Automatic Transcript Generated:
Speaker 1
Person is asking how come that every time I mention God in my dreams, I’ll be having sleep paralysis and suffocation to a point where I struggle to breathe.
Speaker 2
So I don’t know. Is that that’s something you even could relate to? Wendy, does that sound familiar?
Speaker 1
Well, not so much in my sleep, but certainly called somatic response to things where when certain things that go on in our mind or in our emotions, it can have a very strong physiological impact on us. And, of course, this is very common with anxiety and with various kinds of emotional concerns that people have fears, that sort of thing. They can have very strong physiological reactions, whether in our throat, in our chest, in our breathing, throughout our bodies. That’s the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear this or when I read this question is how is that experience being processed on some level in the mind?
Speaker 2
Yeah, maybe it’s that I thought you also, though, said you used to, like early on your spiritual journey, would feel that paralysis, too, when you’d be lying in bed.
Speaker 1
Oh, you’re talking about the sleep paralysis part. I was thinking more about that. I struggle with a brief part. Yeah. I’ve definitely had sleep paralysis, and I’ve definitely had times when I have been sort of awake. Part of me woke up, but part of me, like my brain was awake, but my body was still kind of frozen and I couldn’t move it in my sleep. And it just happened. It’s something that’s happened to me once in a while. And from what I understand, there is a physiological process that when we go to sleep, the way God designed our brains to work and our body to work is that we go into different chemicals, shift around, and our body is kind of put to sleep when we are sleeping to help us do everything it needs to do while we’re sleeping and not have all the other functions going on that don’t need to be running. And that is part of the process.
Speaker 2
But what is I totally thought you said that it may be a story I heard from somebody else where I’ve heard people talk about how they would be in bed, feel paralyzed and feel like there’s some object or person pinning them down almost early on in their Christian walk.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I didn’t have that. I never felt pinned down, but I have just.
Speaker 2
But what she’s describing or he is describing is a thing. It is a phenomenon that people encounter. It’s interesting that the person asking a question says it happens in dreams. So I don’t know the implication of that. But maybe this is a good time to talk about demon possession and how we deal with it before we do. If you’re just joining us, please give us a shout out. Let us know you’re here. Kel, thank you for joining us. Welcome back. Glad you are with us again today. And as we go along, feel free to ask us questions to clarify. We love your comments, too. People always here have great comments. So let’s first take a look at Acts 19 starting up verse 13. And this is a good word of warning not to just go and play around with demons, that it’s a very serious manner and it has health and safety implications. And by the way, we look like we have more people joining us. We have Ezra joining us. And Scott, welcome. Thank you for joining us today. So Acts 19 sign in verse 13. It says, then some of the innocent Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, we exercise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.
Speaker 2
So these are Jewish exorcists. It’s not saying necessarily they’re Christian, but they’re realizing there’s power in the name of Jesus, and they’re trying to exercise Jesus, sorry, exercise demons. And then we see in verse 14 also, there were seven sons of Skiva who was a Jewish priest, and they tried to do the same thing. And then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them even before the evil spirit answers and said, Jesus, I know, Paul, I know, but who are you? And then the man leaps upon them and they’re overpowered. They get prevailed upon and they flee. Even their clothes are ripped off of them. They’re wounded. I mean, that’s embarrassing. That’s painful. They could have lost their lives. This was a very serious thing they did. So it’s not something to just go play around and cast out demons is not necessarily a matter of just invoking some words, invoking the name of Jesus. So how does it really work? Well, we come to this story in Matthew 17, seven to 21. And Jesus had just come back from the amount of Transfiguration. And he’s told that there’s a father who brought his son who has a demon.
Speaker 2
And the disciples who were down there helping people couldn’t get out. This demon, Jesus says at verse 17, Faithless and perverse generation. How long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Ping him here to me. And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, Why could we not cast it out? So Jesus said to them, Because of your unbelief. For surely a sad to you. If you have faith as mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind of spirit does not go out except by prayer and fasting. So that’s a lot to digest there. What is Jesus teaching here? So he’s first criticizing these people for lack of faith and then says, this demon really needed prayer and fasting. Jesus here is really saying the power to bring out this demon isn’t within us. What does fasting do? Fasting is humbling. It is saying, I’m less Lord, reduce me and Lord, be bigger in my life.
Speaker 2
And when we see the part about faith, what is faith? Faith is depending on the promises of God. Faith is recognizing how we are powerless. But God is faithful. And so we can trust him to take care of us, trust him to handle situations. And that is at the core of really how to deal with demons. It’s not finding the power within yourself. It’s not a matter of us having the strength or being able to just say these magic words. They’ll deal with it. In fact, the safest way to deal with the demon is not even to speak with it. Let’s take a look at Jude, Jude one, nine. Michael the Archangel, as Jesus before he became Jesus as a human. He says in contending with the devil, with Satan, he disputed about the Bible, the body of Moses, and dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, the Lord rebuke you. So what do we see here? What’s Jesus doing? Is Jesus like doing all these arguments? Oh, Satan away with you. You don’t own this. You don’t own Moses. You don’t do this. Your table. You have no rights. No. What did he do?
