Is Satan, demons, evil & unclean spirits real?

I believe they exist. I don't question scripture on that. I do not believe that they are as active in the lives of Christians as many believe. I don't see Satan and demons around every corner and behind every bush. (That's bush as in tree, not Bush as in president!)

 

Yes, I agree. The Gospels and the book of Acts make it abundantly clear to me that there are demonic forces at work in the world.

I have also had experience confronting obvious demonic powers and manifestations. While these sorts of things are completely foreign to the typical modern American experience, they do exist whether or not we want to believe it.

I understand them to be literal beings. Occasionally, a Christian may face explicit personal encounters with demonic forces, but usually our encounters with evil take the form of demonically-guided human institutions such as governments, church structures, and religious systems. These types of institutions can be demonically-guided and inspired to do great evil in the world.

For the record, I don’t see demons behind every bush. The last time I confronted an explicit demonic manifestation was in May 1990. The only time I have encountered these explicit manifestations was when I was ministering to and praying for people who were involved in occult practices.

 

Jesus believed they were.

For instance:

 

I know, from scripture, that they are literal! How can anyone who says they believe in God not believe His word. If they believe His word, they must accept the existence of demons! The word 'demon's' is mentioned 42 times in my NKJV. That's a lot of verses to throw away.

Diane

 

How badly do you want to find out?

 

They exist in various forms - and they adapt themselves to whereever they may be

In Suriname- one does not feel an oppression of evil, but rather a feeling of emptiness, and a lack of caring - Muslims marry jews, Hindus marry Christians - and no one lifts a finger. And in cases where people stand up - they are met with a casual acceptance that borders on indifference - it is to me what i felt a land of dead spirits - no one cares that much

In America - they seem to be more agressive, concetrating on pride

In Canada - similar to America

Hong Kong - they are summoned, and "are tools" for sorcerers there

- Oh simply put yes they are all real - I could go into far more detail, based on my limited experience

 

OK you are a movie director and you are going to make a "life of Christ" movie. You portray him through his childhood, baptism by John, and then you come to the part about the temptation in the wilderness.

How do you write and film the screenplay if you don't believe in the reality of evil spirits?

 

LOL I thought you were going to ask us who we would have play the part of 'the temptor'!

 

I don’t know if you intended that to be a rhetorical question or not, but it is actually fairly simple to depict the scenes.

You could either do it as a series of religious visions or as hallucinations brought on by the extreme fasting and wilderness environment. In a visual medium, you don’t have to explain what is going on, merely depict it.

 

But the nature of what you put on the screen often requires you make explicit what could be ambiguous in print. For example, is Jesus literally taken to the top of the temple, or is that a vision only? You could perhaps set out and deliberately make that ambiguous in the film - this effort might have artistic merit, win the acclaim of the critics . . .

Are the temptations from a personal, real devil? Every film maker always makes it so to date. They are never ambiguous about that. Is this an artistic decision?

If I were making the film I too would feel driven to make the temptor real, external to Jesus.

 

But the nature of what you put on the screen often requires you make explicit what could be ambiguous in print. For example, is Jesus literally taken to the top of the temple, or is that a vision only? </font>[/QUOTE]You would depict the vision. (You don’t always have to have musical or visual cues to tell the viewer that it is a vision.)

That’s what I would do. I would depict Satan as a smooth talking religious peer – or at least his depict his voice that way if you don’t depict a physical person.

Even if it were a vision or hallucination, you would likely have a visual representation of what Jesus sees. You don’t have to tell the audience if it is “literally” real or not. Let them decide.

Hmm… I don’t know about that. I don’t usually watch movies on the life of Jesus (I usually get too frustrated or distracted by the poor theology or Jesus’ inexplicable British accent. I’ve heard others discuss ambiguity in some of the Jesus movies, but I couldn’t give you any titles.

Yes. And generally, I think it’s a good artistic decision to leave quite a bit of ambiguity in the temptation scene. We are not given much detail in the gospels and trying to flesh out the temptation scenes too much will likely distort the meaning of the scene. Keep it simple, use the gospel text for the dialogue and don’t add much – if anything – to it, and focus on the struggle of Jesus to be obedient to God.

Yup, I feel the same way.

When does filming start?


(For what it’s worth, my favorite depiction of the temptation scene is from the Cotton Patch Gospel musical.)

 

Of course they are real. And, right now, Satan is the prince of powers over the air and principalities.

He has to have demons because satan is not like God and cannot be everywhere at once. He also cannot read our minds, which is why we must be careful what we speak out loud. He will take it and run with it!

 

If he can't be everwhere at once... how does he hear us?

 

Glorybound... demons, demons, demons...and you never know WHERE Satan is!

Diane

 

He is wiser than Daniel though.

Bro. Dallas Eaton

 

Satan and demons are real. I'm skeptical of many things we often atribute to him though. I think that man is evil enough by himself without Satans influence but Satan, even today, works his evil in the hearts and minds of men. We must remember to pray for our leaders.

We have to be careful that we do not atribute to Satan some of the various attributes associated only of God. Satan is not omnipresent or omnipotent.

Concerning the field of psychology and "madness"; Can there be a definitive answer between what is a biological factors and the influence of demons?

Rob

 

Well, with a world population of over 6 billion, what are your chances of a personal audience with Satan? That would be 1 in 6 billion... you have much better odds winning lotteries.

If in repeating the word "demons" you're trying to say we each have demons assigned to us, I'd like to see where in scripture it indicates that concept. That is something I've heard a lot, but have been trying to figure out for a while.

 

As a Christian, we know that Satan and his demonic forces are real. Our advesary is always among us waiting to sneak in on a vulnerable moment, which is the very grounds of spiritual warfare by which we have already won as believers of Jesus Christ. Temptation is the root to their existence and the sins of the world are attributed to demonic spirits within each and everyone of us because none of us are without sin. The key is that we have to stay prayed up, be mindful of the company we keep and the entertainment we choose, and constantly read the Word to be able to resist temptation and not allow demonic forces to take over our minds.

 

Glorybound said:

That was in reply to someone who wanted to know if Satan can not read our mind but react to what we say, how could he bother us if he isn't always around US. Scripture tells us that there are demons in this world and they are quite capable of causing problems. Why speak negative thoughts and take a chance? Does that make sense? No. I do not believe we have demons assigned us tho.

Well put Sincere!