Dangerous Faith
Dangerous Faith is a ministry that strives to light a fire inside of Everyday Christians to live radically for Christ so that we can glorify God by advancing His Kingdom.
Dangerous Faith
#48: Dangerous Life– Personal Encounters with the Supernatural and Not Being Afraid
Can you recall a time when you experienced something supernatural? Let's talk about it! Join Nate, Emily, and the others as they unravel personal stories with angels/demons - a mysterious man dressed in black, a porcelain doll with blood-red eyes and a strange scratching at the door, to name a few. This engaging discussion underscores the existence of another realm that overlays our own.
They then talk about what the Bible has to say about spiritual warfare, and why you don't need to be afraid when you're a part of the family of God.
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Welcome to the dangerous life version of our podcast. I am here. My name is Nate Williams, I'm the host. We have Isaac with us, zeke, chloe, emily and Spencer, and the reason why I do this is because I know sometimes if you have a larger group in a podcast, it can be a little tricky to figure out who all is there based on the voices. But anyways, it's me, isaac, zeke, chloe, emily and Spencer. I'm glad that they are here with us today and we're going to continue a conversation off the movie Nefarious, which we all would agree was a great movie, right, right, guys, fantastic.
Nate Williams:It was a great, fantastic movie, and so that was in our prior episode, and now we're going to talk about the spiritual world as well and some things concerning that. So my question to y'all is does anyone have any supernatural type stories that they want to share? It's okay if you don't, that is perfectly fine, but I know some of us do. Anyone want to start? Emily, take it away.
Emily Smith:Okay. So growing up I lived in a two story, four white column house surrounded by fields, and I will never step foot back in that house. So I remember one day I was sitting on the couch in the living room and I looked out and I saw a man walking, dressing all black, he had chains and he had a dog with him a German shepherd specifically. So I told my mom about this incident, didn't hear anything about it until years and years later. But my brother, jonathan, actually said that he saw the same thing, but we neither one of us knew that the other had seen this until this year.
Nate Williams:Yeah.
Emily Smith:But I had a lot of incidences where I saw stuff and my parents just said that I was overactive imagination just making stuff up, whatever. But when I went into foster care and I moved into a different household I didn't have any encounters like that ever again. So call it what you may.
Nate Williams:Yeah, I often hear stories of footsteps you know in the attic say, okay, that's really weird. And I've heard stories of laundry baskets moving across the floor. I know I have some family stories there about oh, did that trigger? Okay, all right, tell the story.
Emily Smith:So I also used to collect porcelain dolls, and I had this one. She wore a red dress.
Chloe Adams:She had black hair.
Emily Smith:She's a beautiful doll, but one day I was looking at them and I looked at her and she had red eyes. Her eyes had changed overnight to red. My brothers took that thing out and they burned it, so terrifying.
Nate Williams:Okay, yeah, definitely. So you hear things like that levitation and oftentimes because I'm into apologetics you'll have atheists that'll roll their eyes, but I think for those of us who have experienced those things, we know that it's really real, Spencer.
Spencer Smith:So I have something that's not scary. My dad got healed from being like he should have been a vegetable. His entire life being taken care of by people and in an instant God healed him. So that's supernatural, not scary, not nefarious.
Spencer Smith:Great, so he got in a terrible car accident and he almost died and then, miraculously, he was able to breathe on his own. He shouldn't have been able to die, he should have died. And then after that they were like yeah, he's never going to be the same again. Too much brain damage. He had to relearn how to eat, talk, walk everything.
Spencer Smith:Then, all of a sudden, he was in the car with his friend after church on a Wednesday night where he had freaked out because he couldn't comprehend what was going on. He looked over to his friend while they were driving around singing worship songs and he just said I'm healed. And he got up, ran on his own, put a quarter into the phone, called his dad, said Dad, I'm healed, God healed me. That's incredible.
Nate Williams:That is incredible. Now any other stories, maybe, chloe.
Chloe Adams:I can share one, not from my personal experience, but from one that I heard off of, like I think it was Sean McDowell's podcast. They were doing a thing on Angels and basically and this is a good one, like Spencer just nothing about demons. But this guy was like hired to be a hitman, to kill someone, this other guy. But they just could never. The hitman could never kill him because he was never alone, like never. Like every time he'd walk out of his apartment he'd always be with someone else. So they just could never kill him. And then somehow they got to talk like they. The hitman came up to the guy and started just talking to him and the guy was like what are you talking about? I'm always walking out alone, but to me that sounds like it's like it's Angels that were there with him.
