Created by "The Jacob's Ladder Podcast" using Microsoft Designer (2025)

In premier first episode of Jacob’s Ladder, Jacob and his cohost, Professor Carl, dive straight into the unsettling but deeply practical question: How do demonic spirits operate in the world? Especially in places, people, and everyday life? The conversation starts with a listener question about why demons seem tied to specific locations or objects. Carl explains that it’s less about the physical altar or building and more about ongoing sinful worship and spiritual allegiance in that place: “if you have an idol in a particular place and people have come there for a long time and worshiped… then they are going to be hanging out at that place.”

From there, they explore whether a quick prayer can “clear” a building and how much a person’s holiness and faith matter. Carl stresses that any Christian has authority over demonic forces in Christ, but many don’t know it, don’t believe it, or don’t practice it. Faith, he says, can be both a gradual growth and a sudden gift—sometimes God “installs” a gift of faith for a specific moment so something radical can happen. Casting out demons, in his view, is not a formula or ritual like exorcism; it’s moving in the presence and authority of Jesus, not in human strength.

The episode then shifts into two powerful stories about healing. In one, Carl prays for a woman with a visible brain tumor, fully expecting she will die. Weeks later she returns completely healed—no tumor, normal head—and Carl admits, “there was no faith in me… somebody there God empowered with faith.” In contrast, his father-in-law dies of a heart attack despite multiple believers praying for his life. That loss becomes a catalyst for others to come to Christ, showing that God’s redemptive purposes can involve both miraculous healing and unanswered prayers, and that outcomes are not simply a the result of how much faith humans don’t or do have.

Returning to demons, Carl defines them as beings of deception, control, and counterfeit power, whose goal is to convince believers they are weaker than the enemy. He rejects the idea that demons can possess Christians, emphasizing instead that “greater is the Spirit of God in us than any other spirit on the face of this earth” and that nothing touches a child of God unless the Spirit of God allows it for a redemptive reason.

One of the most striking moments is Carl’s story from a fast food restaurant in Tempe Arizona. He senses a prompting to lay hands on a man who is acting disturbed and ask him if he wants to be free and cast out his demon but dismisses it as just a wild thought he had. As the man leaves, he stops, looks Carl in the eye, and says, “Greater is the guy that’s in me than the guy that’s in you,” then walks out. This was the demon in the man recognizing that Carl had The Holy Spirit as a Christian and mocked him. Carl realizes he missed an opportunity to free this man from his demonic possession. This moment was a great lesson in learning to recognize God’s voice and prompting. Also, it was a revelation about how demons can recognize Christians in any room anywhere.

The episode closes by tying everything back to identity and readiness: believers must know who they are in Christ, wear the full armor of God, and act in God’s authority rather than fear or spiritual bravado. Jacob and Carl end with a prayer that listeners would neither abuse spiritual authority nor shrink from it, but walk as protected children of God, ready to confront darkness wherever they encounter it.

Welcome to the Jacob's ladder podcast. I'm your host, Jacob, and I'm your cohost, professor Carl. Do you wrestle with God? I know I do. Whether you refuse to believe or you're chasing after him, this podcast is for you.

All right. We're live. Yay Start with some questions you would like me to read them. Oh, no, we have all kinds of questions. Here's a good one. What makes demonic spirits, wait a minute, it just disappeared. What's up with that? You better read. What makes demonic spirits disappear?

That's a good question. That's a great question. Isn't it? My phone did something funky here. What makes demonic spirits locate in one particular spot or around one particular place? Okay. Can I, is this a question from one of your students? Uh, yes, this question actually not from a student, but from a, one of my coworkers.

Okay. So I would like to add to that. Does that mean, cause you know, when Hollywood gets ahold of this stuff, it's demons can be attached to people or objects or houses or are we talking more like a geospatial location, like a place on earth?

irregardless of structure or objects Well, they do hang around idols. It has more to do with the sin that's happening associated with whatever object or place it is done. So, uh, if you have an idol in a particular place and people have come there for a long time and worshiped at that particular place for idols, then they are going to be Hanging out at that place.

Okay. So it makes sense. So in scripture, a good example, this would be, um, like through Kings and Chronicles, a lot of, there seems to be an ebb and flow of Kings that destroy the altars of Baal and the poles of Asherah, if I'm saying that correctly. So once those are destroyed, does that remove like any, Power attachments of that location.

Uh, the location attachment doesn't, isn't about an altar. It's about where people go to worship. Does that make sense? So if they continue to go to that particular place, even though the altar is not there, they're going to continue to have that If that becomes a Christian or, or that's not the right word.

If that becomes a godly place, those demons. So for example, uh, in downtown Phoenix, there is a church, uh, when they moved into the downtown Phoenix and bought a building. Well, the building used to be the satanic church. Really? Okay. Who, who bought it? Uh, the uh, Phoenix inner city church came in and actually bought this building and they, uh, began to, you know, paint the inside, took care of all the paraphernalia, they prayed and cast out demons.

And while they were there, they would still have. Satan worshipers come into the services thinking that they were returning back to a satanic church, get saved, get transformed, demons cast out, all that kind of stuff. So we're diving right into good stuff. This is okay. Um, if that building ever became a satanic church again, those demons would move back in.

So what, how much prayer, like, maybe I'm way getting on the weeds with this, but. If one godly person walked in and prayed a quick 30 second prayer to clean the building, would it be, would it be cleared or would demonic activity still happen in that building? Does it require more people with more faith and conviction for a certain amount of time?

Experience says that they don't disappear with a 30 second prayer. However, if Jesus walked in and said a 30 second prayer, they'd be gone, right? Fair enough. So it really has to do with the person, the passion of that person for God, and whether that person is living a holy life or not. Okay. So. So the person doing the casting out the person, uh, let's start from the very beginning.

Any person who knows Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior has power over the spiritual demonic forces, including Satan in any place. The question is, do you know it? Do you believe it? And are you ready to practice that? That's a whole episode by itself. Yes, it is. Okay. So. Cause you, there's different degrees of sanctification.

Someone gets saved, but they still have sin. I would imagine maybe whatever sins they're harboring, like it's, it's a process to, to sanctify yourself and get strongholds of sin out of your life. So potentially you were saved on Monday. You go in there and try and. clear a demonic force out of a building.

