As we continue looking at the issue of spirit beings, we are spending the first few sessions discussing the evil spirits, which are often called demons or demonic beings. Then we will spend a couple sessions focusing on the good spirit beings that we call angels.
We are so glad the Lord has transferred us, as believers, out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of His Son. So, in some sense, we are untouchable. The demonic creatures only have so much they can do to us. In I John 4:4 it says, “You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” That tells me, along with another passage of Scripture, that demons cannot inhabit the body of a Christian. We know, in the gospels especially, and a little bit in Acts that there is such a thing as demonic creatures who can inhabit the bodies of people. We find those that are known as demon possessed or demonized. They are primarily at the time of Christ. Many believe that the devil pulled out all the stops doing anything he could to throw Jesus off the track of going to the cross and dying for us. Whatever that is, that is primarily where we hear about demon possession and then a few occasions in the book of Acts, and then that pretty much disappears from the pages of Scripture.
Can demons possess people today? Probably so, but if so, it would be unsaved people, not God’s people. If you are a Christian, you need to never fear that Satan could inhabit you and possess you. That is a great comfort, “Greater is He that is in us than he who is in the world.” The Holy Spirit that is within us is not going to take up residence with Satan, you can rest in that. Nevertheless, Satan can influence us, and his demons can influence us. Ephesians 6:12 tells us, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” We were in that verse last time, but this time we are going to back up to the first part and notice that we do have a struggle against demonic creatures. Our primary enemy in this world is not evil people, it is not the world systems, those are things Satan uses. Our primary enemy is Satan and his demons who we struggle against, and Paul wants to make that very clear to us. We are fighting against these “forces of darkness in heavenly places.” There is a real struggle . . .