Nate Williams:Yeah, that's incredible. Wow, that's a good story, I think, for me. One personal experience I had that I could never explain. I'm open to naturalistic explanations, but also I'm not afraid of that being a spiritual reason.
Nate Williams:I remember I was living in Fort Meade at the time, which is in Maryland, and I was in my room and I forget what I was doing, just hanging out, and I remember at the door, I was by myself in the house and never really told the story outside my family. So this is interesting. And I was just hanging out and at my door, from the top to the middle, I heard this scratching sound, kind of like like a nail on the back of the door. Now, by myself, I'm all alone. And the first I was like this is Teddy, my Westie dog, family dog.
Nate Williams:But then I was thinking, okay, number one, that'd be weird, you know, if he's pod at doors but nothing like a long, slow nail going down, he wouldn't do that. Also, he's really short and tiny and so he wouldn't be able to do something towards the top of the door. So I thought for a couple seconds I was like, okay, someone's in the house and I was probably I don't know this point fifteen or sixteen give or take. So I felt confident that I could try to take someone on if it was someone in the house. So I remember throwing open my door and getting ready to fight someone, and no one was there.
Nate Williams:So I remember there was movement going around the kitchen and so I hope whoever it was ran away. So I go through the door and I go towards the kitchen and I burst around the corner like cuz again that's where the person ran or whoever, and it was no one. I just remember thinking, oh, that wasn't a good, fun experience. But so I'd say that was one story I had and again, I'm open to naturalistic explanations. I think every time a tree falls over you don't say, oh, an angel, push the tree over there. There can be natural explanations. But also we recognize as Christians we live in a spiritual world angels and demons and things of that nature. They do require God's permission to act and move. But but it's very real. But anyways, any other stories like that or Emily.
Emily Smith:So my oldest brother. This will probably be the last story I tell, cuz there's so many I could tell.
Nate Williams:I don't mind story hour my oldest brother BJ.
Emily Smith:We so, in the summer times, we would all pile our mattresses into the hallway because that's where our window unit was. We didn't have central heating in air, but my brother BJ tended to stay back in his bedroom well, me and my brother Jonathan and his friend probably Blake, was staying over and we all were asleep in the hallway. My brother BJ, you know, told us the next morning he got up to come and yell at us because we are being too loud, like Laughing, making jokes, whatever. Anyways, we were asleep when he got in there. Okay, he said that he also heard footsteps up and down the hallway.
Nate Williams:No one was there, yeah, so oh goodness, yeah, and I know just from family stories just lots of stuff like that happening. Spencer, did you have any? No cable and so. So let's go to our next question. Sometimes you hear these stories and it kind of gives you goosebumps. To make sure, little frayed, I know. There are times walking around in the dark in your house or a large building like, oh no, someone's gonna snatch me or something, I don't know. But we can be a little afraid of things we can't see. So why should we not fear the spiritual world, spencer?
Nate Williams:cuz the angels always say be not afraid, it's first thing that they say, say, don't be afraid have y'all seen the pictures of biblically accurate angels? Yeah, I might be a little afraid to have you go to like some of the beings described in Revelation or Ezekiel. Some of that stuff I might might spook me a little bit, chloe.
Chloe Adams:Kind of to go off what he said. I think it's recorded 365 times in the Bible where it says do not fear. And I think that goes to say like you, every single day of your life, you can walk and no fear.
Nate Williams:Now, chloe, cuz you know I'm a good listener and I always repeat things back exactly how they're told to me. What I hear you saying because do not be afraid, we can do black magic now we can do, say on, says and we can do we G board stuff, right that what you're saying now? Okay, alright, just just wanted to confirm is the key have any thoughts?
Zeke Adams:Yeah, jesus said not to he, matthew 1028. He said Do not. Well, he's talking about people, but he I think it applies to both. He says and do not fear those who kill the body and but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body. So saying like there's only one person to fear, and we hear that all over Proverbs like the fear of the Lord is beginning of wisdom. So if we have the right kind of fear for him, in a sense of all in reference for him, nothing else should scare us.
Zeke Adams:Absolutely not that we won't be afraid, but yeah because of how we see him, we won't be afraid. There's a story that heard one time. I'll give like the shortest version of it, but someone had an experience with a demon that came into their office. Someone was possessed and the lady said to him like I'm here to kill you, and he's like OK well how about we talk about that, because I don't want to die tonight and.
Zeke Adams:I don't think you want to go to jail. So he called some buddies, they came over and eventually he knows that she had some kind of witch ring on. He took the ring off through in the empty trash can and then a couple minutes went by and the ring started rattling in the trash can it's all by itself and she started laughing and he started laughing back. He's like you'd think you're a little trick where you can make a ring move is going to scare me. I have a God who created the whole universe.
