The Sean McDowell Show - Demonic Encounters and Spiritual Darkness (w/ Steve Dabbs)

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Steve Dabbs is a retired senior military chaplain with over 35 years of full-time expertise in pastoral care. Throughout his life and ministry, he has encountered demonic activity, which he chronicles in his new book "When Demons Surface." In this interview, he talks about the supernatural encounter that lead him to faith, common misconceptions about demons, and how to confront spirits of darkness. His book releases July 23 (and is available for pre-order now). READ: When Demons Surface: True Stories of Spiritual Warfare and What the Bible Says about Confronting the Darkness by Steve Dabbs (https://amzn.to/4eWlQyY) WEBSITE: www.IAmSteveDabbs.com *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Are demons real? And if so, how do we confront their spiritual darkness? Our guest today, retired chaplain, colonel in the U.S. Air Force, is the author of a new provocative book called When Demons Surface. It is full of chilling personal anecdotes and also biblical insights and wisdom, how to proceed in light of some of these chilling, chilling stories we're going to get into. Steve, thanks for writing a fascinating book and joining me today. Absolutely. It's my honor. Well, let's jump right in. You start, no surprise in a book like this, with a chilling story that got me right at the introduction where you said it took you 10 years to share a particular story. So I'm curious, why did you wait so long

to share this story? And of course, what was this story? Well, actually, I waited because, you know, I don't believe that we were living in a society that was open to the supernatural. And so I didn't know if anybody would even believe me. And so pretty much I was taught when I was coming up that if you didn't bother the devil, he wouldn't bother you. And pretty much for most of my life, that was pretty much the case until I gave my life to Christ, rededicated my life to Christ. And after that, that's when I started having a lot of paranormal activity in my bedroom. So I'm sorry, go ahead. Oh, I was going to say, tell us about that story, if you will. You know, I got permission from my best friend from high school, Alan Gill, to share his name

in the first chapter because I needed people to know this actually happened to me. So pretty much, I remember when I was in high school, I was probably 16, 17, and I got a job at a restaurant. And my friend, Alan Gill, he was my transportation there and back. And every Saturday night, I hated the fact that he would always ask me, hey, you want to go to church with me in the morning? And so he actually convinced me one day when he said, hey, you know, my church is where all the high school girls go. I said, well, why didn't you tell me that in the first place? Count me in. And shortly after that, sure enough, I went to church with him that Sunday. And I said,

well, he's right. This is where most of the high school girls go. And I recall about two or three weeks after that, I kept sensing God calling and tugging at my heart to give my life to him. And I decided that right before we went to work that day, on that Saturday, I decided it was time to have a meeting with God. And I remember pointing my fingers to the ceiling like this. And I pretty much told God I'm willing to give up this sin, this sin, this sin, as long as I can reserve the right to chase girls. And I said, well, you think about that. And I walked out of my bedroom, slammed the door, and I left God in there to think about it. And that was pretty much the understanding of my theology at the time. I kid you not.

I came back home after work, took a shower, laid my clothes out for church the next day, went to bed. And around three o'clock in the morning, and the reason why I know the time is because I kept a clock on the other side of the bedroom. So that way, when the alarm went off, I would have to get up, turn it off. That way I wouldn't miss the bus. So I had a vision and the vision, I was in sexual activity with a beautiful girl. And then all of a sudden the girl disappeared, the bed disappeared, the floor opened up like a trap door. And I was and I fell into a lake of fire and I was awakened by my tormented screams. And the best way I can describe it, especially being a chaplain trained in and in counseling,

I pretty much had PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, you know, when it comes to dating girls. So I went cold turkey. Alan came over to the home to pick me up in my bedroom. When he walked in, I was fully dressed for church, but I had one of those big old black trash bags and I was filling it with pornographic magazines, pictures from girls, letters from girls letters from girls etc he reached in the trash can he said hey wait a minute what about this magazine and i remember slapping his hand snatching the magazine out of his his hand pushing it putting it back into the bag and we walked out to get in his car and i tied that bag out dropped it at the curb for trash pickup the next day. And that was silence all the way to church. He knew something happened to me.

He just didn't know what. And I didn't tell him for about 10 years. Oh my goodness. Because I didn't think anybody would believe me. You didn't even tell him for a decade what happened. Okay, so you had any nightmares or any experiences that you had before or that was just out of the blue kind of

dramatic experience for you? Out of the blue. I never, and to that point, I never even had, or even noticed a supernatural encounter or anything. We kind of had the cultural belief, if you leave Satan alone, he'll leave you alone. And that pretty much was my experience up until I gave my life to Christ. And then's when in my opinion all hell broke loose okay so I want to come to that but how long do you become a Christian was it like that day at church or did it take a little while for you to be a believer I actually I think I talked about it in the second chapter is that that night I sat up in my bed and I submitted my life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

I said, hey, that was too dramatic of an experience. Okay, so let's get to the point you made. I know people want to hear what you mean. You described how after becoming a Christian, there was a dark presence that started visiting your bedroom and giving you sleep paralysis through an invisible hand around your throat. You even dropped in there without giving details unless I missed it about levitation. Like you just kind of dropped it in there. What happened?

