#STRask - Can Evil Spirits Come into Our Lives Through Certain Music and Movies?

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

Questions about whether evil spirits can come into our lives through openings like certain music and movies and whether putting Bible verses under your pillow to stop nightmares is a legitimate form of spiritual warfare.   What do you think about the idea that evil spirits can come into our lives through different openings like certain music and movies? My friend said her nightmares stopped after she wrote Bible verses on cards and placed them under her pillow. Is this over-spiritualization, or is this actual spiritual warfare?

Welcome. You're listening to Amy Holland Gray-Kochel on the Hashtag SDR Ask podcast. Thank you for joining us, and thank you for sending in your questions. We collect your questions from Twitter and our website, so we look forward to hearing from you if you have anything to ask us. We do. Okay, Greg, we have kind of unusual set of questions today. The first one comes from Jackie. I believe evil spirits can come into our lives through different openings, if you will, like certain music and movies. I'm curious what your take on this is. Well, the question I'd have, pardon me, is the justification for that. What are the reasons, Jackie, what are the reasons you think this is the case? Now, there are two potential reasons. One is a biblical reason, where you have biblical examples of people being exposed to, say, compromised circumstances,

and as a result, demons then enter into interaction with those people in some fashion. I'm not aware of any of that. In fact, Paul says, even regarding idols, an idol is nothing. In fact, Paul says, even regarding idols—an idol is nothing. There's no indication from anything that I'm aware of. Somebody could point out a verse and say, well, here's the way I take this verse, but I don't see that in the text, that somehow objects are compromised theologically, I don't know the right way to say it, are means of demonic intervention. So here's a Buddha, a little Buddha thing, you know. You can't have that in your house. Well, that's demonic. You have that object in your life. The demons that are associated with the falsehood of Buddhism

are going to be after you. Now, I lived in Thailand. That's a Buddhist country. And they have all kinds of spirit fetishes, so to speak. That is, even though Buddhism is the kind of official religion of the country, The visceral religion, where people really live, is animism. Their understanding of belief in spirits and the belief that they can control spirits by these different little methodologies or objects. That's what I refer to as fetishes. But demons can't be controlled by any of that stuff. And I have no reason, since the demons can't be controlled by

these objects, I don't see how the demons can control anybody in virtue of having the object. Okay, now it is true, the Ephesians, when they became Christians, they burned a lot of their occultic books. But it's not clear at all there that the reason they burned them is because they had the presence of demons associated with them, and if they didn't get rid of them, they would still be open to the impact of demons. I think the reason that they burned them is out of fidelity to Christ. This is an old way of life. This is all nonsense. We're not following this anymore. We're burning it, and we're moving forward. It was a very visible display of repentance. That is a change, a metanoia, a transformation in thinking, a change in mind. And I'm just trying to think

if there's any other examples of that in the New Testament where there is any hint that demons are associated with things in a way that it increases the possibility of demonic influence by also being associated with those things. I don't think we ever see how one of those things started. The only time I can think of where it talks about a demon going into someone would be Judas. That's the only example. Everyone else, you never see where it begins. Initiates, right, right. And so I just don't see this.

Now, look, if people—I can think of times when we went into a place that it was a place we rented. I was with a discipleship group. It was a long time ago, late 80s. We had a retreat in the mountains, and this house we rented had all kinds of stuff, and we prayed in every room. Certainly no harm in that, okay? And I actually felt more comfortable once we had prayed over everything, you know? But I'm not sure if there was any efficacy to that. It was kind of like, just to be sure, let's just pray over this place that we're in that obviously somebody with occultic sentiments had lived in. Here's, you know, crystals and incidents they had decorated with and other objects. And so we prayed,

and that made us all feel more comfortable. But I don't know any theological justification for that. Okay, so I mentioned there's two ways that this might be justified, one biblically and the other one from personal experience. One might say, well, I don't have a verse to justify this, but I know that when we had this object, this Ouija board was in our house, and just being there, not using it, that's different. That's active complicity. But just having it there, we had all kinds of odd manifestations. And when we got rid of the Ouija board, we got rid of the manifestations. That would be another way of arguing for it, in principle at least. But it seems to me to verify or to be able to justify the claim that objects can have demonic associations that then influence Christians who are in close contact

with those objects needs some kind of justification, either biblical or in terms of personal experience. But I don't see that. Certainly nothing was offered here, just the belief that these things can be harmful to Christians. Well, my question is, what is meant by, quote, come into our lives? Does that mean that they are bothering you? Does that mean you're possessed? So that's hard for me to respond without knowing what that means. But one thing I will say, because what Jackie says here, the things she mentions are music and movies. And so what I would say is when you look at how spiritual warfare is described, part of it, obviously, you have the power encounters of Jesus with the demons and that sort of thing.

But you also have combating false ideas. Truth encounters. Yeah. So and this is what Paul talks about, you know. So, certainly in a movie or in music, you could have false ideas influencing you. And certainly demons can use that to bother you or to upset you or to mislead you. So, I think in that sense, this is why we have to be careful about what we're putting into our minds in the first place. Not because a demon rides along with it and comes into you, but because they will use that to torment you in certain ways or to lead you astray from the truth.

