Spirits

[DiscipleOfIAm]

I was reading another post here and it sparked a question of a different, yet similiar subject.

I heard an Assembly of God preacher state that there are ghosts/spirits in the world, but they are all demons that are mimicking real people. They are demons pretending to be a dead and lost loved one and are tricking the person. He even had an "exorcism" team to go and cast out the demons.

He even stated that demons are dwelling in us today and that is what causes us to sin. He used an example of pornographry. Demons within us cause us to view it and they need cast out of us before we can break free of the sin.

Any thoughts on any of this? Are there spirits/ghosts? Are they all demons or are there "good" ones as well? If there are good ones, does that mean we can leave heaven and come back to visit or does it mean that these are souls that are somehow stuck? Any Biblical referrences?

God Bless

[rural_preacher]

Well, for starters, demons cannot possess believers. We have the Holy Spirit living in us which makes us the sole possession of Almighty God. As a believer your body is the temple of the HS (I Corinthians 6:19,20). We have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ and have been sealed by the Holy Spirit as a guarrantee of our redemption (Ephesians 1:13,14). No evil spirit can dwell in the same person with the HS. Jesus' statements in Matthew 12:24-32 gives good support to the impossibility of demons possessing believers.

As for the nature of evil spirits...any spirit beings that are roaming about are not the ghosts of dead people. I think there is sufficient support throughout Scripture to believe that upon death a person leaves this world permanently. Spirit beings that roam this earth are demons - Satan and his dark forces against whom we are to stand firm as described in Ephesians 6:10-18. But we do not stand firm to protect against possession but, rather, to defend against temptation and false teachings.

It is important to know how to use your "sword" - the Word of God.


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[lucypevensie]

Yes, I believe there are demons. The New Testament speaks often about people who were possessed by them. And I believe demons still possess people today. I also don't believe they are able to possess believers because of the Holy Spirit. However they can still deceive believers and even give them a good scare. My sister's "haunted houses" are a good example of that. (no haunted house problems for her for several years now, BTW)

As far as demons causing us to sin, sure I don't doubt that they cause us to sumble sometimes. But I also think that even if there were no such things as demons people would still struggle with the same sins. And that's because of our sin nature. Our sin natures lead us to want to do wrong things. Not all the credit goes to Satan and his minions:D

[unimportantbuthisnameis]

I agree completely with rural preacher

[ZiSunka]

I believe strongly that demons are at work in the world today, and that they sometimes take on the image of our dead loved ones to try to fool us into believing that they have some message from beyond the grave, but I don't believe they force us to sin, nor could they. The phrase "the devil made me do it" is an excuse, not an explanation or apology for our sinful behavior. The human psyche has enough sinful desires that it doesn't need demons to force us to sin, we just sin naturally.

I'm not sure what I believe about ghosts, since in at least one case in the Bible (The witch of Endor conjures up Samuel for Saul) and from personal experience of what I think were visits from immediately departed loved ones would lead me acknowledge their existence, but not for haunting purposes, or because their spirits are "stuck" between life and death or heaven and earth.

[TwinCrier]

I believe that all 'ghosts' are demonic spirits. Posing as a dead loved one seems to be an effective way of getting a non-believer to trust in this unseen 'spirit.' The bible is clear that speaking with the dead is not possible and necromancy is strongly condemned.

[Iollain]

I think that like 99.999% of ghosts are fallen angels, trying to make ppl think that when you die you just carry on in the invisible world. My Aunt had a short visit from my Uncle a few days after he died in her darkest hours and gave her the message that everything was alright, they are both Christians so when I weight this story against God's word, i suppose it is possible that God let him do this for a few seconds as it was only once and he did not say anything that is contrary to God's Written Word. Moses and Elias did appear with Jesus at the transfiguration, so it is possible for them to come down, but then this is the Creator they are talking too, this is not a normal everyday thing. Trying to contact the dead or angels in any way is imo, witchcraft, and one will probably get ahold of a demon pretending whatever they have to, to trick ppl.