Would you, would you be successful or, or maybe if you were harboring like a stronghold for that spirit, you wouldn't be because you're like entertaining that in your life versus like something. So once again, experience says both sides. Okay. If you are transformed by the spirit of God and you know from that point on that you need to cast out the demons in your house because you've been living with a drug infested or maybe you've been worshiping those kinds of things and you get rid of those things out of your house, they're gone.

Interesting. Okay. So, on the other hand, you can get saved and you can still be tormented. You can still be wrestling with all of those demonic pieces because of the the passion. That's probably not the right word. The transformative power of the spirit of God is in you, but do you know it? Do you practice that?

Do you allow the spirit of God to work through you? Every Christian has to come to a point in their lives where they're free in the spirit. And then know it. Yeah. And move forward in faith, really, because you wouldn't know until you tried, right? Like as far as exercising those powers. Yeah, and faith is something, in this particular instance, faith can be both built In your life because, Hey, he's saved me and he totally completely transformed my life.

And now I'm, I have faith to come against the next things that are in my spirit or faith can be this, uh, moment in time where the gift of faith is installed in you. And for that one moment in time, God does something radical that you've never ever seen before. You've, you've not experienced it before. And he does something.

Interesting. Okay. So it's a loop back loop and maybe this has taken us in a different direction. But so how, how would one pray for that? Like, cause you hear people, I rebuke you in the name of the Lord or, but some people will say, I rebuke you. I feel like you almost need a hand, like maybe there's a proper way to say it.

And maybe I'm getting too hung up on like the details of the steps, the nuts and bolts of it. Yeah. The truth of the matter is there is no formula. Okay. Uh, the difference between exorcism and exorcising, uh, exorcism is a set of chance, or it's a use of some kind of tool to remove a demonic or an evil spirit out of a room.

Okay. Christians don't really practice exorcism. We practice casting out okay and casting out is based upon moving in the presence of God Moving that being that has no authority in your life and in this room out It's based on the authority of Christ and his death, burial and resurrection and him being God.

Okay, you can claim that He, he tells us to claim that authority and, Oh, yes, absolutely. And maybe this is the wrong scripture to tie to this, but if you, if you had the faith of a mustard seed, you could move a mountain. Maybe that's not being applied correctly to this. Well, here's the whole thing is if you do have faith of a mustard seed, you can do anything you want to in the power of God.

Right? Remember the, the, the guy who comes to the Lord and says, you know, my child is dying. Will you heal my child? And Jesus says, well, if you have any faith, uh, you know, Your child's going to be healed. And he goes, I have faith, but help my unbelief. Right. I believe, but help my unbelief. So he was saying, I can't do it in my own power.

And here's the key. It's not about you. So why are you doing what you're doing? Does that make sense? I'm coming into a room and I'm casting out demons. Is that about me or is it about something else? Oh yeah, that would be, I would say whatever. God's will at that moment, right? Like you just not knowing much about this.

If I was, if someone's a Jake walk into that house and cast that demon out, I'd be like, I would probably pray outside. I go, Lord, please go with me and hope this works. Okay. Well, here, here's the key. It's not a hoping that it works. It's a spirit of God coming in and empowering you to do the work. Does that make sense?

It's not about me. It's not about my faith. It's not about me going. I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe until I believe it's about walking in and going, okay, God, you have said in your word, this is what happens, prove it. Interesting. Okay. Cause I've always worked like I, I believe in God, I have faith in God, but I struggle to know what his will is in a situation.

So it's like, okay, is he going to heal this person? Or is it the, his will for that person not to necessarily be healed? Or would it be his will that I go into that house with pure faith and cast out those demons? Or would it be his will that, It doesn't work. And I get tossed around like, uh, what's the Padre Pio guy, right?

I get tossed around in the house a few times to come out with a bloody nose. That would be where my hesitation would be. Um, if, if you're going to be hesitant to confront the enemy, then it means that you need to go back and see God's face a little longer. That's good. All right. Um, however. God works in spite of us.

Here's my story of what God did in my life and how things worked out. You mentioned healing. So I'm pastoring in a small town and the, uh, One of the deacons, uh, walks up to me, sister walks up to me and says, Hey, pastor Carl, pastor Carl, I need to introduce you to my friend.

And I'm like, okay, I need the energy to my cousin. And you know, in a small town, everybody's cousin. So I have no idea what's going on. Right. So she drags me to the back of the church and here's a young lady, uh, probably mid forties, early forties, sitting in the back row and her head is so deformed. Uh, she has a huge, uh, Uh, cancerous knot on the top of her head on the right hand side, right?

And, uh, she looks like death warmed over. I mean, I look at her and go, Oh, you gotta be kidding. Right. And there's like five ladies around. They're all, we're going to pray that God's going to heal this woman. Right. And I'm like, absolutely. We're going to pray that God's going to heal this woman. And in the back of my mind going, the next time I see this girl, she's going to be in a casket because she's, she looks horrible.

Right. So I, Do my pastoral duty, which, you know, you got to pray, right? And scripture is very clear. You pray the prayer of faith, call the elders together, pray the prayer of faith, anoint with oil, God will heal. Yeah. Right. So, okay. So even, even in that moment, it sounded like you maybe doubted the outcome of his will, you knew your duty, you knew what you were supposed to do with faith and.

The, what scripture says, but you still were like, well, I don't know. No, there's no faith in me. There was no faith. I didn't think God was going to heal her. I, I prayed because that's what pastors do, but it's not because I thought God was going to heal her. Is that fair enough? Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Okay.

So, uh, we prayed and I said, do you want me to come? Uh, she was going in for surgery the next day and I said, do you want me to come? Or she was going into, this was Sunday night. She was going into surgery Thursday. So I said, do you want me to come and, uh, and, uh, pray for you before you go into surgery? No, no, no, no.

You don't need to do that. All right. Okay. So then, you know, Thursday comes by and I'm distracted. I've got two young boys that are just, you know, so I, I'm taking care of family and doing all the things that I got to get done, getting ready for Sunday and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I don't think anything about it.