How long did it last? And how did you finally repel it? Pretty much I would say it started immediately after that. I just felt a presence in the room. And it typically started out, I remember one night being startled out of my sleep with a hand around my neck choking me. And when I reached out to grab the arm, I didn't feel an arm, but the hand was there. And so the only thing I could do is ask God for help. And sure, as soon as I asked God for help, it went away. And it was kind of like guttural,

that I could only get out the words the best way I could, being choked by this invisible force. I would say shortly after that, I remember one day, one night, waking up to my mattress being lifted from the box spring. And I just pretended as though I was still asleep. And I uttered a prayer under my my, you know, voice the best way I could. And then the the mattress slowly went back down to the to the box spring. I

was pretty much the way I can describe it, I was being spiritually bullied. and so and that is when I realized I needed to reach out to a pastor for help at that point okay so how long did that go on were you experiencing these things before you talk with the pastor I would say probably a good eight months yeah it was happening it was typically happening several times a week. And I remember the pastor, I dedicated the book to him. He died in November who else to talk to. And pretty much what he did, he listened. And then he told me, he says, Steve, your problem is you do not know who you are. And he jotted down a few scriptures for me to memorize and review. And then he handed them to

me and he changed the subject altogether. And I remember just, you know, nodding my head in approval, but in my heart, I felt insulted because I wanted pity and not a pep talk. And so later on, I was reading through Bondage Breaker, which is Neil Anderson's book, who actually serves as one of the endorsers in the book, by the way. And he has a chapter in there and he speaks, he says, "'Christ has done everything. He went to the cross, died for our sins. He disarmed Satan and his demons. He also has given us his power and authority over them.

What else do you want us to do? What else do you want God to do?' God is waiting now for us to incorporate and exercise the power and authority he's given us over demons through Christ Jesus. And that's when I learned that when Pastor Billy Hill was telling me that, he was pretty much giving me warrior talk. And that it was on me to exercise that power and authority. And I did. I talk about in the second chapter, when I read those scriptures, memorized them, realized who I was in Christ, I actually waited and it did not show up for a while. It did not. And the first time in my Christian journey, my early Christian journey, that after reading those scriptures

and incorporating them, that the evil spirit did not show up. It took a long time. I sat there and I waited for it to show up. Now, Steve, you have a background in evangelism and in apologetics. You appreciate that there's going to be some people who might say, Steve, it's a medical condition. You were dreaming. I don't buy it. What is your response to someone, whether Christian or not, who's skeptical or maybe say, oh, you're selling a book to try to make money? I'm sure there's certainly some people who feel that way. What would you say? First and foremost, I invite the discussion. If anything, the reason why I wrote the book is I wanted to get Christians to get back to discussing this topic that professor there about even the ancient Judaic studies and writings on demons.

And it's vast. So I would invite the discussion. And I invite the debate because I think it's worth discussing this. And by the way, that's why it took me 10 years to talk about it. And so so with that said, for me, it it was a reality in my life. And then shortly after my experience, I went into pastoral ministry. I started meeting other people, my clients coming in for counseling, and it was an experience for them as well. And that's when I said, hey, this is too important of a topic for us not to be discussing as a church. Now, maybe a follow-up book would be like an apologetic for the existence of the spiritual realm,

as opposed to a book for Christians, which is specifically what you're writing for here. So you're not arguing for the reliability of Scripture. You're saying, hey, we believe this is God's word, but are we really attentive to what it says and the activities of Satan and the demonic in the world around us? So that's an important distinction. Now, we're going to get to some of the pastoral experiences that you have. But one thing you describe in the book, and this kind of jumped out to me, I don't know that I've heard somebody use this kind of term before. You said after being in ministry 20 years and not only coming out of this demonic oppression yourself, but with others, you said occasionally people look at you in public with angry looks and snarls. Now, why do you think that's demonic as

opposed to maybe it's where you're from, maybe used to be in the military? I mean, there could be a lot of other reasons. How do you know and why assume and what does that look like when you get that kind of stare? I would say because it's very unnatural. For example, I was going through the drive-thru, I won't name the particular restaurant. I was going through the drive-thru. I won't name the particular restaurant. I was going through the drive-thru. I noticed that when the lady handed the car before me their meal, she was nice and friendly and bubbly. When I got there, she was like, she handed it to me, didn't speak.

She took my credit card, scanned it, didn't speak, didn't look at me. And then she said, here you go, leave. And so I've had just regular experiences like that. My children are the ones that notice it, too. Like in the mall, I talk about being in the mall of America, sitting in a food court, tired from shopping. And my kids noticing that the man, I never saw the guy, my children saw him. He lowered his newspaper and he began to have unnatural growling and facial expressions of violence towards me. And he did not do that until I sat down probably about five feet from him. And so one of my counseling sessions, I had a young lady.

