The best place to find the answer to that question was in the Bible. The answer is no. Everyday believers desire to sin. When that happens, who is to blame? Usually ?Satan made me do it? is the typical excuse. Wrong! Our desire to sin comes from our lusts (James 1:13,14), the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) and evil hearts (Mark 7:21,22). Satan knows these weaknesses and uses them to his advantage. If Satan cannot cause us to sin, he certainly cannot indwell in us. When we are told to put on the whole armour of God, it is meant to protect us from the outside evils not from evil that is ?possessing? us (Ephesians 6:13).
There are many places in the Bible that clearly show how impossible it is to be a believer and be demon possessed. First, in I Corinthians 6:19 it states that ?your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you...? Something holy and something evil cannot indwell the same person at one time and once you are a believer, the Holy Spirit is indwelling in you at all times even during those times in your life when you may not be filled with the Spirit. Another verse that I find to be helpful in this issue is I John 4:4, ? Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.? Christ is in us and Satan is in the world so I would have to say we are Christ possessed. Satan uses this idea people have that we can be possessed to his advantage I think and people start looking to the wrong places for comfort and salvation. All along we need to look inward to focus on Christ and not on the world.
Finally, the last scripture reference I would like to use is Romans 8:38-39, ? For
...powerful; therefore, everything is a result of God allowing it to happen. Yet, how could a loving father allow disease to harm his children. Satan views man as unintelligent to believe the way he does about God. “He equips the Creator with every trait that goes to the making of a fiend, and then arrives at the conclusion that a fiend and a father are the same thing” (347).
Carson, D. A. New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition. 4th ed. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994.
In the film “The Holy Ghost People,” right away we get individual accounts of what the “Holy Spirit” is to certain individuals. One woman says the Holy Ghost guides her and keeps her going. The people are very intense about their beliefs, which comes from the religion Pentecostalism, which has a hyper focus on personal experience with God and baptism with the Holy Spirit. We see them in their church, we hear the sermon, and see the ritualistic dances and the way the prayer overcomes them, and causes seizure like motions. We see and hear the prayers for the healing of one woman’s eyesight, and another woman’s back pain. One man, seemingly the pastor, says that “if God is not doing what they ask, people aren’t believing hard enough.” Later we get an account from a woman of how she was nursed back to health as a little girl brought her nutrients, and she believes it was
In his book, Anderson (2006) proposes that there are mental illnesses out there that individuals are dealing with, that really has, the characteristics of demonic possession. The problem with secular psychiatry is that they dismiss the idea of demonic possession and categorize the behavior as mentally disturbed. The whole dilemma is that they refusal to acknowledge that an individual can be possessed by demonic spirits. Anderson (2006) takes issue with their thinking and supplies some theological framework in the development of his theory that individuals can and do wrestle with demonic spirits. God has strictly prohibited mankind from using spiritual sorcerer as written in Leviticus (19:31; 20:6, 27), “Do not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out to be defiled by them…”(Anderson, 2006, pp. 127-128). This has been a rogue of Satan to distract individuals from their life purpose so that he may temp them. The greatest gift any individual has is to know that Christ has won their freedom and loves them with his unconditional love. Christ has won our freedom and redeemed us from the curse of sin.
The practice of exorcism can be dated all the way back to the New Testament when Jesus casted out evil spirits. He healed many people, but only a quarter of his miracles were considered exorcisms. The apostles were also exorcists by definition because it was known to be a true sign of discipleship. In ancient cultures, such as Mesopotamia, both physical and psychological sickness was connected to the idea of being possessed. As time passed, others, including Martin Luther who was a German theologian who led a reformation, used this form of casting out of evil spirits. However, by 1600, all Protestants rejected this idea as being superstitious. In the 1900s American evangelicals invigorated exorcism, but it did not catch on until 1970 when the movement swept Protestant and Catholic Churches (Rivenburg).
NLT). We are not to walk away from sin we are to run! God makes it clear. Sin is not a bargaining tool that we allow certain sins to be more deadly than others are. Sin is sin.
We are all sinners. Although one may try hard not to sin, all humans eventually succumb at some time or another to sin. While people may not able to avoid the fate which awaits them, the power of free will allows people to decide how they will respond to sin. While some may respond with guilt and regret, others may react with a sense of redemption and a renewed sense of responsibility.