Right. Hear nothing Don't hear anything from the family. Don't hear nothing. I'm thinking. Okay, so news no convictions That's third. Yeah, just no nothing get back into the daily routines, right? Yeah. Yeah next Sunday goes by nothing Wednesday night goes by nothing next Sunday.

So it's two weeks out now. Yeah, we're two Sundays past that Thursday Still nothing All right. The next Sunday after that, this woman walks up to me. And it says, Pastor Carl, Pastor Carl, Pastor Carl, do you remember me? And I'm like, I have never seen you before in my life. Who are you? Well, you prayed for me and I'm like, I pray for 10, 000 people, you know, because you're in a small town and if you want to see your lost sheep, just go to the local grocery store because everybody goes to the grocery store, right?

And my wife used to do the, as we were walking along and she was grocery shopping and one of the people would catch her and she'd be like, Oh, Pastor Carl's in Lyle three, you know? And they would all run over there. So I, who knows who I prayed for? Right. I, I, so many, you lose track because you can, and she doesn't look anything like anybody that I've ever seen.

So I, I've said, I'm sorry. I don't remember. I don't remember you at all. She says, well, you prayed for me. And I'm like, I did. Yeah. Back row. You prayed for me that God would heal me. Remember I'm the one that had a cancerous tumor in my head. She had a normal. Head. No brain tumors at all. She went to the doctor on Thursday.

They said, well, let's go take an MRI so that we know exactly where they are, you know, so that we don't cut part of your brain out unnecessarily. Okay, quick question to backtrack. When you looked at her, did you, Did she have a big tumor, like, popping out of her head, or she just looked like pale white on the edge of the death bed, kind of?

Uh, that Sunday night when I prayed for her, you could tell that she had a tumor. Really? In her head. And when you see her now, her head was perfect. Perfectly fine. Wow. Totally normal. Just like, well, you know what I mean? You, you got hair on your head, but if you see my head, it looks, you know, whatever, but it's normal.

That's why I didn't recognize her. I mean, I've never seen you before in my life. Hey, did you pray for me? Okay. So here, did she get healed because I prayed for her? No, I mean, Hey, I'm God's man of faith and power, right? I'm God's man of faith and power. No, no, no. Somebody there. God empowered with faith to believe that she was going to be healed.

It's not dependent upon me. It's dependent upon him and what he wants to accomplish in the midst of the situation. So, okay. I know this might be pull us further away from the stronghold stuff. So it's, it sounds like, and maybe I'm wrong. God needed just one person with faith in that moment with the prayer, whether it was the woman herself or one of her friends to believe that the healing could take place so he can do it or not that he can do what he wants, but is that like something he requires?

He wants at least someone there to have the full faith for that to happen. Or what he was showing us as a church is that it's not dependent upon the pastor to do the work. Okay, somebody in that group God wanted to use in the gift of faith and to bring about her healing through that gift of faith. All right, now let's stop and go a different direction.

My father in law passed away on Super Bowl Sunday. He was having a massive heart attack. There were at least five people praying for him not to pass away. At the moment that he was passing, there was at least five Christians who love him, cared about him. They, we were seeking God's face to spare his life.

And it didn't happen because God is the giver and taker of life. And he chose to take him at that moment. So did that mean that I didn't have faith? Does that mean that the other four didn't have faith that God could heal? Interesting. Okay. So we have a situation room full of people of faith. God still takes, takes the person home.

The other one, maybe one person had faith. Now, what if the room, but if no one had faith, would God act? Or I would say he's capable of, but from scripture standpoint, like, does he say anywhere in scripture he requires? At least one person that faith, he said that he didn't do works. Jesus didn't do works because of the lack of their faith.

He didn't do a lot of works because of the lack of their faith. Okay. Was that a certain town he came into? Yeah, it was a particular town that he was working with, but here's, here's our issue. We get confused about what is God's plan. Right. The reason God healed is because became the town evangelist.

Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, she had been the town drunk for 32 years, Everybody knew her as a town drunk. And all of a sudden they meet a woman who's had a massive transformation in her life. Interesting. Okay. So, and this is the crazy thing that happens is she walks up to my wife and says, sister, Tina, sister, Tina, you'll never believe what happened.

And Tina's like, what did, what did you do? And she goes, I led somebody to Christ Right? And Tina's like, well, of course she did. Cause you're, that's what God's called you to do. So go do it. Right. And she won person after person after person to Christ. Okay. Now. There was a salvific plan in her healing because God was revealing to her through the healing that he had a plan for her, that he loved her and he knew all the deep seated hurts in her life.

Right? Because if he doesn't heal her, she passes away without knowing him. So she wasn't a believer when she walked in that church. No, she wasn't a believer. It was who dragged her to church to get prayed for. Interesting. And it's probably who had that gift of faith because she believed. I mean, she had this knowledge inside of her that if you'll just pray for her, she'll be well.

She was completely convinced. Oh yeah. She, she had that whole sense of, of, of, uh, power and idea and thought there. Okay. Now. My father in law, he was going to go and be in the presence of the Lord, no matter what, whether he lives or whether he died, he was going to be in the presence of the Lord. Does that make sense?

Yes. So this may be more about, uh, other family members having, uh, um, a pull on their life through him. Does that make sense? He was, he was ministering to so many people through texting them. We got phone call after phone call about three days after he passed away. Hey, is okay? We get a text from him every morning at three o'clock, four o'clock, five o'clock.

I haven't gotten anything for two weeks. What's going on? Yeah. And we had people walk into the house, sit down and cry because they He was such a, a person in their life. And we're like, well, do you know Jesus Christ? Cause now we're meeting people who he's been texting. He's been carrying, he's been sharing the word of the Lord with them.

Do you know Jesus Christ? And, uh, I believe that there were several individuals that gave their life. To the Lord because of his passing really? Okay. Yeah. Because they had been playing, they had been delaying. Does that make sense? Oh, you're always going to be here. You're always going to be my friend.

You're not here anymore. Now I got to deal with this death idea. Interesting. Okay. So now let's go back to our demon. Okay. Okay. See this pathway here, demonic strongholds faith. Yeah. Well, uh, Let's go back to the idea of a demon and what demons do. Okay. Demons are about deception. They're about control and in that idea, power.