She came to me for prayer. She sat there and then all of a sudden she locks up, she stands up and she starts walking out of my office backwards. And I said, hey, what's going on? At the time, I was not really well-trained. I got some comical stories about that in the book. I wasn't trained. And I said, hey, what's going on? She said, well, the demons told me I need to leave. She's speaking from her teeth out of her lips. Her teeth are still clenched. And I told her to come back. I reassured her to come back. And she sat back down and I started praying for her. And all of a sudden she has this real unnatural grin on her face.

And I'm looking at her. I don't know what to do. And she says, I said, what's going on? She said, well, the demons are laughing at you. And at that point, I just ended the session. And unfortunately, I would tell you that the unfortunate thing is I did not know what to do. And probably that young lady, unless someone who was experienced, she kind of went through, left my office and probably journeyed through her life without any support or help. And so I really wish now, knowing what I know, that I had a chance to meet with her again. Well, towards the back of the book, you have a chapter on what you call 24 true stories of demonic activity that you explained as a chaplain, you experienced as a chaplain and as a pastor. Obviously, don't give all 24. People

are going to have to get the book and read it themselves. But maybe two or three that stand out, either that are just instructive about what demonic activity is like, some that were particularly disturbing, just for whatever reason, maybe give two or three of those that jump out to you that'd be helpful. Absolutely. Let's deal with the one on ghosts um pretty much um i'll share instead of sharing my story which is very very uh intriguing i'll share a one similar from a colleague that allowed me to share it in that same chapter on ghosts okay and uh so pretty much my colleague in ministry he got a phone call from a young man saying, hey, I'm kind of troubled. My uncle keeps my dad. Uncle keeps showing up in my bedroom.

He floats like a sheet on the floor parallel to the floor until he gets to the footboard of my bed. And then he stands before me. He says he's been doing this, coming and visiting me for a while. And I'm kind of getting creeped out. And so my colleague says, "'Well, I don't think that's your uncle. And so how about I come over Thursday night and I do a prayer over your bedroom?' And so the young man says, deal. And so the next day, my friend gets a phone call and the guy is paranoid.

I mean, he is really in full panic. He said, "'Hey, my uncle, he showed up last night. And he pretty much told me he says, Look, if you tell if you tell Peter if he shows up to this house on Thursday night, I'm gonna kill him. And so Peter says, game on. Okay. The shocking thing about that phone call is, first and foremost, if the uncle was an angel, why was he threatened by prayer? How did he know that was going to happen Thursday night? And the third part of this, how did he even know Peter's name? Hmm.

Interesting. And of course, that kind of reminds us of the story in Acts when the Jewish exorcists go out and they try to cast out demons in the name of the Jesus who Paul, the apostle Paul, preaches about. And the demon rose up in the man and said, "'Paul I know and Jesus I know, but who are you?' And so I reassure Christians that if we're submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, Satan, demons, they know your name. And they know you're in a kingdom of light.

And they know that whether we realize it or not, they know that god himself has given us the power and authority over them the unfortunate thing for me i had to learn that i just didn't know it and that's what my my pastor uh pastor billy hill was was telling me hey you the problem is you don't know who you are and i and kid you not, when I learned that, that's when I realized, you know, hey, you know, I don't have to deal with this bullying anymore. And sure enough, when I did that, that's when I had victory. I saw it. Another story I can think of, I'll share a story where I was not as experienced. Okay. You know, and of course, this book is full of like,

I share over 50 true stories of demonic encounters, supernatural encounters, and I kind of divide them up throughout the book. You know, I talk about personal experience, our encounters, first part, second part, biblical insights, and then the third part is pastoral experience. So if I share some stories throughout, one would be my colleagues in ministry early on,

they didn't, you know, I grew up in a denomination, we didn't believe that people could be demonized. We didn't fully, we're not trained in it. And so I was, I have a, you know, a degree in biblical studies. I just finished up a systematic theology course. So my colleagues had gotten a young lady in our church and come to them and say, Hey, I'm demonized and I need help. And so they figured they didn't know what to do. And so they said, well, Hey, Steve, you, you had this systematic theology course.

How about you pray for the young lady? I remember showing up at the house and the the lady, they placed her in a strategic place in the living room and there was a coffee table right in front of them. And I remember the one of the pastors nodding at me that it's time to go and pray for the young lady. I walked behind her. I have a vision. That's the best way I can describe it. A thought or whatever you want to call it. I didn't understand it at the time myself.

And I had a thought of this lady when I placed my hands on her neck, that's what I was going to do, and shoulder, that she was going to pick me up and slam me down on that coffee table. And that's all I saw. And I was startled. I sat back down. We ended that session. And I recall probably a couple of minutes after that, the lady told us all, she admitted, she says, you know, the demons told me if once he puts his hands on you, pick him up and slam him down on that coffee table. Oh my goodness. And that's when I realized I need some more training. And so, yeah. So, and so that's one of the stories and that's why I, in one of of the chapters I speak of the 15 points of clarity.

