So what does the Bible say about ghosts?

It’s almost Halloween … so what does the Bible say about ghosts?

Every October, millions of our Southern California family members, friends and neighbors have a renewed interest in ghosts, goblins and all things haunted. In fact, in recent years SoCal theme park owners have discovered that transforming their amusement parks into scare parks is a great way to see their profits soar.

When it comes to the paranormal, it can be hard to separate fact from fiction. So, what does the Bible teach us about ghosts? Are they real?

Well, that depends on what you mean by “ghosts.” If by “ghosts” you’re referring to “spirit beings,” the Bible answers with an unequivocal “Yes!” The Bible is clear that Christians’ struggle “is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12).

But if by “ghosts” you’re referring to “the disembodied spirits of people who have died,” the Bible’s answer is a resounding “No!” Consider one of the key verses that proves this, Hebrews 9:27: “Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” In other words, once a person dies, there is no in-between place where his/her spirit can communicate with or interact with the living before he/she faces God’s eternal judgment.

So, when the Bible speaks of invisible “spirits” who may, sometimes, interact with us in the physical world, who or what are they? Simply put, they are either angels or demons. Angels are good spirits who serve God and carry out His marching orders. And demons are evil spirits who align with Satan’s goals to steal, kill and destroy. And according to 2 Corinthians 11:14-15, sometimes demons “masquerade as angels of light.”

So, hypothetically, could a demon masquerade as the ghost of a dead family member, a long-lost saint or even as an alien from another planet?

Certainly! Hence, the Bible teaches us to be on guard against the enemy’s schemes (Ephesians 6:10-11). Faith in Jesus Christ provides a shield that protects us from needless fear about any so-called “spirits” who might try to sidetrack us from trusting, loving and obeying God.

Here is one final Bible verse to consider. After teaching us that God is love, the Apostle John tells us plainly, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18).

Dane Davis is the pastor of Impact Christian Church. Join us for worship on Sunday at 8:30 a.m. or 10 a.m. at 16209 Kamana Road in Apple Valley, or livestream us on Facebook or YouTube. For more information, visit www.GreaterImpact.cc.

Set Free by the Empty Tomb

“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” – John 8:36

Last week as we celebrated Easter, I remembered a story I once heard about a first grade teacher who gave her class an assignment that involved plastic eggs. She passed out an egg to each of her students and told them, “Easter is about life. So, I want you each to take your egg home and put something inside it that is a sign of life.” The next day the kids returned with all sorts of things in their plastic eggs: leaves, blades of grass, an ant and even a butterfly. But when one little boy opened up his egg, it was empty. The other kids laughed. The teacher asked him, gently, why he didn’t do his assignment. He answered, “I DID do my assignment. My egg is empty because on Easter Jesus’ tomb was empty. Isn’t that a sign of life?”

It certainly is. And today I’d like to take a look at one of the first people to discover the empty tomb: Mary Magdalene. That empty tomb transformed her life. And it can transform yours as well.

 

All four gospels mention women going to the tomb at sunrise on resurrection Sunday to anoint Jesus’ body with spices. Matthew, Mark and Luke mention several women in the group, but each time, Mary Magdalene is at the top of the list. And John doesn’t even mention the other women. He focuses entirely on Mary Magdalene. What was so special about Mary Magdalene? That’s just the thing: As best as we can tell, she wasn’t very special at all. In fact, before she met Jesus a year or two earlier, she was pretty messed up.

Now, over the centuries many Christians have assumed that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute with loose morals. But nothing in Scripture supports that. When Mary Magdalene is introduced in Luke 8, we read that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her (verse 2). So, most people who knew Mary Magdalene wouldn’t have said, “She’s a floozy!” They would have said, “This lady has lost her mind! Those demons are making her as nutty as a fruitcake.” But one day Mary Magdalene met Jesus. He drove out the seven demons and set her free. And she was never the same again.

From that point forward she stuck with Jesus wherever he went—regardless of whether he was popular or unpopular, regardless of whether the crowd was shouting “Hosanna!” on Palm Sunday or “Crucify him!” on Good Friday. Mary Magdalene was one of the few remaining followers of Jesus who was faithful and courageous enough to stand at the foot of his cross. She was the first to arrive at Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning. And she was the first to see Jesus after he rose from the grave.

This woman had likely been tormented by demons for years, but she was set free from her demons by the power and authority of Jesus Christ. And she was forever grateful to him. She had been forgiven much, so she loved much.

This transformed woman became even more transformed when she experienced the empty tomb and saw her risen Savior face-to-face. She ran back to the disciples and exclaimed, “I have seen the Lord.” They probably thought she had lost her mind again. But she hadn’t.

This oppressed woman had been transformed by Jesus Christ. And she was more in her right mind than ever before. Once again, Jesus Christ had set her free.

Honestly, many of us need to be set free in much the same way as Mary Magdalene. Some of us are held captive by our past. We look back on who we used to be and we’re the first to admit, “I was nuts! I was out of my mind. I wasn’t rowing with both oars in the water.”  And what’s worse, we know our family and friends had a front row seat to our nuttiness. They saw it all! They heard it all! And sometimes we feel like crawling into a hole. We know that we’ve deeply hurt the people who mean the most to us. We’ve burned so many bridges. And even though we’ve made big changes in our lives, we can’t repair the damage we’ve done. We’re still haunted by the demons of our past.