So if they're about deception, then they want you to believe that they're stronger than you are. If they're about control, then if they can get you to believe that they're stronger than you are, then they can manipulate you, control you. Right. Whether that's through the deception or fear, whatever. Yes.

Many different avenues to get to that control. Yes. Stronghold. Okay. Yeah. And it's one of the big problems with the theology that says demons can possess Christians. All right. Because if a demon can possess a Christian, then you have no defense. Right. Okay. But let's be honest. If you know Christ as your Lord and savior, and you're walking and ready to serve God in every moment of every day, you have the authority in Christ's name to do the work he's called us to do.

Right. Include, I don't know what it would look like to fight to That sounds like a very Hollywood term to fight demonic powers, whether it be casting them out of a person or a house or whatever, but wherever you go, shouldn't they be, shouldn't they flee from you? Right. Is that maybe, um, they're, they're not afraid of you, but they are afraid of the spirit that is in you.

Yeah. Okay. Cause the spirit that was in him is a spirit that's in us. That's right. Yeah. What is the, the, um, later writers in the New Testament, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. And we always think about the person that's sitting across the table, greater is he, but there is this concept that we need to grasp onto.

Greater is the spirit of God in us than any other spirit on the face of this earth. Okay, so nothing happens to you Unless the Spirit of God allows it. That's a bit terrifying too. Well, if he allows it, then he has a, he has a redemptive purpose in it, right? If he doesn't allow it, he has a redemptive purpose in it.

See, we've, we think that this is all about me and what I'm doing and do I have enough faith and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, and we get this guilt trip on us from, you know, people. Preachers are great for guilt trips. Cause it makes you do all kinds of stuff. Right? Right. I don't know. Let's think about who we are in Christ, right?

If you're a child of God, you are just like your little boy is a child of you. Right? Whatever that boy, whenever he's going to get hurt, where are you going to be? Run into his side. That's right. Right. If he picks up a rattlesnake, you're going to you know, you do everything you can to get that rattlesnake as far away from him as possible.

Okay. Uh, on the other hand, we need to be wise about what we do. We shouldn't be stupid and just do things willy nilly. We cannot believe that we can go out and be president of the United States without the power of God in our lives, uh, and try to change the world. Does that make sense? We gotta be equipped.

And ready, we need to have the full armor of God on. And we need to be ready for God to do what He wants to do in our lives. And if we're not ready, we will get surprised. And then, that's when fear happens. Okay. One of the things we teach our students when they're trying to get to preach and they get up there and they get all nervous.

It's like, okay, you're nervous. Everybody gets nervous. Everybody gets excited about getting up and preaching. Oh yeah. Public speaking scarier than the devil sometimes. That's right. But, but our biggest problem is because we haven't practiced. We don't know what we want to say. We don't know how we want to say it, and we don't know where we want to go with it.

Yeah. Isn't that the biggest fear? But if you know what you want to say, you want to know if you know how you want to say it. And if you want to go somewhere with what you're saying, then the purpose drives away all of that nervousness. That's good. Okay. Yeah. So now let's apply this to the demonic. What do we want to do?

How are we going to do it? Whose power are we walking in?

Come on, Hollywood's got, well, uh, it's interesting that Hollywood always has the, uh, Roman Catholic piece when it comes to that. Oh, yeah, they love those. Yes. So, uh. I think the last one I saw was the, uh, Russell Crowe one. Had you seen that? Uh. He uses like a medallion. Yeah. And puts in, and then you see like the reptile eyes.

It's like, okay, that. Fair enough. Okay. But see, that's, that's use of amulets, formulas, those kinds of things. God never used that. Jesus never used those. He spoke directly to the being and said, you're out. Yeah. Okay. Uh, there seemed to be at least those few times in scripture, like there was no doubt, even with regular people that that person is demon possessed.

Mm hmm. So would that, would that imply that? I don't know, maybe I'm going off in the weeds of this, but should it be obvious to people if someone's demon possessed or would it be God being omniscient, he would know who is and who isn't? Um, We have limited evidence in this text, right? We have three years of life written down on what, 150 pages.

Fair enough. So, uh, but okay. So another story out of my own life and, uh, we'll, we'll have some fun with this one. I'm in downtown Tempe. I walk into KFC, the guy in front of me is talking to himself. talking to everybody else. And you can tell that maybe he's not all there. So is he off his drugs? Is he demon possessed?

What exactly is going on? Right? Well, my wife excuses herself and goes to the bathroom. And so I'm, I'm standing there and I think to myself, wouldn't it be crazy if I just laid hands on this guy and cast the demon out and, and he would be healed. So in that moment, Did you know, or you just kind of, you had a feeling it was spiritual?

It was strictly a thought and I threw it out as fast as it went into my head. You're like, I'm not touching this guy. What if he turns around and stabs me? You know, what if he's not even possessed? He's just off his meds, right? Well, uh, so he orders and sits down and I order and sit down and he's just getting more and more agitated and more and more agitated.

I mean, this guy is starting to go, uh, like, to the point where I'm about ready to stand up and say, Hey, we need to go outside. Right. And, uh, but then all of a sudden he gets his food. So he gets his food, he settles down and he's got it in his bag. And I'm sitting, uh, by a booth, then a trash can, then a door to go outside.

He walks by. Stops, turns and looks at me in the eye and says, greater, is the guy that's in me than the guy that's in you. And then turns around and walks out the door. And so I'm like, Did your blood run cold? Like, no, I'm like, I missed it. I missed it. There was an opportunity to free this guy and I missed it because I discounted the spirit of God.

So the thought of you, laying that's, that brings so many questions to my head. Okay. So one, that thought that came, that popped into your head, just what if I laid hands on this guy, freed him of his, I think that's an issue. Probably all Christians struggle with like, is this, is this me making shit up in my head, excuse my language, or is this God convicting me of something?

So maybe elaborate. Well, first, what happened next? And then, Oh, he was gone. He was gone. So that was it. I mean, he was, he was out the door and, and, uh, it was like he disappeared. Okay. What does that imply? Okay. This is going down maybe more demonic, uh, ability territory. So that, that tells me that that demonic spirit inside that person knew that you got like a conviction from God.