Nate Williams:That's awesome. I like that. That's a. That's a good story, and so I think that's important to remember. I often think of the story of Job, where, before Satan could do anything towards Job, he needed permission. Well, that's pretty weak of an opponent to where, if he's going to do anything, he needs God's permission and allowance. It's almost like a child in a way, obviously Satan being an awful little demon child but needing permission. Okay, that person doesn't have a lot of power. Any other thoughts, spencer?
Spencer Smith:In church today we're talking about Revelation 1, and Jesus is talking to John and he tells him that he has the gates of death and Hades. Jesus holds the control to death and Hades in his hands. So the demon isn't in control in any situation. It's always Jesus who has that power. He took that when he died and rose from the grave. He took all that power from Satan and he just I mean we have that Jesus in our life to give us power, and he, in Matthew 16, he gives Peter those same keys and he gives that same power to us as believers through his death and life that we can overcome anything. So there's nothing to be afraid of.
Nate Williams:Nothing to be afraid of. I like that and.
Zeke Adams:Zeke. So I give one caveat to everything we've been saying, because, like the question is worded, like you said, why should we not fear the spiritual world? That's implying we're talking to Christians, I think there's plenty of fear as if you're a non-Christian.
Nate Williams:Can you talk about that a little bit?
Zeke Adams:Well, as Christians like Spencer was saying, we're made new in Christ and we have the Holy Spirit joined within us, and if the Holy Spirit's joined within us, then we have nothing else to fear. No other spiritual being can stand against the Holy Spirit. However, if we don't have the Holy Spirit, we're an open vessel for other things in our body, whether be demons or demonic powers or other things in this world, et cetera, et cetera.
Nate Williams:Yeah, I think that's a good point. Chloe, did you have any thoughts?
Chloe Adams:Yeah, I think the first thing I thought of was in Ephesians 6, verse 10, where it says Finally be strong in the Lord and then strengthen his might, Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. And then it just goes on to talk about the entire armor that we could put on every single day as Christians the shoes of peace, the belt of truth, like we literally have everything we need to equip us for the day that's ahead of us. So we don't have to walk in fear because we have that armor that God provides us.
Nate Williams:Yes, and I think something from the movie I remember is that names have power and I know the name of Jesus has power in Scripture the blood of the lamb and you'll often hear that'll be the advice that if you're ever in a spiritual type encounter like that, that obviously singing worship songs saying the name of Jesus, praying, will be a source of power, and I think that's important to remember as well. I know oftentimes it's comforting, let's say, after a nightmare, prayer, worship music, just saying the name of Jesus, and God has a lot of names as well in the Old Testament. So just things to remember, things that might help in particularly difficult times.
Nate Williams:Any other thoughts, comments and questions on why we should not, as Christians as a good point, as Christians, we should not fear the spiritual world. We're going to then go on to our next question, which is how do we go somewhere in the middle where this kind of model sees us Lewis a little bit where we want to recognize that we do live in a spiritual world and know what we need to know and practice what we need to practice. But we also know people who are consumed by these things experimenting, trying stuff out, maybe going too far into this realm that really wasn't made for us. Do y'all have any thoughts on that, like being healthy in this area? Moving forward.
Spencer Smith:I think it gets really dangerous in Pentecostal circles where, to the point where you don't take any accountability for your actions. They can get to the point where they say, well, the devil made me do it. You hear that and what it shows in the Bible and Nefarious? It talks about how, of course, the devil is tempting you and he's throwing things at you. But it's ultimately your choice to say yes to what's being thrown at you or to go along with what's happening. So if you just totally go, oh well, the spirit world is working and it's making me do things I don't want to do. No, it's not. It's attempting you, yes, but ultimately you are responsible for what's happening if you're a Christian, anymore demon possessed.
Nate Williams:I like that Zeke.
Zeke Adams:I think it's. I'm going to give like a really general way of how I see it playing out, as a typical everyday Christian would be. You don't go to the extreme where you're blaming everything on the devil because you know you made something. You made some bad food. Oh, it's the devil. Yeah, it's not me, it's not my problem.
Zeke Adams:I don't think you go to the extreme and I don't think you go to the opposite extreme, which I think more of our culture is going to today, of where there's no such thing as a spiritual realm. They don't exist. They're. You know, these are all metaphors, stuff like that. I think the happy medium between those two is you know what the Bible says they exist. We have plenty of good evidence that they do exist, but I'm not going to dwell on it. And you might be asking, like, how do I know if I'm dwelling on it? If it's consuming a lot of your thoughts, you're probably dwelling on it. And that goes for anything, not just this. Like if you know you have your thing, that you're like you know what, I probably shouldn't be participating in this, but you're you dwell on it like several days a week, then that's probably too much.
