Spiritual Warfare #8 - Can a Christian Have Demons?
About this sermon
Dean Odle directly answers the question “Can a Christian have demons?” in the affirmative, distinguishing salvation from the surrender of particular areas of a believer’s soul or body. He argues from warnings addressed to Christians, Israel’s Old Testament experience, and Gospel deliverance accounts that covenant people can fellowship with demons, retain unclean strongholds, and need those bondages removed.
Chronological teaching outline
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Paul’s command not to give place to the devil and Peter’s warning about a devouring adversary are addressed to saints, so Odle argues that believers can open real areas of access. He distinguishes such access from total domination and says the question concerns whether a demon can occupy part of a Christian’s life.
First Corinthians 10 warns church members that pagan sacrifices are offered to demons and that participants become sharers or companions with them. Odle studies the word translated fellowship to argue that idolatrous participation creates more than mere physical proximity.
Israel’s history is presented as instruction through examples, shadows, and allegories for believers. Because Jesus ministered to covenant Israelites before the cross completed the New Covenant, His deliverances are treated as evidence that covenant membership and demonic bondage can coexist.
The Red Sea and cloud picture water and Spirit baptism, while entering Canaan cannot picture heaven because Israel still faced giants and warfare there. Odle applies the conquest to Christians who are truly saved yet must drive entrenched enemies out of areas of life.
Second Corinthians 6 commands believers to separate from idolatry precisely because some Corinthians were still participating in it. Odle also appeals to God’s omnipresence in Psalm 139 to reject the simplistic claim that any presence of divine light makes demonic presence metaphysically impossible.
Manasseh placed an idol in the temple where God had put His name, and Ezekiel saw abominations while God’s glory was still associated with the sanctuary. The temple becomes a concrete biblical pattern for a person set apart to God who nevertheless permits unclean occupation.
Saul receives the Spirit, another heart, prophetic gifting, and a divine calling, language Odle compares with New Testament conversion. Saul’s later rebellion and torment by an evil spirit are then used to show that an anointed covenant servant can yield ground through disobedience.
The Syrophoenician woman’s request for her daughter is read through Jesus’ initial mission to Israel and His warning about an empty house. Odle argues that Jesus delayed because durable deliverance required covenant standing, then granted it when the woman persisted in faith.
Lazarus emerges alive from the tomb while still wrapped in grave clothes, which Odle uses as a picture of genuinely born-again people still bound by their former life. Mark 16’s sequence—preach the gospel and then cast out demons—supports ministry that follows salvation with loosing and freedom.
First John 1 describes Christ cleansing confessed sin, while 2 Corinthians 7 commands beloved believers to cleanse defilement of flesh and spirit. Odle concludes with his own experience renouncing Ouija-board involvement and receiving further deliverance while already living an earnest Christian life.
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Alright, good morning everyone. Welcome all of our students, Fire and Grace School of Ministry this morning, and this is class number eight. Can a Christian have a demon, or can Christian have demons, I should say, spiritual warfare class eight. Now I know I've already mentioned this, already talked about this a little bit in this part of the series, but I did skip some things. So we're going to recover, you know, refresh over the beginning, and get into the rest of it. Because this is very important. You need to be able to defend this and answer this question, because can a Christian have a demon, or have demons in them? Absolutely. I think I can prove that by the scriptures, and by many years of dealing with demons and Christians. So let's get started this morning. And Christian, I Christian have demons in them. Let's start back where we have started, covered this passage. And just so you know, any passage we cover two, three, four times will be on your test. So it's imperative to know these verses. Ephesians 4, 27, Paul speaking to Christians. He said in Ephesians 1, 1, to the saints and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. So in context he's speaking to Christians, and then he says neither give place to the devil or do not give place to the devil. Now if he has to tell Christians not to do that, that means they can do that. You can give the devil place in your life. Spirit, soul, or body, you can open a door, and you can give him place. Again, same principle, 1 Peter 5, 8, the Apostle Peter by the Holy Spirit speaking to Christians. Says again, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary. The devil as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour. What is he seeking? He's seeking to get you to sin or to do something out of ignorance, but he's getting, he wants you to open a door to him, break the hedge, give him a legal right in your life. And a Christian can do that. Okay, let's look at this verse again. Please, he asked, he's ten-eight. He that diggeth the pit shall fall into it, and whoso breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him. Of course, Luke 10, 19, Jesus said, behold, I give you power over all the power of the enemy, give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. So serpents and scorpions are types of demons. They're a symbol for demon spirits, for the devil, for Satan, fallen angels. So he says, whosoever here, whoso breaks the hedge, a serpent shall
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bite him. So it's the same principle, giving place to the devil, opening a door for the devil, breaking the hedge. They're all synonymous terms and very important to understand. We continue here. As I said last week in this class, ignorance is not bliss. