Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8054. Whether demons can attach to objects or places is a question I get asked after house moves, after clearing out a relative’s belongings, and by new Christians wondering what to do with things from a former life. It deserves a straight answer rather than either a shrug or a scare story. My short…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8053. Can Christians be demonically oppressed? I believe they can, and I want to say so carefully, because this is an area where careless answers do real damage in both directions. A believer cannot be owned or inhabited by an unclean spirit. A believer can certainly be harassed, pressed and worn down from outside….
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8051. Paul says something in 2 Corinthians 4 that explains a great deal of what we see in evangelism. The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. The enemy works to blind unbelievers, and he is…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 8050. The phrase snare of the devil comes from Paul’s letters to Timothy, and it is worth noticing how ordinary the context is. He is not describing an exorcism or a supernatural encounter. He is talking about the appointment of church leaders and the handling of people who oppose the truth. A snare is…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8049. Of all the titles Scripture gives him, Satan the accuser is the one that touches ordinary Christians most often. We may never face a dramatic temptation or anything resembling a spiritual encounter, and yet most believers I know have spent a bad night under a voice reciting their failures back to them with…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8048. The words are among the most striking Jesus ever spoke to a friend. “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.” The request to sift Peter was made, it was granted, and the Lord…
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 8044. Paul assumes that Satan’s schemes can be recognised. He tells the Corinthians that we are not ignorant of his designs and he tells the Ephesians to put on the whole armour of God so that they can stand against them. Neither statement makes any sense unless the enemy works to a pattern that…