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

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

December 2, 2024

Questions about whether evil spirits can come into our lives through openings like certain music and movies and whether putting Bible verses under your pillow to stop nightmares is a legitimate form of spiritual warfare.

* What do you think about the idea that evil spirits can come into our lives through different openings like certain music and movies?

* My friend said her nightmares stopped after she wrote Bible verses on cards and placed them under her pillow. Is this over-spiritualization, or is this actual spiritual warfare?

Transcript

Welcome, you're listening to Amy Hall and Greg Koukl on the hashtag-STRask podcast. Thank you for joining us, and thank you for sending in your questions. We collect your questions from Twitter and our website, so we look forward to hearing from you if you have anything to ask us.

We do. Okay, Greg, we have kind of unusual set of questions today. The first one comes from Jackie.

I believe evil spirits can come into our lives through different openings, through different openings, if you will, like certain music and movies. I'm curious what your take on this is? Well, the question I'd have, pardon me, is that is the justification for that. What are the reasons, Jackie? What are the reasons you think this is the case? Okay, so the two potential reasons.

One is a biblical reason, where you have biblical examples of people being exposed to, say, compromised circumstances. And as a result, demons then enter into interaction with those people in some fashion. I'm not aware of any of that.

In fact, Paul says, even regarding idols, an idol is nothing. There's no indication from anything that I'm aware of. Some people pointed out a verse to say, well, here's the way I take this verse.

But I don't see that in the text, that somehow objects are compromised theologically. I don't know even the right way to see it, are means of demonic intervention. So here's a, here's a, here's a Buddha, a little Buddha thing, you know.

You can't have that in your house. Well, that's demonic. You have that object in your life.

The demons that are associated with the falsehood of Buddhism are going to be after you. Now, I lived in Thailand. That's a Buddhist country.

And they have, they have all kinds of spirit fetishes, so to speak. That is, even though Buddhism is the kind of official religion of the country, the visceral religion where people really live is animism, their understanding of belief in spirits and the belief that they can control spirits by these different little methodologies or objects. That's what I refer to as fetishes.

And so, but demons can't be controlled by any of that stuff. And I have no reason since the demons can't control, be controlled by these objects. I don't see how the demons can control anybody in virtue of having the object.

Okay, now it is true, the Ephesians, when they became Christians, they burned a lot of their occultic books. And, but it's not clear at all there that the reason they burned them is because they had the presence of demons associated with them. And if they didn't get rid of them, they would still be open to the impact of demons.

I think the reason that they burned them is out of fidelity to Christ. This is an old way of life. This is all nonsense.

We're not following this anymore. We're burning it and we're moving forward. It was a very visible display of repentance.

That is a change, a metanoia, a transformation in thinking, a change in mind. And I'm just trying to think if there's any other examples of that in the New Testament, where there is any hint that demons are associated with things in a way that it increases the demonic, the possibility of demonic influence by also being associated with those things. I don't think we ever see how one of those things started.

The only time I can think of where it talks about a demon going into someone would be Judas. That's the only example. Everyone else, you never see where it begins.

Initiates, right. And so I just don't, I don't see this. Now look, if people, I can think of times when we went into a place that it was a place we rented.

That was with a discipleship group. It was a long time ago. In the late 80s, we had a retreat in the mountains.

This house we rented had, it was all kinds of stuff. And we prayed in every room. Certainly no harm in that.

Okay. And I actually felt more comfortable once we had prayed over everything, you know. But I don't, I'm not sure if there was any efficacy to that.

It was kind of like just to be sure, let's just pray over this place that we're in that obviously somebody with occultic sentiments had lived in. Here's, you know, crystals, they had decorated with and other objects. And so we prayed.

And that made us all feel more comfortable. But I don't know any theological justification for that. Okay.

So there's, I mentioned there's two ways that this might be justified, one biblically and the other one from personal experience. One might say, well, I don't have a verse to justify this, but I know that when we had this object, this Ouija board was in our house and just being there, not using it, that's different. That's active complicity.

But just having it there, we had all kinds of odd manifestations. And when we got rid of the Ouija board, we got rid of the manifestations. That would be another way of arguing for it, in principle, at least.

But it seems to me to verify or to be able to justify the claim that objects can have demonic associations that then influence Christians who are in close contact with those objects needs some kind of justification, either biblical or in terms of personal experience. But I don't, I don't see that. Certainly nothing was offered here.

Just the belief that these things can be harmful to Christians. Well, my question is, what is meant by quote, come into our lives? Does that mean that they are bothering you? Does that mean you're possessed? So that's, that's hard for me to respond without knowing what that means. But one thing I will say, because what Jackie says here, the thing she mentions are music and movies.