And one of the things I bring out and this is debated. But one of the things I bring out is that you don't find whenever Jesus prayed for a person's healing, he touched them. However, whenever he expelled demons, he actually you don't see him touching the person. We don't see that until probably around the third century, where pretty much the ministry of exorcism is brought under the ministry of healing. And so that's why you see around the third century, basically you hear about people touching people, laying on of hands during exorcisms. But you don't see that example in the scriptures and you don't see it in the early church until like the third century. And that's my experience and why I, in my practice, I do not, when I'm praying for someone that I know is demonized, I don't place my hands

on them. I kind of place, I may hold my hand up and point it towards them, but I do not lay my hands on them. And that's, of course, that's debated. And I do not show how that was the evolution of practice in the early church. We're going to get to your approach of what it looks like to encounter or confront demons, so to your approach of what it looks like to encounter or confront demons so to speak and how it might differ from the catholic church but first i'm curious do you think satan or demonic activity is primarily through like possessions as you're explaining and demons kind of surfacing or do you think it's primarily if you just lies and deception in more subtle ways and so if somebody doesn't have this kind of experience you're talking about feels like well maybe satan

and demons are not active in my life that's that's a wonderful question um here's what i I try to encourage people to see. The Bible on three separate occasions warns us to put on the full armor of God. Secondly, the Apostle Paul in the book of Second Corinthians and also in First Timothy warns us also or describes the Christian journey of the Christian life as a war against demons. That is, we find it in all the lexical, Greek lexical examples. That is actually how that word is described. The Greek word is, I believe, I'm pronouncing this correctly is uh t.o is where we get the word strategy and so whenever it talks about war it actually comes from that greek word and it actually means that that we're in a strategic encounter with demons as a way of life it's not just something that happens in during exorcism paul describes it as a way of life. It's not just something that happens during exorcism. Paul describes it as a way of life. So it falls under the category of spiritual warfare. All of us are in that spiritual

war. And I believe I made a note to remind myself, that is why also Jesus, our Lord, actually tells us that we are to pray daily against protection or should I say protection against Satan and his and the tempter or the evil one. So if you put all those together, the warning for us to put on the full armor of God on three separate occasions, not one, not two, but three. Secondly, that Paul himself in scripture, there's lexical support that he describes the Greek words he uses, describes the Christian way of life as a war against demons. And then the third part of that, our Lord himself telling us to, we need to pray daily against protection from the evil one, then we realize that indeed we are not wrestling against flesh and blood. And so that means that many of the encounters that Christians have had, whether it's been a manifestation or demon surfacing, if we remove that part, they have probably encountered evil and not realized it.

Whether that's been someone that has an injustice that they've faced, or maybe something has happened to them and they didn't realize it in a way that's of evil, they've experienced evil in some way, even if someone is mistreating them, then that is actually falls under the category of spiritual warfare. So they've actually encountered it in their lives whether they realize it or not that makes sense i heard a pastor say that satan's primary tactic is just a disinformation campaign

because he's a murderer and he possesses but he's a liar and some of the best lies are the subtle ones where you don't even know you're being lied to about your identity, about happiness, about the word of God, etc. And so if somebody doesn't have or hasn't had the kind of experiences that you're describing, doesn't mean Satan is not operating. But on the flip side, you're saying these are more present than in fact maybe we realize. And if we'd open up our eyes to them, we'd see that Satan is acting more. So that's a really interesting balance to keep. Now, let me ask you this. Do Christians need a special spiritual gift to expel demons? Because I ask, because you've described yourself a few times, it's just not being aware and untrained and just

kind of caught off guard. Is that because you just didn't know and have a certain strategy that Christians have, or you had it all along and just weren't aware of how to operate as a Christian? You know, I think that's a, I have a, I found in the book, I had some fascinating research on that. And before I answer that question, may I also add to the last thing you said? When I had my endorsers reading through the book, one of the endorsers stated, he says, hey, wait a minute, the chapter, the story you share, which is, I keep the best for last. So the next to the last chapter, I won't give it away. It's in the book and it's the most, I would say the creepiest experience I had in the ministry of here. And so in there, I start out talking about deception being the primary tactic of the evil one,

because what we face in life is a truth encounter. And it's the first, it is the, and interestingly, it is the first attack we see in the Bible with Satan and Eve, the first supernatural, or should I say spiritual warfare battle we see is the one of deception. And so deception remains the primary most powerful tactic of the evil one. And that's why most of our experiences in spiritual warfare will be truth encounters. And so we find that even you'll appreciate this as an apologist. We find that. And I believe it's the first Corinthians, second Corinthians 10, where Paul says the weapons of our warfare are not carnal or not human, but we use it as pretty much tearing down the

strongholds of reasoning that war against a belief in Christ himself. And I'm paraphrasing, but it involves the truth encounter. And so that's what we will experience for the most part. That's why I leave. I won't give away the story. That's why it's my deception. The issue of deception is the last chapter I share for that very reason. Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Do it. Go ahead. So now moving on to your question, I, uh, interestingly, I, I, my greatest enlightenment, uh, was when I started studying on the issue of spiritual warfare is when I started studying ancient Judaism. And when I studied ancient Judaism, not only did I discover that even years, 300 years before Christ, they were already formulating ways and methods to deal with demons.