And mocked you about it or knew that I was a Christian and wanted to tell me, you know, even though you think you're a Christian and you have control, you don't. So he was okay. Well, that's another interesting point. Like a demon in a person can look around a room and know who the Christians are versus who's not.

Oh yeah, absolutely. That's, that's fascinating. Okay. What we should touch more on that. Um, so not necessarily He may not necessarily known about your conviction though, because that would require like the ability to be like intercepting messages between you and God. Right? Like that would freak me out a little bit.

Like, oh, okay. Our line of communication is not secure here. Did it matter? Does it matter if it's, if it's secure or not? I mean, they have been watching you since the, before you were born, you know, Satan's been watching your film. Yeah. Right? Yeah. they've been watching their film and They know everything about you Here's the crazy thing They can't win

Because who are you with who's with you I mean, it's, it's not even comparable. It's like comparing us to ants, right? That's right. Holy spirits, even to them. That's right. They live on a different plane or a different dimension. And because they live on that different dimension, they see things differently than we do because we live in both the spirit world and the physical world.

They can view the physical world, but they don't live in the physical world. Have you ever had, it's going to be a strange question. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever had any visions where you've seen, like, what they look like, or have you just, like, experienced them through other people? Uh, I haven't seen demons, um, but truth of matter is, is our picture of demons is probably nowhere close to what it's really like.

Uh, in fact, uh, there are two, there are a bunch of demon picture paintings from the 1790s called, uh, Satan Calls Up the Hordes. And one of them looks like a, um, a knight in shining armor with blonde hair and blue eyes. Okay. His body is all silver and it looks like he's wearing a silver suit. Another one is a naked male, uh, or a naked human.

Uh, the, uh, Private parts are kind of fuzzed out, or I don't know what the painter did, but, uh, he's got a Roman helmet on or a conquistador type helmet on. Right. And so how old is this painting? Uh, 1790s, so there's several of them, uh, going on right there. Uh, and you just go, okay, so what's the demon look like?

We think demons, you know, little red guy on their shoulder, Here's an even funnier thing, uh, that I have discovered. There is a mosaic. You know what a mosaic is? It's little tiles and they put them on the floor. Make a bigger picture. Yeah. I think the Romans or the Greeks kind of came up with that method.

There's one in a church in Turkey. earliest mosaic that we know of that have demons in it. There is Jesus and to the right is an angel and to the left is an angel. They both look the same. To the right is sheep. To the left is goats. The angel to the right is red. The angel to the left is blue. Which side had the goats?

The left side, the blue, whereas our depiction has been read. Yeah. Our depictions had read since Dante. Interesting. So Dante's really the one that has helped her. So he's pushed a lot of, okay. The imagination of the tail and the wings and the red and the horns and all that kind of stuff. So, so the circle back to strongholds on locations in this case.

The stronghold was on the person in KFC, not necessarily a location. Yeah. In this case, the daemon was manipulating the person. Do you think it was a full blown possession or an oppression situation? It was, it was possession. Possession. Okay. Yeah. The, the young man didn't have control. How old was this guy?

Probably in his early forties, maybe judging by the color of his hair. Wow. Having said that, uh, you know, if I would have been paying attention and, and really, um, For me, it was a great learning experience of hearing the voice of the Lord. But if I would have been ready and paying attention, that man might be free today.

Of course, I'd never be able to go back to KFC, but

you'd be on YouTube for sure. Like this guy getting delivered at KFC. But that's the way it happens, guys. We, we cannot be, it doesn't happen on the front of the church. Yeah. It doesn't happen at like the front stage. Like you see on a lot of the, Like, um, well, it does magic churches, right? Yeah, it does. But that's, that's not the norm.

The norm is, is you're walking down the street and some guy comes up and starts talking to you and you share the gospel of Jesus Christ and the demon manifests and you cast out the demon because the person wants to know Christ. The person wants to be transformed by the power of God. Okay. I got a couple of questions for that then.

All right. So let's, I want to back up. Could you have helped that young man without laying hands on him? Like what, what if you just stood behind him, arms distance and started praying like, like Lord remove whatever this spirit is in him, that's agitating them. Or is there something about the actual laying of hands that would have held more, more, um, Power for whatever reason.

No, it's not touching. Doesn't, doesn't make it more powerful or less powerful. But you, you felt convicted to delay an actual hand on them, correct? Oh, well, that's just my tradition. So that's okay. So, but you were at that moment, you, there was a bit of a, probably Like no way this is either whether it's social anxiety or just like, I, that's just a thought in my own head.

That wasn't God. Well, the thought was, what would happen if I've cast out a demon in the middle of KFC? We wouldn't eat KFC, we'd have to go to another restaurant. Yeah. Well, see, it was more, that was the kind of thought that I went through my head. Oh, this guy's probably got a demon in him. I wonder what would happen if someone got caught.

Because I was thinking not about this young man being free. I was thinking about the bigger picture of what, what would happen if there was somebody with his video. Do I really want to be a YouTube star tonight? Well, that's not what went through my head, but yeah, the sarcastic, the craziness of. Some dude got free from a demon in the middle of KFC.

I mean, and that's what was going through my head, not recognizing that the initial thought was the spirit of God saying, you need to do something about this. So that's something I know I struggle with and I'm, I know lots of Christians probably do. How do you know if you're, and this is another episode all on its own, but.

How do you know when you're hearing from God? I, and I know he speaks in various ways, right? Through dreams, sometimes audibly in your head. Um, other times I feel like it's more like Elijah where, where he steps out of the cave, right? It was, he's looking for God. There's fire, there's wind, there's an earthquake, and God was not in those things.

Not that God didn't cause them, but he was not in those things. And then maybe it was Elijah stepped back in his cave, um, not cage, sorry, cave, put his cloak around his head, and then God was the whisper, like in the, whether it was his head or his heart. So that, is that what we should expect? Is that it's going to be like a whisper, like a conviction that's like a quiet little, like you can't almost tell the difference.

So, uh, we learn to hear the voice of the Lord. Right? Just like your child learns to hear the voice of you while they're in their womb. If you talk to them, you learn to hear the voice of the Lord. It is a process where you hear a prompting from the Lord and you either go for it or you don't. And it is confirmed later on.

