Jesus and has a relationship with the Lord. And of course, I would agree that this isn't something to be legalistic about. This is an area of wisdom, I would say. And I think the things to consider, here at least, is entering into that world being a tattoo artist. I imagine that there probably aren't a lot of Christian tattoo artists out there that's kind of...

I know that there are, and I've spoken to some of them, but it's sort of like someone who wants to get involved in the movie industry, for example. I think there are particular challenges associated with being in that environment, and I imagine that it would be the same if you were in the tattoo and piercing environment as well, that there would be particular challenges, particular temptations, particular compromises that we might be tempted towards, which doesn't mean that it's ruled out. I think you just have to exercise wisdom, and you have to be aware of those things. You have to be aware of how you, as a Christian, might experience temptation or might experience the challenge to compromise in a certain situation. What if somebody asked you, I want you to tattoo this blasphemous image on me?

And in a situation like that, I would say, as a Christian, you would have to say, no, based on my conscience, I couldn't do something like that. And so that's where there are going to be some, there needs to be, I think, some conversations. And with regard to just wanting to express yourself and whatnot, I think the conversation there is thinking about what Peter says in 1 Peter 3, where he's encouraging there, he's talking about husbands and wives specifically, but he's encouraging, do not let your adorning be merely external. The braiding of hair, the putting on of gold and jewelry, the clothing you wear, and I think we could even add there, you know, the piercings that you have and the tattoos that you have. That's not the main thing for us as Christians. Again, it's not that there's anything wrong with those things, but that's not the main thing that you want to be known for. There are other ways that we can express ourselves, like a heart of love and charity.

And we don't need to pit those two things against each other, but again, I think just making sure that the right things are prioritized. And so I would say those two things, you know, talking about the particular challenges that would be associated with, I think, that kind of a career path, and what it would look like to be a faithful Christian in that context, as opposed to someone who was just sort of being swept away by that world. And then additionally, the importance of that heart for the Lord, which you said your daughter does have. Praise God for that, and that being the main thing, that being what she seeks to cultivate and grow, and that being what she wants people to know and to see, is her love for Christ and her love for others. And so just, again, pray for wisdom, and I do hope that it isn't something that leads to division in your own family, but that you can continue to have great conversations with your daughter and encourage her in her relationship with the Lord, and that she just continues to grow in her love for Christ, and that as she does, God would give her and you just more clarity in this situation as she seeks to honor Jesus with everything that she does. And so let's take a moment to pray for our sister, Becky, and for her daughter, and just ask for God's grace and for His wisdom. Our Father in Heaven, we thank You for this family that knows You and loves You, and we pray, Lord, that You would give wisdom. I pray for Becky's daughter, that You would protect her from all temptation, from all evil, that by the grace of Your Spirit, Lord, You would guide and direct her steps, that her life, Lord Jesus, might be used for Your glory, and would You give Becky wisdom, Lord, as she seeks to guide and encourage her daughter, Lord.

We know we can't control our children as parents, especially as they get older, but give her wisdom, Lord, to know what to say in this situation. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen. Bill, I know you don't have any tattoos. Not that you know of. No. Oh, okay.

Well, he's a good guy. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, go to corechristianity.com forward slash radio, or you can call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833-THE-CORE. When you contact us, let us know how we can be praying for you. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.