It's paramount in Judaism. And one of the things that really, really enlightened me is that in ancient Judaism, it was, they believed that every covenant believer had the authority in Yahweh to confront evil spirits. And so it was something that was taught not only by the rabbis, but the rabbis actually pass it down to the parents. And it's even history in there where they pass it down to the children. So even the children were taught very early in their lives to confront evil spirits. And that's why we find in the Gospels themselves where the disciples come to Jesus and they say, hey, Jesus, we got this guy. He's not really a part of our

group here, but he's going around baptizing folks and casting out demons in your name. And we told him he needs to stop that. And Jesus says, what? What did you do? You told him to stop. Don't do that. You should not have done that because anybody that's for me or for us, you know, is with us and not against us. So Jesus's response was not, David, you told him right. He needs to come and get some discipleship and join our fold. Jesus' response was the direct opposite. It was actually in alignment with what Jews had taught for centuries, is that all covenant believers have the authority and the power to confront evil spirits. And so that's why in the book, one of the things I do is I try to footnote everything. So I have nearly, it's almost

nearly 400 footnotes in the book and over 80 different, nearly 80 different sources. And so my goal in that is I'm trying to empower folks that may be skeptical or those who are really not skeptical, but they say, hey, I want to know more about this. And I want to be able to approach this through a hit from the historical lens. I try to do all of that to equip the believer to be fully aware of not just the biblical understanding, but also the historical, more of the historical context as well on the subject matter. Well, as an apologist and a professor, I appreciate the footnotes and notice that right away. Maybe unpack a little bit of how your approach is maybe different from what we see

in the Catholic Church. So we hear about like exorcisms, we hear about deliverance ministries. I've had Richard Gallagher on, and you cite him favorably in the book, but of course there's going to be some differences there. So just for of understanding maybe explain you know compare and contrast some of those approaches so we see where you're coming from absolutely uh i would say here's what uh people may appreciate i i believe that the bible itself does not specify an approach. I believe in many ways, and this is a shock to some Protestants, that the Catholic Church has a more vast understanding of this for this very reason is that they have a more historical approach. They really have embraced the early church fathers. That's very important in their theological formation.

Therefore, they stay connected to their history. So they pretty much have a more open, pretty much they, the Catholic Church has never stopped that ministry. They've continued it for centuries. The only knock I would say in my study of Catholicism and in my office, I have up there, I Greek, and early church. And that's where really a lot of this really became very enlightening to me. The only thing I would say about the Catholic church, I love this about them. The Catholic church, for the most part, believes in a unified approach. They try to make sure that no matter where they're practicing ministry, that there is a unified approach to how they do it. And so that's why the Catholic church would have a standardized prayer or approach to exorcism that every person who does approach that ministry would have to read from a pretty much formalized script.

That's the only thing I would say in that regard with the Catholic Church. The flip side of that is my the guy that I well respect in an organization, Freedom in Christ Ministries. If you go through the steps of freedom in Christ, which is a, an approach I really, really love. It, one of the things I love about it is that we don't know from what we need to repent on, you know, we just don't know, especially if you're early, a new believer, you won't know that some things and some things you may have practiced may have been forbidden in scripture. And so Neil Anderson does a great job of kind of spelling out and specifying those things that we need to be careful of or mindful of in our approach, in our Christian journey and things we need to repent from.

I love that. But but even Freedom of Christ Ministries and the Catholic Church would actually debate me. And when I would say that there may be times and experiences, even when I talk about Dr. Mural Unger, he speaks of, he changed his approach on even demonization and that whole topic of who can be demonized and who can't. When he started getting letters from the mission field of folks that were dealing with demons and did not know how to successfully confront them. And so you may be, in my case, in many cases I've had in my pastoral setting,

I've had demons surface, which is why I named the book, the title of the book, that Rich is really my, I had to give my wife credit for the title. Yeah, she's kind of great at keeping me, you know, really focused, you know, and helping me kind of, you know, semantically, you know, share things. But I would say that there may be experiences and so forth that may require us to deal with demons. And we may not have the steps of freedom in Christ right there. Let me pull out my book. We may not have the Catholic exorcism

prayers to pull out and let me go to my library to deal with this. It may be an issue that you have to deal with right on the spot. And so I would say that in all my research, historical research, whether that's been in ancient Judaism, in the ancient early church, et cetera, there was not a formalized approach. Other than what we do find that is consistent, even in the archaeological digs, we find this one word used a lot, bind. It is used, there is no doubt in the archaeological finds that we see that. That are part of the process, there were prayers that said that they, you know, we bind evil spirits and we expel them. That we see on a regular basis. I'll give a true story here. My 10-year-old came to us recently. My wife discovered that she was taking her baths pretty quickly. And so she would get in the bath and she'd be out in like two or three minutes, you know, run a full tub of water and she's out two or three minutes. And then she went to the dentist's office