Speaker 2
He just rebuked the demon. He just rebuked Satan. The Lord rebuke you. That’s it. How many people do we see claiming to be Exorcist who then put on these big shows where they’re speaking with the demon, engaging with the demon. Is that a safe practice? Think of what happened to Eve. Eve was speaking with Satan. They are in the Garden of Eden speaking with that serpent and she got outsmarted or the sons of skiva. They try engaging with more or less their own strength and got totally beaten up. But Christ with his power is able to intervene. Christ and by the power of God, is able to just cast them out. So let God handle it and don’t speak to demon. Speak to God. We need prayer and fasting. And that’s the formula to bring out a spirit. Elder Ezra often says everything is done in the power of Jesus. Exactly. And yeah, I did suggest earlier that he doesn’t have the power. Right. But even he was giving the example. Right. The Lord rebuke you. We let God do the rebuking. Zachariah three, one to five. Let’s look at these verses. This is Old Testament.
Speaker 2
And we see this man, Joshua, the high priest, and he’s standing before the angel of the Lord. Again, Michael precarnate Jesus, and Satan is standing at the right hand to oppose him. So Satan is the accuser and he’s there claiming ownership or claiming rights to Joshua or saying he’s a terrible person, he’s a sinner, whatever it is. How does Christ deal with him. In verse two, it says, and the Lord said to Satan, The Lord rebuke you, Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you. Is this not a brand plucked from the fire? And verse three says, Now Joshua was closed with filthy garment, was standing before the angel. So what is Joshua doing? What is he doing? He’s just standing there. He’s not doing anything. Yeah, he’s not doing anything. And Jesus is the one doing the rebuking. Verse four says, and he answered and spoke to those who stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And to him, Jesus said, See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes. And I said, Let them put a clean turban on his head.
Speaker 2
So they put a clean turban on his head, and they put clothes on him. And the angel of the Lord stood by same thing. We’re dealing with a demon. Christ is the one who will purify us, give us clean robes, in a sense, a fresh start. He’s the one that will stand by us. He’s the one who will rebuke the demon. So this is completely 180 again from what we see in Hollywood, what we see probably from mainstream Christianity, this concept of just depending on God to do it, letting God be the one to handle the demons. And let’s close out with this last story where we have the Luke ten. God sent out the disciples, 70 of them. By the way, this is starting at verse 17. So Luke Ten, starting at verse 17. They’ve gone out and they’re performing miracles of doing amazing things. They’re spreading the gospel. And when they return with joy, they said, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. Who do they seem to be kind of glorifying in that statement themselves? Yeah, they’re subject to us. So how did Jesus respond? Verse 18, he says, and he said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
Speaker 2
So first thing he says, like, Dude, I totally was there. Even when Satan was falling. I know what he’s like. I’m the one with the knowledge, the background. I was there. Behold, I, Jesus, give you the authority to trample on serpents and Scorpions over all the power of the enemy. And nothing shall by any means hurt you nevertheless or read it as. But verse 20, do not rejoice in this. Don’t be proud in this. Don’t let that get to your head that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. So Jesus is redirecting that again, to casting out demons is maybe it’s a privilege that he gives us, but really still, it’s dependence on him. He’s really the one doing it. He’s the one with the power and authority, the one that’s carrying it out. And so we really put ourselves in a dangerous situation when we directly try to engage in the spirits. But as we see again and again and again in the Bible, Christ was always there to eject demons from people. This is something he really wants us to do. I think we talked about last week.
Speaker 2
We read the Bible verse where Jesus is like the guy who goes in and ties up the strong man. He goes into strong man’s fortress, ties up that strong man and then plunders that guy. That strong man being Satan. Jesus will tie up Satan and plunder anybody who’s in Satan’s Dominion and bring them back. That’s the type of guy Jesus is. That’s the image he wants us to view him. And Kel Green has a great comment. He says that’s why he wants us to go to him and not anyone else. He knows what’s best for us. Exactly. So Jesus knows he’s the guy in charge. He has the power. He wants to back us up. If we give him a chance to intervene in our lives, if by faith we depend on him, by faith we trust him, and by faith we humble ourselves and let God work in our lives. So, Jr, hey, what’s up, Jr? He asked when Jesus said to the disciples, Rejoice, your names are written in heaven, was Judith also in that context? That’s a deep question, at least in the context of Matthew 17. It’s talking about the 70.