Well, I have good news for you. Just as surely as Jesus drove Mary’s demons out of her, he can drive the demons of our past out of you and me—if we’ll let him. There were likely times when Mary Magdalene thought about the woman she used to be, and she felt like crawling into a hole. But Jesus Christ had set her free. So, she boldly stood at the foot of the cross when Jesus was crucified. And she boldly led the ladies to Jesus’ tomb on Resurrection Sunday. And after seeing Jesus with her own two eyes she proclaimed to the rest of Jesus’ followers, “I have seen the risen Lord!”

So, if you feel like a prisoner of your past, Jesus holds the key to your prison cell. He alone can set you free. As Jesus himself says in John 8:36, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” So, journey to the empty tomb today. Come to Jesus and take hold of his forgiveness. Take hold of his healing. And take hold of his peace. Because the tomb is empty, because Jesus is alive … you CAN be set free from the demons of your past. You CAN be set free from  your guilt and shame. Jesus Christ can set you free. And if the Son of God sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Dane Davis is the Pastor of Impact Christian Church. Please join us for our online worship service tomorrow at

10 a.m. at Live.GreaterImpact.cc or on our YouTube channel (Impact Christian Church) or on Facebook.

The Invisible War

“He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.”

– Luke 11:23

Back in the mid-1980s, Christian author Frank Peretti published a novel that rattled a lot of Christians—including me. The novel, “This Present Darkness,” is set in the small college town of Ashton. In the story, the chief editor of the local newspaper and the pastor of the town’s struggling church discover something very unnerving: Ashton is a ground zero for a flood of demonic activity. Thousands of demons are flying overhead and lurking in shadows, steering the course of events in their little town. Like puppeteers, these demons are pulling nonChristians’ strings to get them to do exactly what Satan wants them to do.

In one scene I don’t think I’ll ever forget, a demon hovers over someone’s head, sticks his bony little finger through his skull, and stirs his thoughts. As a teenager, that image just about gave me nightmares. In his book, Frank Peretti shared vivid and imaginative ideas of what demonic activity might look like in the invisible realm. And even though it was a fictional story, it opened a lot of Christians’ minds to the reality of spiritual warfare. 

Jesus understood spiritual warfare better than anyone. At the very beginning of his ministry, freshly baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus went mano-a-mano with Satan himself. He spent 40 days and 40 nights in the desert battling Satan’s temptations, overcoming every one of them with the Word of God lifted up in prayer. Over the next three years of his earthly ministry, Jesus encountered demons time and time again. And in Luke 11:23, Jesus makes it clear that it is impossible to be on the fence in spiritual warfare: “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.”

In verses 24-26, Jesus tells of a demon who, for whatever reason, vacates a man’s soul. The demon wanders the desert looking for rest and doesn’t find it. So, he decides to return to the man he left. “When [the demon] arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order” (v. 25). In other words, the man had cleaned up his act since the demon left him. Perhaps he got off drugs, stopped cheating on his wife, and got himself a steady job. But his soul was empty because he still hadn’t invited the Spirit of Jesus Christ into his life.

In the parable, Jesus continues: “Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first” (vs. 25-26). In other words, the demon said to himself, “Easy smeezy! I’ll grab seven of my buddies, and the eight of us will have no problem storming the gates to this man’s soul and moving right back in.” The demons did just that, and as time passed, the man’s condition was worse than ever. What happened? Well, let me share three lessons that William Barclay draws from Jesus’ illustration:

#1: You can’t leave a man’s soul EMPTY. In our pride we think we have so much willpower against Satan’s attacks. We think we can sit on the sidelines of the great spiritual war and not take sides. We think we can leave our souls empty. But we can’t. If we don’t freely choose to join Jesus’ team and ask him to fill our hearts, whether we like it or not, Satan will drag us onto his team, and he will fill our hearts. If God is not in the driver’s seat of your life, one way or another, Satan will be in the driver’s seat.

#2: It’s not real religion if it’s nothing but NEGATIVES. The man in Jesus’ illustration thought that getting rid of the demon was all it took to be in a good place. The evil was gone. So, life must be good … right? No. It doesn’t work that way. Good isn’t simply the absence of bad. True religion does include the negative—NOT doing certain things. But it can’t be boiled down to a list of “Thou shalt nots.” Far too many nonChristians in our community have been given the impression that Christianity is just an oppressive list of “don’ts.” But Christianity is so much more. It’s not just about expelling the evil. It’s about being filled with our good Savior and penetrating this world with his mercy and grace and love and goodness.

#3: The best way to avoid evil is to do good. I don’t know about you, but I find that I’m not nearly as mean to people when I’m being nice to people. My actions tend to steer clear of evil when I’m busy doing what is good. My thoughts don’t wander off in depressed or bitter or lustful directions when I’m keeping myself busy doing God’s work. In James 1:27, God’s word tells us, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: To look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

You and I must choose a side: Either Jesus Christ’s side or Satan’s side. And the word of the Lord is this: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” In other words, “Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will come inside you and fill your heart and your soul. And when he does, you will be full of God, and there will be no room for the enemy.” So, choose Jesus. Be filled with Jesus. Obey his word, and you will be blessed.

  

Dane Davis is the Lead Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville and the author of "Holy Huldah: Lessons You Should Never Forget from Bible Characters You've Never Heard Of." For more information, visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com, and join us for our Worship Celebration Sundays at 10 a.m.