and discovered that she wasn't brushing well. And so my wife said, hey, wait a minute, wait a minute. We got you to specialize electric toothbrush. You should not have the cavities and type of dental hygiene issues that the dentist just shared with us. And I noticed you have not been taking your baths quickly. You've been getting out of the tub real fast. And so the 10-year-old went on to admit,

she says, well, there's something in the vent in my bathroom. And so we said, well, what do you think it is? She says, I don't know what it is, but I know it's a presence there. Cause it's been, when I'm in a tub or when I brush my teeth, it makes noises and so forth. We, when I started writing the book, I had a lot of, my family experienced a lot of supernatural intrusions. The best way I can describe it. And they got worse, they worsened

the closer I got to the end of the book. And so I can share some of that. Just really fascinating experiences. We sat down as a family. We had to talk about it and pray about it and to know how to best deal with it. But that was one of the problems we had. And so with my 10-year-old,

I took the same approach as the ancient rabbis did. And also I talked to our 10 year old we we talked about it and we we helped her to formalize our own prayer to do a cleansing of that uh vent in her her bathroom and so we we told told her how to confront the evil spirit and sure enough she did it and she uh we noticed this time she took a long hot bath and her hygiene dental hygiene got well because she uh for the first time in several weeks she noticed that that that uh encounter she was having was no longer there wow that is so here's an example of a family member coming to you saying, I feel like there's something demonic, maybe not using that word, that is present. You've been a chaplain and you've been a pastor for 35 years. Do most people come to you and sense something supernatural? Or is it in conversation you start to surface and realize, oh, there's more going on than you even realize, or is it some combination of both? Great question. I would say it's a combination of both.

I've had experiences where people that have come to me in a counseling setting, and it's normally, they kind of do it privately because still there's some skept you know, skepticism in our culture. I think that's going away in our postmodern, you know, generation. But some people would come to me and say, hey, I've had this experience. I share a story about a high ranking commander in the military that came to me and said, hey, I think I have something going on in my house, in my attic and footsteps. And I said, Well, really, I always tested. I don't believe everything that people bring to me. I always tested. And so I said, Yeah, really? He says,

Well, put it this way. It knocked the towel off my ceiling last night. And that's why I'm contacting you today. Okay, so some people come and I tell, I have a chapter on that. It's a really fascinating story in the book. The other side is I had a, I was preaching a sermon series and I had a young lady, and I share this in the book as well,

that came to me and she said, hey, I don't know why I'm struggling with this. She says, everything you've been preaching about in this series, I totally agree with. She says, I got a strong Christian background, you know, Christian home, et cetera. And I still don't know why I'm having this experience. And I kid you not, first time this happened to me, I had a word. First part of the when she walked in for the counseling session, a word went through my head and I just thought, maybe I'm hungry.

I hadn't had in my lunch and maybe my stomach is growling. Well, and I don't know what this is. Maybe it's related to my hunger. I mean, halfway through the session, it happened again. And then at the tail part of that, you know, it the same word appeared in my head again. And while we're about to pray and I look, I said, hey, you know, person, you know, and I think the word I use, it's not her real name. In the book, I say, Sophia. I say,

hey, Sophia, you're this word. I don't know what you're struggling with and why you're struggling with this. But I tell you what, one of the things I've noticed that three times in our session, this word went through my head. I said, does it mean anything to you? And I share the word. And as soon as I share the word, a demon manifests in her. A demon surfaces in her. And for the first time, we realized why she was having that struggle. It was demonic.

Wow. So that's an example of somebody coming to you not realizing that was taking place. And then when you identified it, clearly surface. Okay. So when you say it's surface, like walk us through as much as I don't want certain images in my mind, we say it's surface. How do you know it was there? And then how did you proceed to expel it out and confront it? Absolutely.

I would say that the way I knew knew it was it took over her body and she pretty much was describing how it was happening she said hey i can't hear you anymore anymore she said i can't see you anymore and she says um i can't um she says something is taking over my body and that's it's actually trying it wants me to now attack you it wants me to scratch you and so that's when i realized hey wait a minute the way she was describing this that there was an entity or personality that was taking over her body and she described it in a it was progressive when i was talking to her she couldn't hear me anymore and then she couldn't eventually she stopped she couldn't see me anymore even her eyes were wide open she she couldn't see

me anymore and then she started uh wanting to attack me okay and so you proceeded by doing what walk us through how you respond when you're i pretty much um what i did is i um i prayed over her and i just kind of, I didn't touch her. I raised my hand like this and I said, in the name of Christ Jesus, I command this spirit. I bind it in the name of Christ Jesus. And I command you to give this person back her sight, her hearing, and the control of her body. In Jesus's name. Amen.

And as soon as that happened, she was able to see again, she was able to hear again. She had full control of her, the members of her body. And she was in full tears because she did not realize, Hey, wait a minute. I have a, I have a personality in me. I'm demonized. And that's why I'm struggling with this. Holy cow. that is a clear instant example of recognizing a demon cast it out of the person are there times you kind of hint at this and mention it a little in the book that sometimes it's a little bit of a process and it's not that instant yes i think uh and this is what i would say to any person that's in this particular ministry.