And so you have to be thinking about what you're seeing and what you're hearing and always be fighting the false ideas with the truth in your own mind so that you are not being made, you know, either emotionally upset or just intellectually going astray from the truth. You know, a couple of passages that support this notion that you're just suggesting, one obvious one, 2 Corinthians chapter 10. Is it 10? I think it's 10. Yeah, 10, like 3 and 4, something like that. In any event, Paul mentions that the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. Okay, so, wow, now he's talking about pretty obviously spiritual warfare. Then he says, remember, destruction of fortresses. Okay, so, wow, now he's talking about pretty obviously spiritual warfare. Then he says, remember, destruction of fortresses. Then he says immediately, next verse,

we are tearing down destruction. We are tearing down speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Now, if you take that last phrase, in isolation, it sounds like we ought to be thinking pure thoughts, which we ought to be thinking pure thoughts, but I don't think that's what he's talking about. You look at the whole pericope, the whole unit of thought there, and he's talking about spiritual warfare related to ideas that are raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are to be thinking in such a way as to be thinking accurately and truthfully about God. And when it comes to these other ideas that are contrary to that, we are

dismantling them. We are tearing them down. So, that weapon that he is talking about is the weapon of truth wielded by the Christian to assault false ideas. Now, this brings me to the second passage, which ties in directly, and it's just surprising to me when people talk about spiritual warfare, they're almost always talking about existential things, experiential things. I'm being spiritually attacked in this way. And I have no doubt that the devil can cause hardship in our life and difficulty and that kind of thing. And so now we have to bind these whatever, you know, and all this other stuff. So there's that power encounter thing. But the passages that explicitly describe the spiritual dimension that we are to oppose, the one I just mentioned, 2 Corinthians 10.

How about Ephesians 6? That whole last half of the chapter is all about that. And that passage says, put on the full armor of God. That's how you stand firm against the schemes of the devil. Not just the influence or the power of the devil, the schemes. Now, schemes are ideological things, and they're machinations that, since he's a liar and the father of lies, and he lies according to his own nature, and that's all Jesus stuff, John Adish, then the schemes are going to be probably ideological lies that become persuasive to people because they are blinded.

And we know they're blinded by a number of different passages about the devil. 2 Corinthians 4, 2 Timothy 2, the last couple of verses there, held captive by him to do his will. 1 John 5, the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. They're all blinded by these falsehoods. And the antidote that Paul describes in Ephesians 6 is the armor. Well, what's the armor? The first piece is the belt of truth. No duh, you know? And then notice all the rest of those things have to do with theological verities, okay? The helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, shouting your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, okay? So, you know, it's very interesting the way Paul tells us to be able to

defend so we can stand firm has to do with all of these things. Now, I remember there's a stage of my life where in the morning, and I even taught this once, in the morning, I would say this prayer, okay, Lord, I'm putting on the helmets of salvation. Okay, I'm taking up the shield of faith. And I went through all the armor, you know, as if I was arming myself by declaring those objects as being part of me. That did no good, because it's not declaring the objects are part of me. It's having an understanding about salvation that protects us. That's what I mean by theological verity. It's not putting on the—I'm putting on the belt of truth. Look, if you put on the belt of truth in that sense, and you don't know what the truth is, you're not protected. The sword of the Spirit, here it is, I'm wielding it. Well, if you

don't know the word, you know, you've got a rubber sword. And so, what he's describing there are the kinds of theological things we have to be properly informed on so that they serve as a bulwark against the attacks of the enemy, which are largely and principally ideological falsehoods. That's great, Greg. I have nothing to add to that. That was so well said. All right, let's go on to the next question from Worldview Cafe.

My friend said she was having nightmares. One day she decided to write Bible verses on cards and place them under her pillow. She said the nightmares stopped. Is this over-spiritualization, confusing causation and correlation, or is this actual spiritual warfare? I have no reason to believe it's the last. I think it's well-intentioned, but I'm just going to say this without meaning any harm, but I think without condescension, this is a description. It's superstitious. It is superstitious. There is no power in words written on a card that you put under your pillow. Okay. If there were power in that, anybody could put

those words under their pillow and then have that power. Okay? There's no power to that. Now, there may be an element of writing those things down and the act of writing and reflecting on them. Like somebody said, I put them on my pillow so that every night I can read these things before I go to sleep and remind myself of the truth, and now I sleep better. Okay, fine. Interestingly, this has been happening a lot lately. I was reading last night when I went to bed. I do a little reading in the Word just to kind of finish in Psalm 3, okay? And in Psalm 3, we have a statement about sleeping, ironically. And let me get to it here.