Next, Satanism is misunderstood for many reasons these include: the way in which the media portrays it, false accounts of Satanic Ritual Abuse, and people who claim Satanc status without knowing what exactly Satanism is. There have been numerous accounts where the media exaggerates certain cases. For example in Hammond, Louisiana there was a man named Pastor Louis Lamonica Jr. He was pastor of the local church in town, he also happened to be a psychopath and a rapist. The media claimed the man was a Satanist because he had raped children in a church when in fact he thought that was what God wanted of him. The Pastor was not alone in these horrid crimes his accomplices included, his wife Robin, Austin Trey Bernard, and Austin’s wife Nicole Bernard. The group raped numerous babies and supposedly slaughter animals in the name of Satan however, there is no evidence proving the latter ever occurred. The only reason the case got misinterpreted as a case of Satanic Ritual Abuse was that Lammonica described the youth room where they committed such terrible crimes as black and as everyone knows The Church of Satan runs out of The Black House. This case became so publicized that it even got an episode of HBO’s True Detective made about it. Of course, in the show it was far more gruesome and demonic than the real event which did not involve the devil or Satanism in any form. It was just an average psychotic Pastor who will spend the rest of his years in jail which is far from unseen within the Church of God. Another example of the media over exaggerating Satanism and turning it into a cult is the incident in Johannesburg, South Africa where a girl was murdered. The victim was only seventeen and she was murdered by her fellow classmates. Th...
Prior to open practice of Satanism, the Roman Catholic church used Satanism as a label for individuals and groups who held views or ideologies that conflicted with those of the church. This was an attempt to delegitimize their opponents and to strengthen the Church’s following. While these accusations were initially harmless and limited to heretics, they became increasingly frequent and extreme. These wild accusations spread to rumors of violent rituals claimed to be performed by Satanists which built up to widespread fear and panic. Ultimately, this would result in events like the Salem Witch Trials where innocent people were put to death due to false suspicion of individuals performing witchcraft and becoming possessed by the Devil. Ironically, while the church merely intended to bolster both its image and following with these accusations, the widespread panic that resulted put Satanism on the map, and “several scholars identify fundamentalist Christianity as one of the major influences shaping and driving the” onset of the Satanist movement (Underwager and Wakefield, 281). This sheds light on the true relationship between the conflicting belief systems of Christianity and Satanism. Although the two are at odds on even the most basic levels, their relationship is largely codependent. Christianity uses the fear surrounding Satanism and the
Bray, Gerald. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. New Testament VI Romans. (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1998)
Clifford, Richard J., A Commentary by… Proverbs, The Old Testament Library. Editorial Advisory Board; James L. Mays, Carol A. Newsom, David I. Petersen. Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky, 1999.
Romans 8:31-39 is Paul’s grand celebration of the triumph of God’s elect over all possible opposition, a song for certain victory in and through Jesus Christ. Of particular interest in it are Paul’s use of courtroom imagery and the Hebrew scriptures, his Christology, his examples of opposition, and his setting of the passage in space and time. In this paper we consider the text’s structure, its context in Romans, its message to his audience, and its theological significance. Quotations are taken from the NRSV or my attempt at a more literal translation. Biblical citations without book refer implicitly to Romans; verse citations given without chapter refer to Rom 8.
Interpreting Satan’s rant, he says that everyone has their own mind. Whether or not they’re in Heaven or hell physically, they can make it feel as another mentally. He also questions what makes God any greater than him or him any less that God. Satan figures at least he is free to roam and rule in Hell. In his mind, being king is more important, even if it is in Hell. He also believes that by no means can God drive them away from their throne in Hell.
Theopedia, an Encyclopedia of Biblical Christianity." Theopedia, an Encyclopedia of Biblical Christianity. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2014. (Theopedia) (Theopedia)
First, a sign someone is possessed is if they are speaking in a language they have never learned. This is different from talking in tongues, which is a religious language, not possession. The second way is knowing and revealing that the person has no earthly way of knowing. The person may not know things they previously knew or know how to do something that they should know how to do. The third way is physical strength beyond the person’s natural self or physical makeup. They may be way stronger than they appear or get drastically stronger. The final way is a strong dislike to God, the Virgin Mary, the cross, or other Catholic figures in the Catholic