Nate Williams:Yeah, I think that's a good rule of thumb, Isaac.
Isaac Adams:When you say the spiritual world or whatever, do you mean evil spirits or because God is a spirit? So shouldn't we dwell on Him day and night?
Nate Williams:I think Isaac, that is a good distinction. Yes, god is not a human. The Father God is spirit. I think, yeah, we want to more focus on angels, demons, those kind of interactions and the realm they dwell in that. I think the way I've heard it described is it kind of like overlays ours and intertwines, but they're not quite the same Exactly. I would say something along those lines yeah, that's a good distinction.
Isaac Adams:I think you say the question is how do we stop from going too far or not go far enough? But I can't speak for the too far, because in my life I've only ever not gone far enough. I feel like, because I guess it's, I think it's a bad thing, maybe, or just I think some people are scared of it, so they're like we don't want to do anything. That is not like we don't want to go too far, so we're not going to go far enough at all. Like we all sit here and we're like oh yeah, we believe in demons, we've had experiences with them and stuff like that, but I've never once in my life seen someone cast a demon out of somebody. Like I've never seen that before. I've never seen somebody be like, oh, those people are possessed. If it's real, like it happens in the Bible, it's happening now.
Isaac Adams:So I think you shouldn't go too far. You shouldn't not go far enough. But Jesus literally gave us power, like his power to cast out demons. We should be doing there.
Nate Williams:Yeah, that's a good point. It's like we should meet between, because what Spencer said about Pentecostals is true Sometimes this denomination or that worldview can go too far and push things just more than they need to go. But in Isaac you're right, other circles are. You might talk superficially about the spiritual world, but that quickly gets messy and we'd rather not go there. And sometimes you don't go as far as you should and I know that's a really tough middle line to walk through. So I think, yeah, some circles can go too far, some circles don't go far enough.
Isaac Adams:And how can we say that we're serving somebody, Like if we're supposed to love people and there are people out there being tormented by demons, tormented by spirits and stuff, and we have the power like Jesus has given us the power to help those people, to cast the demons out and stuff how can we say that we love them if we don't figure it out? I don't know, I'm not in that, I've never really been putting a call, so I've never been in this but how can we say we love them people if we don't figure it out to help those people?
Nate Williams:I agree. So, Isaac, you and I are going to go into ministry together and we're going to become exorcists.
Isaac Adams:Okay, you ready yeah.
Nate Williams:And but you're right, it is something that we need to definitely be aware of, and just Spencer.
Spencer Smith:I think a big issue too is that it's with exorcism. It's normally looked at as, oh you're a Catholic or like, oh you're this, like there isn't a widespread understanding of exorcism with within the church. I think that's a really big issue because it's people are demon possessed people do need help and no other denomination wants to figure it out or like talk about it at all.
Nate Williams:It's like what you're saying Catholics and Pentecostals, and those are the main two groups that will have that conversation.
Zeke Adams:Yeah.
Nate Williams:Yeah, so I'm with you. Now one thing from Nefarious that I thought was interesting. We'll have a mental health conversation. Again, we're not mental health experts, but I thought that maybe some of the more extreme mental health issues we see in society I have no way of scientifically testing this or necessarily, but I wonder what in some of the more extreme situations, if there's not demonic influence? I have no way of saying for sure, but I know that there's a lot of unnatural behavior out there and again, I'm just very wary of that, because then you get into church, hurt of someone actually having a mental illness. The church thinks that it's something spiritual and they're like oh, go read your Bible. Born pray, but something's actually wrong inside of the brain, so you don't want to do that as well. So I don't know, do y'all have any thoughts on that? Or we don't have to go in that direction. I would say you could be loving about it.
Isaac Adams:Maybe, if you you feel like God's telling you that that person is doing possessed, be like look, I don't know if you just were born with a mental illness or maybe something's hurting you, but would you be open to having me pray for you and maybe you can get delivered? And if not, then we can go down another road and get used in medicine or whatever. Yeah, yeah, I think, as long as you're loving to the person, they're not going to feel hurt by you wanting to help them.
Nate Williams:Yes, I think that's true, zeke.
Zeke Adams:I think, what we do is kind of a part of discipleship in the sense that If we're close to that person we're gonna spend time around them and some things are going to become more clear over time. So I would say we don't really assume either from the get-go and we just kind of try. We don't try, like you know, do a. They have like teledocs now where you can like get evaluated in like 10 minutes over the phone.
