Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 8052. The words demonic possession, oppression and influence get used almost interchangeably in Christian conversation, and the confusion causes real harm. I have sat with people convinced they were possessed who were exhausted and unwell, and I have met others who dismissed every spiritual dimension of their trouble because they had only ever heard…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8047. People ask me whether Satan can appear in dreams more often than almost any other question in this area, and they usually ask quietly, after a bad night, when they are not sure whether they are being silly. They are not being silly. A dream can leave a residue that lasts for days….
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 8046. Paul says it directly: Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. It comes in the middle of a painful passage where he is defending his ministry against men who had arrived in Corinth with better manners, better rhetoric and a different gospel, and it explains how they had got a hearing at…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8045. Can Satan perform miracles? The short answer is that he can produce genuine signs and wonders, that Scripture says so plainly, and that this is one of the reasons we are told to test everything rather than to be impressed by displays of power. A miracle is not by itself proof that God…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8038. Lying spirits are not an occasional tactic of the enemy but the whole shape of his operation. Jesus said of the devil that when he lies he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Everything else he does runs downstream of that. Scripture uses…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8034. Whether demons can take physical form is a question people usually ask because they have seen something, or because someone they trust has. I want to answer it from Scripture rather than from anecdote, while treating the anecdotes with more respect than they sometimes receive. The biblical evidence is more limited than most…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8030. Reports of angel encounters during near-death experiences have become a publishing industry of their own, and I am asked about them more often than almost any other question in this area. Someone has read a book, or a relative has described a light and a figure and a sense of overwhelming peace, and…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8024. The idea that we can command angels has become surprisingly common in certain circles, usually presented as a believer’s neglected authority. Conferences teach it, books promote it, and sincere Christians come away convinced they have been leaving a resource untapped. I want to handle this carefully rather than dismissively, because the people drawn…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8020. Whether angels appear today is a question I get asked more often than almost any other in this category, usually by someone who has heard a story and does not know what to do with it. The honest answer has two parts, and both need saying. Scripture nowhere states that angelic appearances have…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10146. Whenever a new invention arrives, some part of the Christian world immediately maps it onto prophecy, and modern technology has been identified as the fulfilment of end-times passages more times than I can count. Barcodes were the mark of the beast. Then credit cards were. Then microchips, then smartphones, then digital currency, then…