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 2 again to the Church of Corinth to Christians. He says, lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices. And I've often said the flip side of that coin is if we are ignorant to his devices, he will get an advantage over us. So there's because there's a bunch of people walking around in Christianity think, okay, I'm a Christian. I'm born again. I've been delivered from the kingdom of darkness in essence. And so Satan can't touch me. And it's just not true. It's not what the Bible teaches as Hosea 4 6 concurs with what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians. He says here, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, not those outside of the blood covenant of God Almighty. But he says my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Very important to understand. Ignorance to the devil's devices, the weapons of his warfare that he uses against us, the ways that he can gain advantage, the ways that he can break, you know, get through the hedge or the door. Very important for us to understand because we are in a battle. And we started off this spiritual warfare class or, you know, this whole semester with a class talking about know your enemy. Very important to know your enemy, how he operates, how he works. But to sit around and be oblivious. I mean, if you actually believe a lie that your enemy cannot touch you in any way or he can't get through in any way, and he can, you're at a terrible disadvantage in a battle because really your pride, your arrogance, or your ignorance, one of the three or all of the three are going to get you in trouble. Of course, that's what Sun Tzu says. Your enemy is overconfident or you're overconfident and you don't know your enemy, you're going to be in trouble, right? So that's the principles we've been covering. Now we're going to cover this here again. I said this earlier in an earlier class, but I'm going to say it again and again and again. Ninety eight percent of the time you're not going to be casting demons out of an unsaved person. There's only two exceptions to that rule, and I've told you what that is. A person so demon possessed that they're not in their right mind enough even to accept the Lord and you're just trying to get them to a place where they can hear and understand the gospel from. I've had to do that on a couple of occasions, but it's a rare situation that you would do that, all right? That you would actually
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cast demons out of an unbeliever who's so totally demon possessed that they can't even think or function. And it's okay to do that as long as you're prepared to try to lead them the rest of the way to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior and be born again and get their house filled with Him or they're going to be in trouble. Why? Because here's what this verse says, this passage, Jesus speaking here in Matthew 12 43 through 45, He says, When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man. Let me tell you, they don't go out willingly. They only leave when they are cast out commanded to leave in the name of Jesus Christ by a true born-again believer. So when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walking through dry places seeking rest and findeth none, then he sayeth, I will return into my house from whence I came out and when he has come, he findeth it empty, swept and garnished, and then goeth he and takeeth with himself seven other spirits. Yes, seven more. Look, here they come. Little devils, here they come, seven more. So when he comes back he finds the house empty, swept and garnished, then this evil spirit takes with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first. So if you go around casting demons out of unsaved people, yes, the demons will go because as a born-again believer, when you bind them in Jesus' name and command them to leave, they have to leave. But if the house, and that's why the house is swept and garnished, the house gets cleaned out of unclean spirits when you take somebody through deliverance. But if they do not have the house filled, if Jesus is not in them, the spirit of Jesus Christ, his Holy Spirit in them because they are born again through faith in Jesus and truly regenerated, truly saved, then the house will be empty and they will be in a worse situation. You're gonna make matters worse. Now I have seen this also work with people that, you know, were Christians and had a lot of demonic strongholds in their lives from their past, go through deliverance, be completely changed. I mean, I know one fellow, hundreds of demons went out of this guy, hundreds. He was so messed up in so many ways, right? And he got free, he got free from them. But then later on he ends up back in sexual sin. And let me tell you, when he opened the door again, this seven times thing happened to him. And he became worse than he was before and where he had just experimented to with drugs before he became addicted to drugs. So this is not a game. This is why I tell people, you need to be very
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careful with this. And I said there were two exceptions. One is a person so demon possessed that they can't function. You're just trying to get them a place where they can hear the gospel. And the other is a child that's under the age of accountability, but even then you have to have the permission and the faith of the parents to do that. Alright, so let's keep going. Now, 1 Corinthians 10, 19, and 20. Now remember again, this was written to the Corinthian church. Two born-again Christians, spirit-filled Christians. In fact, Paul told them they came behind in no gift, meaning all the gifts of the Holy Spirit operated in the church of Corinth. So they were not only a born-again true Christian church, but they were Holy Ghost-filled and operated in the gifts of the Spirit. But there were issues. They had problems. They had compromise. They had a lot of issues with sin. And he said even one with compromising with the religions around them, the idolatry and the paganism around them. And Paul's trying to explain to them why they shouldn't eat things sacrificed to idols, why they shouldn't participate in these things. And so what does he tell them? He says, what say I then? That the idol is anything or that which is offered and sacrificed to idols is anything. But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils or demons and not to God. And I would not that you should have fellowship with devils. Now Paul is saying here, he's not just talking about being around demons or being in the same location where some kind of idolatry or pagan ritual is going on. He's saying if you go do this, you're gonna have fellowship with devils. This word fellowship, I mentioned this in the last couple of weeks, but I'm gonna dig into it a little further because I want you to see it, not just hear me say it. But this word fellowship here is the Greek word koinonos there, koinonos, all right? And it means a sharer, an associate, a companion, fellowship, partaker. Of course it talks about partnership, association, sharing and anything of the altar in Jerusalem which the sacrifices are offered, sharing in the worship, partaker of, listen to this right here, see, be partaker of or with demons brought into fellowship with them because they are authors of heathen worship. Now you could say again, you could say, well this just means you're getting, you're closely associating with them, you know, Pastor Dean, this is not, I'm not opening the door for them, they're not coming in. But when you look at how this word is used, and this is how you study the Bible, you look at how it is used. So you have 2 Peter 1 here, and let's look at this. It says, Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ
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