And there's never an issue with God when you say, I need you to confirm this. Okay. All right. Interesting. Cause I will, sometimes I feel like it's being sinful when I say, God, I need to give me an extra sign like Gideon, right? Can you just one more sign, please? So okay. We'll see. Here's the problem with Gideon.

He knew it was the Lord. He was just afraid. Okay. Okay. So the Lord was literally sitting under a tree in front of him, right? That's like what I wish would happen. Like. Okay. But if the Lord shows up in a tree, what is he going to ask you to do? Gosh, I'd be too scared to, if he's going to come down and ask me to do something, it's going to be something that's going to be redemptive history.

I mean, it's going to get written in the Bible kind of thing. Uh, Most of the time God speaks to us through promptings in our spirit, through the Word of God, through, uh, things that people say that are churning within us. Like someone will say, like a synchronicity, like someone starts talking about exactly what you've been thinking about at that very moment.

Right. I've had those conviction stirrings before so one example that stands out to me. I'm pretty sure it was God was The wife and I and the kids were leaving Winco And as we're pulling away, there's a gentleman walking who's he was homeless But he had his legs were swollen like It was like logs. Like I don't know if that's a diabetic Issue like he wasn't getting insulin, but he looked like he was in rough shape.

His skin was You It almost looked scaly as in like, or burned, like some kind of condition. So I can't explain it, but like, it's a conviction. It's like, you need to give that guy some money. And I kind of dismissed it and I drove past the guy and then it like, I almost want to say doubled down. I was like, no, you need to give that guy some money.

And like, It wasn't like I was hearing this separate voice in my head. Like it wasn't, it wasn't another person. I was just feeling like I needed to give him money so much so that I went behind Winco, looped around, went back past the front door. I'm like, all right, Lord, please let him be up front when I get there.

And sure as heck, right before he hit the front door, I parked, got out, gave the guy 20. And I said, I hope this helps. And uh, I don't know. I don't know what happened next. I never saw the guy again, but. Maybe that's the closest thing I had to like a whisper. I don't know.

 So, but here's, here's the key when it's the Lord, it will always be a prompting of, of righteousness and goodness. Does that make sense? Um, I drive up to the corner and where I work there's a major entry to the freeway. There are always quote unquote homeless people.

They're really panhandlers on the side of the road. For years I struggled with that. Should I give them money? Should I give them money? Should I give them money? What's the Christian thing to do? Right. Because you know, the word says to share what you have and you know, don't worry about where it's going.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, I finally had to come to the Lord and say, I need you to tell me, give it or not. And It was probably three or four days later my wife comes to me and she says, you know I never give money to anybody but the Lord made it so clear that I needed to help this one person that I trusted help them.

And I'm like, okay, God, all right. I'm going to wait until you make it so clear that I need to help because there's, I mean, I could spend thousands of dollars at every corner because they're just everywhere in my particular area of the town that I work in. So, uh, I'm, I'm open to it, but I'm not open to it.

Does that make sense? So the Lord's going to have to make it very clear. This person needs your help. Yeah. Because you want it to do good. I mean, right. Yeah. Well, I, I realize that I'm doing it in the name of the Lord. And so that person who receives the money, they are responsible for what they do with it.

Yeah. Okay. I understand that principle, but on the other hand, that principle doesn't work real well. When you're seeing a different person on the street corner, Every day. So, I mean, even if you give them five bucks a day, I mean, I realize that most of us spend 10 a day at Starbucks or black rock coffee or wherever, but on the other hand, you could spend lots of money just giving money away.

Yeah. Now I, I believe in generosity. But, uh, I came to a conclusion long ago that I'm going to be generous through my church. That my church needs to be able to have a ministry that really helps people get healthy. Yeah. Not the panhandler, but the person to get healthy. And so I trust my leadership in my church that the funds that I give them for this food ministry, clothing ministry, whatever that ministry might be, that those funds are going to be used in the proper way.

And I also understand that I can give money to, you know, I mean, there's so many ministries out there that are Christian ministries that I don't need to feel guilty. And that's what really was happening to me was a guilt feeling, a false guilt that I should be doing something for these people. Well, I am right.

I'm, we're faithful supporters of teen challenge. We're faithful supporters of, uh, Mary, the Maricopa food bank. We're faithful supporters of our local churches, ministries that do those kinds of things. So, uh, But to hear God's voice in the midst of that, I had to figure out what was my false guilt, Christian teaching, and the conviction of the Holy spirit and those kinds of things.

See, now let's go back to the demonic thing. I do have another question. Good. Um, I might get you off track on this. And if that's the case, finish your thought and we can come back to it. But I was going to ask. What would it have looked like for everybody in that KFC? Generally speaking from how deliverances go, like would have been a just total scene of chaos.

Would there have been cussing and would have been a situation where like parents with kids would be like, we got to get out of here. Is it pretty messy? So we kind of got to be careful. What, where we do these things, you know, it's kind of what I'm getting at. Well, fortunately there were no kids in the house, in the place.

And it was later in the evening. Okay. It was after seven o'clock. Um, what would it have looked like? Uh, it could have been very messy, but I don't believe it would have been messy because it wasn't me. Seeking, seeking out the demonic in order to be cast them out, which is what you hear. All the reports are guys seeking them out like a vampire hunters.

Or, uh, you know, like Yala Rona, I don't remember if you remember that movie. That was a little while back where they had the priest put rose wood around the house and it couldn't enter the house. And he was searching out the demonic, right? I wasn't searching out the demonic. I was just hanging out. Yeah.

So if the Lord wanted this person delivered, and I believe he was delivered just not by me. Yeah. Okay. But if the Lord wanted this person delivered, it would have been, if it was a big scene, it would have been because those individuals that were there watching needed to see the power of God. I didn't think about that.

That's, that's powerful. See, here's my, here's my fundamental belief. God does nothing Unless he wants Those things to happen Does that make sense? Yeah, he he's in full control, right? He's in full control Even if we don't understand what he's doing Absolutely, right if if I would have just stood behind the guy and prayed father Remove the demon from this man so they can be in his right mind Now if you did that And he didn't accept Christ, isn't it saying in scripture that, like, he will return with many, the demon would, so could, could we potentially put that person at more risk?