And so what I would say is when you look at how spiritual warfare is described part of it, obviously you have the power encounters of Jesus with the demons and that sort of thing. But you also have combatting false ideas. Truth encounters.

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

And so you have to be, you have to be thinking about what you're seeing and what you're hearing and always be fighting the false ideas with the truth in your own mind. So that you are not being made, you know, either emotionally upset or just intellectually going astray from the truth. You know, a couple of passages that support this notion that you just suggesting, one obvious one, Second Corinthians chapter.

Is it 10? I think it's 10. Yeah, 10 like three and four, something like that. In any event, Paul mentions that the weapons are warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.

Okay, so while now he's talking about pretty obviously spiritual warfare, then he says, remember, destruction of fortresses, then he says immediately next verse, we are tearing down destruction. We are tearing down speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Now, if you take that last phrase in isolation, it sounds like we ought to be thinking pure thoughts, which we ought to be thinking pure thoughts, but I don't think that's what he's talking about.

You'd look at the whole pericopy, the whole unit of thought there, and he's talking about spiritual warfare related to ideas that are raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are to be thinking in such a way as to be thinking accurately and truthfully about God. And when it comes to these other ideas that are contrary to that, we are dismantling them. We are tearing them down so that weapon that he is talking about is the weapon of truth wielded by the Christian to assault false ideas.

Now, this brings me to the second passage, which ties in directly, and it's just surprising to me when people talk about spiritual warfare, they're almost always talking about existential things, experiential things. I'm being spiritually attacked in this way, and I have no doubt that the devil can cause hardship in our life and difficulty and that kind of thing. And so now we have to bind these, whatever, you know, and all this other stuff.

So there's that power encounter thing, but the passages that explicitly described the spiritual dimension that we are to oppose, one I just mentioned, 2 Corinthians 10, how about Ephesians 6, that whole last half of the chapter is all about that? And that passage says, put on the full armor of God. That's how you stand firm against the schemes of the devil, not just the influence of the power of the devil, the schemes. Now, schemes are ideological things, and they're machinations that since he's a liar and the father of lies, he lies according to his own nature, and that's all Jesus stuff, John 8ish, then the schemes are going to be probably ideological lies that become persuasive to people because they are blinded.

And we know they're blinded by a number of different passages about the devil, 2 Corinthians 4, 2 Timothy chapter 2, the last couple verses there held captive by him to do as well. 1 John 5, the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. They're all blinded by these falsehoods, and the antidote that Paul describes in Ephesians 6 is the armor.

What's the armor? The first piece is the belt of truth. No duh. And then notice all the rest of those things have to do with theological verities.

The helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, shouting your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith. So, it's very interesting that way Paul tells us to be able to defend so we can stand firm has to do with all of these things. Now, I remember there's a stage in my life where in the morning, and I even taught this one, in the morning, I would say this prayer, okay Lord, I'm putting on the helmets of salvation.

I'm taking up the shield of faith. I went through all the armor. As if I was arming myself by declaring those objects as being part of me.

That did no good, because it's not declaring the objects are part of me. It's having an understanding about salvation that protects us. That's what I mean by theological verity.

It's not putting on the belt of truth. Look at, if you put on the belt of truth in that sense, and you don't know what the truth is, you're not protected. The sword of the spirit.

Here it is. I'm wielding it. Well, if you don't know the word, you've got a rubber sword.

And so what he's describing there are the kinds of theological things we have to be properly informed on so that they serve as a bulwark against the attacks of the enemy, which are largely and principally ideological falsehoods. That's great, Greg. I have nothing to add to that.

That was so well said. All right, let's go on to the next question from World View Cafe. My friend said she was having nightmares.

One day she decided to write Bible verses on cards and place them under her pillow. She said the nightmare stopped. Is this over spiritualization, confusing causation and correlation, or is this actual spiritual warfare? I have no reason to believe it's the last.

I think it's well-intentioned, but I'm just going to say this without meaning any harm. But I think without condescension, this is a description. It's superstitious.

It is superstitious. There is no power in words written on a card that you put under your pillow. If there were power in that, anybody could put those words under their pillow and then have that power.

There's no power to that. Now, there may be an element of writing those things down and the act of writing and reflecting on them. Like somebody said, I put them on my pillow so that every night I can read these things before I go to sleep and remind myself of the truth, and now I sleep better.

Okay, fine. Interestingly, this has been happening a lot lately. I was reading last night when I went to bed and do a little reading in the word just to finish Psalm 3. And in Psalm 3, we have a statement about sleeping, ironically.

Let me get to it here. There's so many pages of Psalms. Oops, that's Job.

Where is it? That's Job. That's Job. Let's get past Job.

Let's get past Job. Job, you are hard reading. Oh, man.

Lots of Job. Okay. Psalm 3, how my adversaries have increased.