Zeke Adams:Yeah that's great and all for what it does, but at the same time, like nothing really beats like going into the doctor's office when you have a serious condition. Yes, so I think in this, this is, if it's something as serious as this, like just spending time around other Christians and and letting them to see like what kind of fruits in your life and what's going on, and you can kind of sometimes you can tell and sometimes you can't. I think that's honestly something the devil's done a really good job of in the past, like 56 years, to where he's blurred the line so much to where now we as Christians have to play both fronts. We have to take care of mental illness while also Not calling demons not demons, because that's exactly what he wants. He wants to disguise as something else when it's not, and then he wants to make us look stupid when it's really just mental illness.
Nate Williams:That's. That's a good point. I remember Edward and nefarious, that he wanted Edward to die. Wasn't that so interesting? Because if Edward lived and they kind of hinted at this there's a chance of redemption. That Edward kind of he broke one of the rules of nefarious and he mentioned the fact that there was redemption there. Way, it was a way of solving, that's a curing or healing from what he was going through, and then nefarious was like nope, I'm gonna cut this off and take back over that. I think that that was just really interesting. How, ultimately, yes, satan just wants the destruction of of a person. That cuz, that's what brings a lot of hurt to God, who loves us.
Nate Williams:But before we finish off the conversation. Any more thoughts, comments, anything you want to add.
Isaac Adams:I think it was crazy how, when the priest, or whatever the preacher walked in, and he was like Scared of him, and then he was like oh no, we don't, we don't believe in that stuff, demons.
Nate Williams:He was like oh okay, okay, you're no. Yeah, shake my hand, yeah.
Isaac Adams:I mean, I'm not saying that's exactly how it is, but I could say, that being true.
Nate Williams:Yeah, when we have moved to medicalize everything yeah, everything, including I don't know if y'all have heard like addictions itself. It's no longer your free will, that's the problem you making poor choices. Addiction is now a disease that you need to be treated. So again, we're moving in the direction of Everything being medicalized. So, as Zika, any any thoughts?
Zeke Adams:so just kind of recap what I was gonna say on everything else was Whenever, if you haven't read, screw type of letters. I see, as Louis is a great read. It's not A theology book, so don't go get your theology from it, but it does give some good perspectives of I think it would. It would make sense if Satan chose to do it some of those ways, and one of the ways he describes it is there's a part where a giant war breaks out I think it's like World War one or two and the little junior demons like this is great, we're gonna get a lot of souls for us. And he's like Easy, this isn't great, because that means people are gonna start thinking about death and then they're gonna start thinking about God he's like.
Zeke Adams:The ideal person is the one who doesn't think about God and dies in their sleep in a nursing home With no family, no friends around them.
Nate Williams:Wow, that's true, I haven't read the screw tape letters in a moment, but yeah, that's. That's a great book. I think it's a good recommendation there. Zeke any other thoughts? Comments, questions. All right, spencer, hi, I saw the hand.
Spencer Smith:I was like oh man, okay semi off topic but still on top of got the question. Yeah, talking about A avenues not to fall down is Gnosticism. We're thinking everything about the body, everything about the material world is so evil that the spiritual world is the only good. So you reject God in the sense that you're like I hate this body that you gave me and but you know the spirit, and spirit needs to break free from all this, this world and.
Spencer Smith:That's a hard line to go down because you can. You can look at God and say I want heaven and I don't want to be here anymore, and that be a just, righteous cause to have. But also to the spit on the world that God has created and say you know this is so terrible, but and it goes in way deeper stuff like the God that created this world actually is evil and we don't have to open up that can of worms.
Spencer Smith:It gets crazy when you go down the Gnostic rabbit hole, but I think people can in Christianity can get sidetracked and look at this world as if it is in Totally 100% evil place to be at and you don't glorify God at all in your spirit, in your flesh.
Nate Williams:Yeah, yeah, no, you're right, it's, oh goodness there. There are so many. That's the tricky thing. There are so many pitfalls you can fall in. Too interested, not interested enough. There's Gnosticism that honestly it can it can make your head spin, but we know, as Christians, we Rest and trust on the word of God that he's told us what we need to know and we can ask questions later if, if they're appropriate and we're still interested in them later as well. But anyways, y'all, again, this has been Nate here with Isaac, zeke, chloe, emily and Spencer, the, the team, talking about the spiritual world. Again, we upload about once or twice a week the dangerous faith podcast. Please check it out and tell other people about us as well. And you know, like comment, subscribe all that good stuff and we'll talk with you later.
Isaac Adams:Bye.
Emily Smith:You.