People call it, you know, we have about 33,000 denominations today. So it's no surprise to me that we're disconnected from our historical roots to where we are. Because the exorcism was, there's no doubt in my, you know, and you go back and do the research, it was a common practice centuries before Christ, during the time of Christ, and centuries after Christ. What really troubles me the most is we have people in our churches that are suffering. And we have, Jesus has given us the power and authority okay in their suffering and uh because

we're so divided as a as a church but in our various denominations unfortunately people are suffering that don't need to and i think that grieves our lord. I believe when Jesus comes back, one of the disappointments he'll share is that he's gonna share the fact that he has given us, he went to the cross, he died according to Colossians 2.15, disarmed Satan and his entire army. He's given us power and authority over evil spirits. And we've let his people suffer in a, in a, in a spiritual war against Satan and his army.

I think he, that's one of the griefs he'll have. And, and we, I believe Michael Heiser, the late Dr. Michael Heiser, he does an excellent job in his book, the unseen realm, supernatural, and then also Demons. One of the things he bemoans is that god entrusts us with his divine plan and we keep failing him and i think our church will when jesus gets back he's going to say hey i gave you so much i even gave you my holy spirit and wow you just didn't you didn't fully maximize and optimize the gifts are giving you.

And oh, and by the way, that brings me full circle. I believe you don't need a spiritual gift to expel. I believe it's the ability of every believer. And I believe that based on the fact that the example, historical example we see in early Judaism is that the early church, the rabbis taught that this was something that every covenant believer could do. They could successfully confront evil spirits in the name of Yahweh. We don't see Jesus when the disciples say, hey, we got a guy that's not a part of our team that's going around casting out demons in your name.

Jesus didn't come back and say, hey, very good. Very good. He needs to come to seminary now and get some training. We don't see that. He says, hey, don't bother him. Let him do it. And so we don't also we don't see him say, well, let's make sure he has a spiritual gift to do that. We don't see that response either. And we don't find it in the early church. As a matter of fact, in the book, I even have a footnote and I give an example of one of the early church fathers where he's responding to the leaders in his day. And he's telling them that, hey, Christians, we don't practice these incantations and do all these other things that other people do.

We just use the name of Christ Jesus. And we successfully confront evil spirits. And it's in the early church, first century. And so that's why I would say it's not a spiritual gift. I had a debate with one of my professors, wanted to know the name, and one of the things I think I convinced him when I shared my, the historical context of in Judaism and the early church, I think he was convinced at that point that yes, this is not a, this is not a spiritual gift. And by the way, to the defense of the

Catholic church, they don't believe that either. However, they want to protect the process. They just believe that they would prefer, it's a preference for them that their priests kind of oversee it. So they don't believe it either. Matter of fact, they have theology out there where they empower Christians to confront evil spirits, but they just believe with the extreme cases of exorcism that they would prefer that the priests do it. And so it's a historical preference. And so I appreciate that. And I say that in the whole scheme of Christendom, that pretty much the consistent theology we find is that every believer has that ability so that's really helpful my question earlier i just thought of was whether it's a process sometimes

or whether it's always instant uh you know what um that thank you for that thank you for reminding me that in some cases it's instant and believe it or not, in some cases, I share a story of a young lady that was having a particular medical issue and it ended when she, it immediately ended when she stopped, she destroyed her tarot cards and crystals. She had a 10 year medical issue and it ended immediately after she did that. The consistent thread that we see historically is the number one thing that's needed is repentance. So the doorway in which these evil spirits entered, and sometimes it takes a while to determine what that door is, but we know that when a person has to renounce that and they have to repent and turn away from it, that is the consistent teaching we find in Judaism in the early church. That repentance is key to that.

So if a person gets the book, if they get the electronic version of the book and they do a search on repent, they're going to find that word used a lot. So that is the consistent thing. And sometimes in many people, sometimes they'll notice an instant freedom or deliverance, whatever preferential word we use. In some cases, other people will notice that they have to have a series of prayers or a time period where it may take a while

to successfully, before they, they may find progressively they get better. Okay. As they confront or deal with matters of their lives. That's a really helpful distinction. Now, I want to make sure people don't misunderstand. You're not saying, you're actually clear to make a distinction in your book, that you're not saying every sickness is a hidden demon. You go out of your way to say sometimes

Jesus expels a demon. Sometimes he just heals a sickness. Absolutely. So how do you distinguish between the two? How do you know what is at play? What does it take to get there? And this is where the Catholic church is incredibly careful. They bring in people like Gallagher, who's just trained as a doctor, and they err on the side of ruling out any kind of naturalistic hypothesis first. How do you figure that out so you don't misdiagnose someone, so to speak? You know, our oldest son, we have six children, by the way. And so our oldest son, he's a therapist. And one of the, we just had this conversation recently, is that when he does an intake, when he has people come in, he notices, even when you go to the doctor's office, you'll notice that they have a series of questions and they ask you, hey, what is you,

can you tell me how long you've had this issue? What are your symptoms, et cetera? So they have they do a screening, so to speak, whether when you and I go to our doctors, they give they do a screening. When we go to a therapist or counselor, they do a screening. I think that's very important for us to do, even in this particular context, when a person thinks they have a demon, and I give an example of them, and I talked about the high ranking individual that came to me for care. I did, I had a screening process and I said, hey, how do we know this is happening? You know, and so I think that if I've told anyone, and it's probably more longer than a time we have allotted. But you do have to have some type of way of screening whether or not this is a demonic issue or a health issue. And I love the fact that even the scriptures talk about Jesus healing a person with epilepsy.