Many are rising against me. Many are seeing of my soul. There is no deliverance for him and God, but you, oh Lord, are a shield about me.

My glory and the one who lifts my head. I was crying to the Lord with my voice. He answered me from the holy mountain.

I lay down and slept. I awoke for the Lord sustains me. I will not be afraid of 10,000 of people who have set themselves against me round about.

Notice how the psalmist David there, I imagine, is reflecting on the nature and character of God to protect him from hardship. And it is that understanding that allows him to sleep well. He didn't say I wrote these words down on a parchment.

I stuck it in my pillow and, oh man, I felt better. So that's why I see a superstition, because what superstition superstition is, is when you assign causal power to something that has no causal power, like a rabbit's foot. Oh, that's good luck.

Wait a minute. My dad told me this. That rabbit had four of those things.

And where is he? You know, so, yeah, I think this, with respect to worldview cafe, I think that's superstition. That's not going to help you at all. If you're having verses that you think are relevant to your circumstance, that you're reflecting on at night.

Like when I'm going to bed, the first thing I read to other things at night, but I always make sure I almost always that I go through Psalms and Proverbs back and forth, back and forth. Yeah, I suspect that was why things got better. You have, you're reflecting on the verses.

You're writing them down. You have them there. So you maybe feel them and you're reminded of what they say.

And then that comforts you. It's the ideas that are helping the friends and not the piece of paper. Now, the idea that we can have certain trinkets or amulets or things that will ward off spirits, that's a pagan idea.

And we need to resist that. And the reason why we don't need those things is because God has all power. We don't have to try and manipulate the spirits.

We don't have to do certain things to get them to go away or whatever. Think about the man who said, Jesus, you don't even have to come to my house. All you have to do is command that the demon leaves and he will leave.

Because he understood that Jesus has the power. We don't have to make it happen by doing certain rituals or saying things a certain way or doing a certain thing. We can ask him and he will listen to us and we have to trust that he is the one with the power, not us.

And that's a good thing. And we don't need to go to all these other ways of manipulating spirits. And it's not just the amulets.

It's also words. People think words have certain power and they go to Hebrews, the word of God is living in active or they go to Isaiah. My word will not return void, but they take from that the wrong lesson.

And they think saying the words is the power is in the words. Well, that's an abracadabra stuff. That's open sesame stuff.

There is no power in those words. If the power was in the word, some people use Jesus' name like this. The power is in the name of Jesus.

You got to say those words. Well, then anyone saying the power words would get the same effect. And it's interesting we see this in the book of Acts where there are seven sons of skiva who are Jewish exorcists that are trying to exercise a demon from a man or demon.

And they said, I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches. And the demon said, no, no, they're using the right words. The demon says, I know about Jesus.

How does he put it? Jesus, I know. Paul, I know. Who are you? And then he beats them all up and they run away.

These seven men naked and bleeding is what the text says. So one man in demonic power is not influenced by their proper words because they are not speaking in the proper name of Jesus. So speaking in the name of Jesus does not mean saying the name of Jesus.

This is such a massive misunderstanding. It's why everybody uses this phrase at the end of their prayers in the name of Jesus Amen, as if that's the magic phrase. Well, the Bible says we should pray in the name of Jesus, but that doesn't mean saying in the name of Jesus.

There is many many prayers in the New Testament, none of them in that way. Praying in the name of Jesus means to be praying in his authority or based on the acceptance we have with the Father through Christ. Okay, that's what that means.

You never have to ever say it in order to be praying the way that that verse that promise is intending you to pray. You are going before the Father, not on your own merit, not based on your own virtues, but in Christ. And when you're praying in Christ, now you have a whole different standing with the Father.

And that's the point of that is not saying these words and what ends up happening is people get superstitious about the words. Just say the name Jesus, that will whatever. If you don't have Jesus in you on your side working for you, saying the word in English, J-E-S-U-S is not magic.

It's not abracadabra. It's not open sesame. It's not hocus pocus.

It's a mistake because there's no power in the words themselves. That's not what the New Testament means when it makes references that sound like that. That is an occultic view of language.

This is exactly what we human beings, we just gravitate towards this. This idea that we can have certain things that we do to manipulate reality or spirits or whatever. And it's so freeing to know that we don't have to do that because God has the power.

That's just so freeing. And it's something that has, I think you can see a huge difference in the West because of all of the influence that Christianity has had versus other areas of the world where they do have a lot of rituals and things they do to control the spirits or manipulate them or whatever. So this is something that we can rest in, rest in God's power.

All right, Greg, we're out of time. But just as a little teaser, I think we'll continue on this topic in the next show. So thank you for listening.

We look forward to having you back again with us. This is Amy Hall and Greg Coco for Stand to Reason.