Posted on 03/13/2018 2:03:10 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Influenced ?
YES.
A girlfriend of mine was bipolar. When she went off her meds, she got a little crazy. During one such occasion she went to her priest, who told her she was under some sort of spiritual attack.
When she went back on her meds, the spiritual attacks ceased.
The lesson here is don’t trust your mental health to people who see demons everywhere.
Influenced?
Yes.
bump
>>Our Western conception of the world is far too shallow. We don’t reckon with the spiritual realities that mark the world in which we live.
Western Civilization is all about Christianity. The problem is our Post-Western, Post-Christian world of moral and cultural absolutes. It is a world where secular powers have forced us to accept pagans and atheists as spiritual equals—or even as our spiritual superiors.
But in answer to the OP: No. A Christian cannot be possessed by a mere demon. But Satan sure can make one think he is.
Yes, I’ve seen ‘em at conferences. Just little annoying ones.
>>The problem is our Post-Western, Post-Christian world of moral and cultural absolutes.
Oops. that should read:
The problem is our Post-Western, Post-Christian world of moral and cultural RELATIVISM.
A true Christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit and cannot be demon possessed. But he can be demonically influenced.
The question then remains: What is a ‘Christian?’
Here is my take.
Jesus said that when a demon leaves a man, the house is clean. But when/if it returns and finds the clean house, it brings other demons with it to infest the soul worse than before.
In this sense, I do believe nominal Christians can be possess. Moreover, I believe that there are many more demon-possessed people in society than most people realize.
Those in cooperation with the demons appear overall somewhat normal, not exhibiting any social disorder that would put the person at risk of a diagnosis of insane.
It’s the ones who resist the demon’s presence which manifest the bizarre behavior Jesus often encountered. These are actually the ones which are the most hopeful, because Jesus knows their heart. The ones in league with Satan’s minions are the ones which are hopeless.
The key to that parable is that the clean house means that the person has not filled his house with the Holy Spirit so it is subject to repossession.
Yep ..... the current Pope
/8^)
But the follow up question is whether a man can be a Christian believer without being filled with the Holy Spirit. And this is shown to be the case.
Paul met several congregations where they had been baptized as believers but had not yet been filled. Were they fair game for demon possession?
Meds block the communication or influence but do not remove the spirit attachment.
Since the priest made no effort to get rid of the spiritual attachment, it’s a good thing she had meds to fall back on.
IIRC, that particular group had received the Baptism of John and said they didn’t even know there was a Holy Spirit. So technically they weren’t Christian until they believed the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Paul laid hands on them.
And excellent book on demonism is *Healing Through Deliverance* by Peter Horrobin. It’s a long read but worth every minute of it.
He deals with that subject and the book is very solid and Scriptural. His contention that, no, the Christian cannot be possessed but can be oppressed and he addresses some of the means that the demonic forces have the ability to gain a foothold in a person’s life to harass and oppress them.
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