Well, here's the issue. Did the guy want to be free or not? Am I, if that individual wanted to be free, then it's my responsibility now to tell him about Jesus Christ. Okay. So how, how would you do that? Would you lean over and be like, uh, excuse me, sir. Do you want to be free? No, uh, I would have prayed the prayer of faith.

All right. Would have been like, Lord, if he wants to be free, then free him. No, no. Why would I want to pray that way? I want to pray God cast out the demon, remove the demon from his life. And I am sure that that guy would have turned around still fully possessed and would have challenged me if he didn't want to be free, even if he did want to be free, because at some point in time, that individual has to make the choice that he wants to be free because he didn't.

If he doesn't want to be free, God's not going to go against his will. That's what I was going to say. Like you may pray and God may be able to yank the demon out, but if he respects our free will, like to the point where people are asking how, how can there be so much evil in the world? Because we choose to do evil.

Free will. Right? It's free. Will is so good to God that he, it's a, it's essentially brought evil into the world. That's how it's so good. It's. Well, uh, let's, let's really define evil. Evil is not anything in itself. It's just the rebellion against God. Yeah. Okay. So, uh, August, uh, Augustine, uh, and Acquaintance came along.

Both of them affirmed that evil is not real unless you know what good is. Yeah. Okay. So we have a good God. We have a God who created this universe and he said it was good. He even created humanity and said, you're good. And then we chose to not have a relationship with him. And as soon as we chose not to have a relationship with him, that's bad.

Is that fair enough? Yeah. We removed ourself from good. We removed ourself from good and now we're evil. So, uh, the intentions of our heart are all about me, not about God. Until God comes in and resets my, my reset button. You know, he pushes the reset button called salvation. And now my focus is on him.

Okay. So the, Hey dude, God wants to set you free. I don't want to be free. Okay, is that the demonic talking or is that the guy? Yeah, is that the guy speaking? And we have to, uh, I don't want to glorify this. Does that make sense? We need to be clear to the point and cast the thing out. Don't play with it.

Yeah, okay It is a snake that is ready to strike You're in my head. I was just saying like it'd be like picking up a rattlesnake You want to do it as fast as possible? Grab it by the head so doesn't bite you and then throw it Right. It's funny you use that analogy. Right. Or better yet, just take a nine iron to it.

Shovelhead spade shovel sharpened to a knife point edge. And that's what the word of God is. The word of God is sharper than any two edged sword, right? So it's the word of God that frees that person. It's not me. So, so all this junk that you read that, you know, all we prayed for five hours and the finally, or whatever prayers like 20 times, right.

Or, you know, we, we had to fast and pray for this person to be freed. Okay. I believe in fasting and prayer. I believe some things aren't going to happen without fasting and prayer. The disciples came back today. We couldn't cast them out. Oh, then Jesus said those, but this kind, I know what you're talking about.

Right. I forget where that is. That in Matthew. Um, This kind can only be removed with fasting and prayer, right? All right. We got to elaborate on that after you finish your thought. Well, but here's, here's the point is that it's not about you and me. Does that make sense? We make it about us when it's about the redemptive work of God.

So when you're faced with the demonic, it's not about you. It's about the redemptive work of God. Does God want to save this person? And you have to answer as far as I know, yes, whosoever will. Right? Yeah. That's the answer across the board. That's the answer across the board. Okay. So then pray for the person's freedom.

Pray that the person that the demon leaves. All right. Okay. I walk into a house though. The lady wants me to pray over the house because she takes there's demonic things in the house. So is this, did this actually happen or is it hypothetical? Oh, no, this is actually Ireland. Okay. Where is this? Where, if you don't mind me asking, in my small town on the east side of the state, but I walk into the house and she has paraphernalia that is.

Uh, well, wind catchers, those kinds of paraphernalia that dream catchers, dream catchers, often called wind catchers in the store. Does that make sense? Okay. Uh, now these are Uh, items that are used often, uh, in non christian, uh, religious activities. All right. Uh, that doesn't mean that you have to kick out everything that you think is, you know, not Christian, right?

I wonder about that. Cause my wife has a picture of a dream catcher, her aunt got her. And I, I've said to my wife, I was like, I don't know if I want that in the house. But she, well, if you are uncomfortable with it. Then remove it because Paul says it doesn't matter. It's just a picture. Yeah. Okay. But if you give power to it, you're catching what I'm saying here.

That's what I worry about right now. Well, if you give power to it, you open the door. Does that make sense? So if I say, this is just a picture, I don't care about it. Yeah. It's just a picture. I don't care about it. Okay. But you know what that picture represents. Right. Uh, Paul used these terms and analogies.

Yeah. He says, if you go and you eat food that's been offered to idle, does it mean anything? And he's like, no, it's just meat. Yeah. Right. Like God made the meat. I can, I'm going to eat the meat. I don't care about that little wooden statue you offered it to. Right. Okay. Follow your own conscious is kind of where he was going with that.

Right. What he's saying is if, if you can't eat that meat with a clear conscience, then guess what? It's for you. It's sin for you. In fact, if you can't do things with a clear conscience, Don't do them Now don't blame anybody else who does because they can do it with a clear conscience for example My father in law was an alcoholic until he found Christ and Christ completely and totally Removed alcohol from him.

He got saved and never had another drink of alcohol interesting. Okay But he didn't tell everybody else that they couldn't have a drink Because for him, it was going back to a place where he didn't want to go. For others, it may not be going back to a place at all. That's interesting. Now, I don't drink. I don't drink because, first of all, I don't particularly care for alcoholic beverages.

I mean, Dr. Pepper is about as heavy as I get, right? That's good. Yeah. Well, but there's so many other things that I can drink. Right. Does that make sense? I don't need alcohol. Uh, that's not the right word. I don't enjoy alcohol. Alcohol. I've had one alcoholic drink in my life. It was a really bad wine and it was so nasty that I just basically Never again.

I took one swip and said Never drink that stuff now there's people out there that tell me there's all kinds of good drinks out there, right? And my father in law would say oh, yeah, that's a very Good tasting drink. Yeah, right and i'd be like I don't, I don't have any desire for it. It's not who I am.