And then we also find an example of him casting out a demon with the same condition epilepsy. So in the Bible even distinguishes times when it's a healing issue or another time it's a spiritual warfare issue. That's going to require discernment and screening, which is why I would encourage anyone, you just can't jump into it. But it never hurts to pray for the individual and do an if statement. If this is a demonic attack, then we bind and expel you from this child of God in the name of Christ Jesus. And during that prayer, something may surface or manifest. Something may not surface or manifest. Sometimes people will say, hey, you know, you pray for me

and I no longer have this problem. And so I don't think I do it. I may do this in the book. I know I don't share this in the book. I have so many stories, but one particular story, I remember I'll give you a good example on this topic. One particular story, I'm in my office and a lady barge, she's one of my congregants, she barges into my office and she still has the, she just

left for a dentist and she has the dental cape still around her neck. And she says, hey, I was at my dental, at the dental office, dental, and it was right on base, by the way, I was on the military base installation. And she says, the dentist just told me I could possibly have cancer. And she says, I jumped right out of the seat and came to your office. And so one of the things I do when a person is coming to me and they have a medical condition for healing, they need healing, I go through a series of questions. I have a screening process and it involves, say, is there any known unconfessed sin in your life?

And let's renounce that. And so I took her through that screening process. She went back to the dentist and they said, ma'am, we don't see any cancer. All the signs were gone so in her case it wasn't necessarily uh demonic but i know that when we went through that screening process and then uh and made sure she didn't have any unconfessed sin in her life uh that she that uh and then we i just did a prayer of healing i mean she went back and they didn't see any signs of cancer. So last question for you. You address a few times in the book just sexual sin and kind of seducing spirits.

So imagine, say, a young man or young woman comes to you and says, Pastor Steve, I've been struggling with pornography. Are you thinking there's probably a spirit I've been struggling with pornography. Are you thinking there's probably a spirit I've got to excel or expel? Are you thinking there's like just some relational hurt that you've got to also surface pain and they're using this as a wound to deal with it? Or are you assuming, well, it's just sin, need to repent or all of the above? Like, how do you approach a situation like that? Interestingly, you know, um, I was just reading Hebrews 13 one yesterday and I looked at it in the Greek, the English translations, they have, you know, let us throw off the weight

and the sin that so easily entangles. And I discovered in the Greek, that's not the word, the lexical word for weight. It actually means barbed arrows. So speaking of woundedness. So basically, he says, do not. In summary, he said, do not let your woundedness hinder you, nor these sins entangle you. So we did it with two things there. So when a person comes to me in a counseling setting, first, I want to know, why are you even using pornography? Is there some woundedness there? So I want to talk about that or explore that before I talk about the sin that so easily entangles. I want to know why are they using this, what led them to it. And then I want to also talk about the sin and then talk about

basically why we need to repent from that. They need to renounce that. And I do have a prayer in the book dealing with pornography and a chapter, by the way. And then, so I wanna address both of those and make sure that we're looking at the woundedness element or where there's a lack of sufficiency in Christ in that area of their lives. And then secondly, hey, let's renounce that sin. Then there needs to be repentance. And so I believe that we have to do both.

I believe Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews is instructing us that we have to address both. And I found most of them, I found my success being, hey, let's deal with the woundedness and then also let's deal with the sin. Both of those combined and addressed scripturally, by the way, is what we find the success that makes a lot of sense i enjoyed your book if one can enjoy a book on demon confrontation and evil and darkness in fact i was reading it last night my wife goes really before bed i was like well i'm interviewing steve tomorrow i'm going back through it again and i want to i want to be prepared so she might have you know had a good advice about not reading it before bed,

but I do hope people pick it up and read it. You have clear research, Bible training. You look at the Greek, but you also bring just 35 years of personal experience. And I think really makes this book unique. So I hope people will pick it out. Again, it's called When Demons Surface by our guest today, Steve Dabbs. Now, before we go away, folks, make sure you hit subscribe. We've got some other topics coming up. We're going to discuss near-death experiences again. We've got some other former Muslims that will be coming on.

We've got a range of topics you won't want to miss. And if you thought about studying apologetics, check below. We've got the top-rated full-time full time well it doesn't have to be full time but fully distance apologetics program would love to having classes on the resurrection history see the bible problem of evil we talk about and more have you thought about just a certificate program not ready for masters that information is below as well check that out steve really enjoyed this thanks for carving out time and I really hope folks will pick up your book. Amen. To Christ be the glory. And thank you for having me today.