Speaker 2
Oh, no, that was Luke Ten. Yeah, that was in Luke ten. So there says the 70 returns. So that’s a different group than the twelve. So maybe that’s the reason why we could say Satan wasn’t a part of that group. And Jesus was correct in saying all these people’s names were written in the Kingdom of heaven. But another option could be your name can be written in the book of heaven and then you can lose it through your decisions down the road. Great question.
Speaker 1
Anything else on that question?
Speaker 2
I think we’re pretty thorough.
Speaker 1
Okay, cool.
Speaker 2
Maybe. Tina, do you have any other thoughts? How about you guys are joining us today?
Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean, as far as when it comes to things like that, like weird experiences, spiritual experiences that happen in the physical world, it’s difficult to say, is this physical, is this spiritual? And it’s always important that we come to God and we are asking him in prayer and the Bible talks about examining yourself to see if you’re in the faith. And so it’s kind of like, I guess, coming to God and being like God, is there something wrong with me? Is there something spiritually going on that’s allowing something negative spiritual to happen, or is this just a bizarre phenomenon that can be explained by science because they are saying that this is happening during a dream, dreams happen during what, level four REM sleep, something like that. And so, you know, could this just be a weird, you know, part of your REM sleep cycle and you can talk to your doctor about it and see if he can explain something or he or she can explain if something like that happens, but also just praying and seeing, praying God, if there’s any evil spirit that I’m allowing my life, show me and help me to cleanse it from my life.
Speaker 3
Because the Bible says that with God, it says the wicked one touches him not. And so I want to claim this verse for you, actually, if you guys don’t mind me find it really this really.
Speaker 2
Go ahead. I could jump to a comment that Scott Webb said referring to what we’re just talking about, about Judas. And as I said, yeah, our names are written in the Lamps book of life from the foundation of the world. If it’s not blotted out, we will be there. Yeah.
Speaker 3
Amen. Yeah. So just really quick, the verse that I’m talking about is one John 518 that says, we know that whosoever is born of God sins, not, but he that has begotten of God, keeps himself and that wicked one touches him not. So if we’re removing sin, removing evil from our lives, then God is going to keep us and the wicked one isn’t going to be able to touch us. But it’s when we allow the devil in some way, shape or form into our lives, whether it’s through some form of sin, some form of just love for something in the world, we have to be really careful. And so because the devil definitely wants to keep his stronghold on us and he doesn’t want us to be close to God and he might be trying to scare you into whenever I’m close to God, then bad things happen to me because I’ve heard of people saying things like that. And I’m like, well, that’s probably because the enemy is real and he doesn’t want you close to God. So drawn eye to God, he’ll draw near to you and ask God to remove all sin from your life.
Speaker 3
And as you are washed clean, because one John one nine says if we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, then you can have confidence that like it says in one John five seven, that the wicked one cannot touch you because you are gods and you belong 100% to him.
Amen.
Speaker 2
Amen. Kel Green actually has a good point. He says, I’m going to stop watching horror movies. And actually, I think that’s a really good principle to take even further where. Yeah, I mean, it should be really mindful of the music. We’re listening to, the food we eat. I mean, everything we’re doing is impacting our body, impacting our mind. And yes, you’re right. You never know if you really are giving Satan a foothold, even directly spiritually.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 2
But if you’re watching movies and things like that, you’re also giving him a chance to program your mind in another way too. That’s a great point.
Speaker 3
That’s a really good point.
Speaker 1
I will share what I think you were referring to when you were asking me that question at the beginning but it didn’t quite fit the context there. I felt but it kind of does with what Tina was talking about. That I did have this experience at one point where I was asleep and I was kind of awake. Like I’d woken up but my body was still in that paralysis state. And this was at a time when I was kind of struggling with my spiritual views and I knew there was a higher power. I knew there was a spiritual realm but I was still trying to figure out what was of God and what was not. And there was an experience where this time I was sleeping and that I was awake but my body was frozen. That I felt the presence of evil beings in my room and there was just this ominous distressing sort of presence about it or negative presence about it. And at least one came close to me. Like I even felt the bed move by me but because I was claiming Jesus because I was not giving them the foothold, they couldn’t actually affect me.
Speaker 1
And when I did claim Jesus and said, you know what? I am safe because of Jesus and this is a place for Jesus to live when I claimed it like that, they fled. They fled. And that was just the reality of it. That and peace came over me in my room. So I do believe that there can be a spiritual realm can certainly affect us when we are sleeping or try to affect us when we are sleeping. But Jesus protects us. And if we claim Jesus, the presence of Jesus deters the evil presence. And that is why, though we walk through the Valley of the shadow of death, we shall fear no evil for he is with us. If God is with us, we don’t need to be afraid. We can just continue to claim God and claim his presence. And from a spiritual perspective, we have that protection and the evil spirits cannot cannot affect us.
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