There's so many pages of Psalms. Oops, that's Job. Where is it? That's Job. That's Job. Let's get past Job. Let's get past Job. Job, you are hard reading. Oh, man. Lots of Job. Okay. Psalm 3, how my adversaries have increased. Many are rising against me. Many are saying of my soul, there is no deliverance for him in God, but you, O Lord, are a shield about me. My glory and the one who lifts my head. I was crying to the Lord with my voice. He answered me from the holy mountain. I lay down and slept. I awoke, for the Lord sustains me. I will not be afraid of ten thousand people who have set themselves against me round about. Notice how the psalmist, David there, I imagine, is reflecting on the nature and character of God

to protect him from hardship, and it is that understanding that allows him to sleep well. He didn't say, I wrote these words down in a parchment, I stuck it under my pillow, and oh, man, I felt better. So that's why I say it's superstition, because what superstition is, is when you assign causal power to something that has no causal power, like a rabbit's foot. Oh, that's good luck. Wait a minute, my dad told me this. That rabbit had four of those things, and where is he? You know? So, yeah, I think this, with respects, Worldview Cafe, I think that's superstition. That's not going to help you at all. If you're having verses that you think are relevant to your

circumstance that you're reflecting on at night, like when I'm going to bed, the first thing I read other things at night, but I always make sure, almost always, that I go through Psalms and Proverbs back and forth, back and forth. Yeah, I suspect that was why things got better. You're reflecting on the verses, you're writing them down, you have them there so you maybe feel, and you're reminded of what they say, and then that comforts you. It's the ideas that are helping the friend and not the piece of paper. Now, the idea that we can have certain trinkets or amulets or things that will ward off spirits, that's a pagan idea. And we need to resist that. And the reason why we don't need those things is because God has all power. We don't have to try and manipulate the spirits. We don't have to do certain things to get them to go away or whatever. Think about the man who said, Jesus, you don't even have to come to my house. All you have to do is command that the demon leaves and he will leave because he understood that Jesus has the power. We don't have to make it happen by doing certain rituals or certain saying things a certain

way or doing a certain thing. We can ask him and he will listen to us. And we have to trust that he is the one with the power, not us. And that's a good thing. And we don't need to go to all these other ways of manipulating spirits. And it's not just the amulets. It's also words. People think words have certain power. And they go to Hebrews, the Word of God is living and active. Or they go to Isaiah, my word will not return void. But they take from that the wrong lesson.

And they think saying the words is the power is in the words. Well, that's abracadabra stuff. That's open sesame stuff. There is no power in those words. If the power was in the word, and some people use Jesus' name like this, power is in the name of Jesus. You got to say those words. Well, then anyone saying the power words would get the same effect. And it's interesting, we see this in the book of Acts, where there are seven sons of Sceva who are Jewish exorcists that are trying to exorcise a demon from a man, or demons. And they said, I adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches. Right, right. And the demon said, now notice, they you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches. Right, right.

And the demon said, now notice, they're using the right words. The demon says, I know about Jesus. Wait, how does he put it? Jesus, I know. Paul, I know. Or something like that. But who are you? And then he beats them all up, and they run away, these seven men, naked and bleeding

is what the text says. So, one man in demonic power is not influenced by their proper words because they are not speaking in the proper name of Jesus. So, speaking in the name of Jesus does not mean saying the name of Jesus. This is such a massive misunderstanding. It's why everybody uses this phrase at the end of their prayers, in the name of Jesus, amen, as if that's the everybody uses this phrase at the end of their prayers, in the name of Jesus, amen, as if that's the magic phrase. Well, the Bible says we should pray in the name of Jesus, but that doesn't mean saying in the name of Jesus. There is many, many prayers in the New Testament. None of them end that way. Praying in the name of Jesus means to be praying in his authority or based on the acceptance we have with the Father

through Christ. Okay? That's what that means. You never have to ever say it in order to be praying the way that that verse, that promise, is intending you to pray. You are going before the Father not on your own merit, not based on your own virtues, but in Christ. And when you're praying in Christ, now you have a whole different standing with the Father. And that's the point of that. It's not saying these words. And what ends up happening is people get superstitious about the words. Just say the name Jesus.

That will whatever. If you don't have Jesus in you, on your side, working for you, saying the word in English, J-E-S-U-S, is not magic. It's not abracadabra. It's not open sesame. It's not hocus pocus. It's a mistake because there's no power in the words themselves. That's not what the New Testament means when it makes references that sound like that. That is an occultic view of language. This is exactly what we human beings, we just gravitate towards this, this idea that we can have certain things that we do to manipulate reality

or spirits or whatever. And it's so freeing to know that we don't have to do that because God has the power. That's just so freeing. And it's something that has, I think you can see a huge difference in the West because of all of the influence that Christianity has had versus other areas of the world where they do have a lot of rituals and things they do to control the spirits or manipulate them or whatever. So this is something that we can rest in, rest in God's power. All right, Greg, we're out of time. But just as a little teaser, I think we'll continue on this topic in the next show. So thank you for listening. We look forward to having you back again with us.

This is Amy Hall and Greg Coco for Stand to Reason.