Yeah. So it's not that you have like, uh, it's not sin for me. Yeah. It's not a sin for you. You just have, you don't, I don't want it. Yeah. Right. Interesting. Like, you know, my wife's dessert, she thinks that chips are the way to go for dessert. And I'm like, chips, who cares about chips? Right. So, you know, you're either salty or sweet.

That's kind of, if you have too much sweet, if you're a salty person, you eat something really sweet. You're like, Oh, I got to go have chips. Cause it's where I'm like, if I have a chip, I'm like, Oh, I need to go have something sweet to kill this nasty, faulty taste. Right. What I'm, what I'm trying to point out too, is unless we are clear in our conscience about what we're doing, We probably shouldn't do it.

Now, let me, let me give you a better example. I never went to a movie theater until I went to college. I was raised that a movie theater was not of God. Because people could not tell whether you were going to a G rated film, a PG rated film, an R rated film, or an X rated film. Ha ha. In my small town where I grew up all kinds were around the movie theater.

Interesting. So, so it was all about, you know, we don't want to have the appearance of evil. All right. Okay. So especially coming from a pastoral family, right? Was your father a pastor? No, he's a deacon. So, so I'm a leader. And so, yeah, yeah. There's a bit of a responsibility of the position. Oh yeah. Authority.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, uh, I go to Bible school. Signed on the dotted line, thou shalt not go to movies. First movie I ever went to. I went to the 11 o'clock showing so no one would see me. No, no, 11 p. m. Oh, 11 p. m. Okay. It was the opposite of 11 p. m. So that no one would see me, right? And I watched the whole film just expecting the roof to fall on my head because I was so guilty.

Right. Uh, by the way, it was Transylvania, six, 5, 000, a stupid, dumb, uh, uh, uh, uh, vampire flick. Really interesting. Your first choice was a horror movie. No, it was a comedy comedy, but, uh, I went and watched it. Right. And then I went home and I felt guilty about it over and over and over and over and over.

Right. Because I had done something that I truly believed was not of God. Okay. Fast forward 35, 40 years from that particular young man. And, uh, okay, we go watch movies now and it's nothing. Yeah. Why? Well, because you can watch whatever you want to on TV and still Be just as bad. Does that make sense? Yeah.

In fact, there's probably more on the local cable show than what you can get at the movie theater unless you go to a specific movie theater that shows those kinds of shows. Yeah. All right. So, uh, did I just grow cold or was there a transformation in the media? A medium that looked to me, the reason I was doing this was because I was looking for sin when there may or may not be sin in it.

Does that make sense? Interesting. So my convictions changed. Not because I think that there's something wrong with going to movies. I didn't really think there was anything wrong with going to movies before. It was just the way I was raised. Yeah. Right. Uh, but now, well, there's some movies that we just shouldn't go and watch some shows too on TV.

We should. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there's things where we're at that point where conviction of the spirit of God is more important than my traditions. Is that fair enough? Interesting. Even if the convictions seem like. You're retreating from her traditions potentially. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely Because i'd imagine people would think it would be the opposite direction.

You'd be convicted to go further Um in traditions just generally speaking Yeah, well, I was raised very very conservative. Yeah, very holiness movement. So my mom never wore slacks until Probably I was out of high school You She always wore a dress to church. She always wore the dress to, in the house. I mean, she looked like, I don't know if you know who, uh, Ozzy, Harriet, Harriet, uh, uh, if you go and see old videos of Ozzy and Harriet, Harriet's always dressed in a dress, she's always perfectly groomed, her kitchen is perfectly clean.

That was my mom. Okay. Alright, you could eat off the floor. Whereas I was raised in a secular household. Probably the opposite end of what, you You had, we went to church at Christmas and Easter. We were Christers. Sorry, mom. If you're listening to this. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Cause I mean, I've been convicted in the opposite direction.

So one example would be, I grew up playing video games with my generation. I just recently, I sold my, my, I had the latest video game system, you know, I'm, I kept getting convicted like, like you shouldn't be playing these. Like I'd like the, the first person shooters, if you know what that is, like you're, you're a soldier running around and shooting people.

Um, even some of the sci fi ones, like, uh, I won't say their names on the podcast, but where it's less realistic and less violent, but the act of killing is still in it. So I was wrestling with it for a couple of months and I finally just said, all right, God, show me what, what's going on here.

And I had just like an image in my head. This could just be me being crazy or God kind of giving me that little image of a skull in the dirt. Kind of like in the rocks stepped on with blood on it and I had that I had the thought come across my head You're idolizing the spirit of death Yeah came across my head and at that moment I was convinced like okay That's got to be from god because it was two seconds after I asked.

Yep. Yep, and I was like, okay I'll stop and I sold it. Well, I traded it for a camera. So for the podcast but um That was a tough one. I've still I still miss playing because I don't think all games are You from my perspective now, I would say not all games are bad. Um, like some are building, you can build things, you can, um, puzzles, puzzles.

Yeah. Like it's not, it's not gaming. It's that for me, it was an idol. Yeah. And, uh, and so you had to go beyond in order to come back to the right place. Yeah. It was often happens. Okay. I'm going to choose obedience, even though I, I, it's like, I, it's a fun hobby. I get to kids go to bed. I, my wife goes to bed.

I play for an hour or two, uh, you know, depressurize a little bit, but now it's, Nope. Got rid of it. Yeah. And now you have an hour or two depressurized with the word. I go to bed earlier, which is probably better from a health perspective, but yeah. Well, our time has quickly run away from us. Yeah, we've gone an hour.

So, uh, we can always have more fun with this. Yeah. Uh, you know what? Let's pray. Because this is a, this is a, uh, such an interesting topic that we don't want people to run away in the wrong direction. So, Father, we ask that, uh, you would use this time that we spent together for your glory and praise.

Protect those who are listening to our podcast, that they would not abuse the authority, but they would know the authority you have, that they have in you. Come protect us from our sinfulness, protect us from our own, um, stupidity, if I could use that word, or our own innocence and Lord, those who are fighting against demons who are, uh, continuously being confronted either in a place or with somebody who is being motivated by the enemy, may they have the full armor of God.

And may they know who they are in you, a child of God, protected and ready to do the work you have called them to do. We pray these things in the name of Christ our Savior. Amen. Amen.