Ask Pastor Mike Live

Dion: Hi Pastor Mike. This is, of course, Dion. I called about the Santa Claus question at one point. I hope I didn't get you in too much trouble.

Mike Fabarez: I always get in trouble when I start talking about Santa Claus, but that's okay. I can take it.

Dion: All right. My question today is, when Jesus was here, he cast out a lot of demons and things. I was just wondering, is that something that is still happening today? Are people still being possessed by demons today like they were back then? It seems like every other time he went to a city, somebody was possessed. Is that something that still happens, and have you ever been a part of anything like that? A witness to it?

Mike Fabarez: I do think there's something very unique about the time of Christ. As a matter of fact, we look back at a lot of things that were going on in Moses's day, Joshua's day, Elijah, Elisha, and we don't see the flurry of demonic activity like we saw with the coming of Christ. If you think about how heaven is there cheering on and singing at his birth, all of the spirits of all of heaven and certainly all those that had been rebellious with Satan, this is a big deal.

So I do think the coming of Christ—and that's an understatement of the century to say Christ's coming was a big deal, it's a huge deal, we still date our checks by his arrival—but the point is that I do think there was a flurry of demonic activity within the ministry realm where Christ was fulfilling all righteousness. I just think that's why we probably look at all of biblical history and find that there's a whole lot more of that going on in the gospel period than there are even in the book of Acts, even though we do see a couple of situations where it goes on.

One of them is in the realm of the occult. We had occultic activity back in the Old Testament, particularly in Canaan, and thankfully that whole culture was driven out of existence, most of it at least, with the conquest of Joshua and the next generation that followed. But when it came to the book of Acts even, you saw this connection to the occult. When you saw people that were fortune tellers or you saw people that were engaged in trying to connect with the dead or be mediums, that's where you find that some of this seems to be the place where you can find continuing demonic activity.

I think you can't match the kind of demonic activity that you had in the gospel period. That's because Christ was here fighting for our redemption. But plenty of things are still going on in this world that are pretty hairy when it comes to demons actually having a kind of success in an individual life where there's passivity in the person and activity of Satan. I can watch some of the crime shows and read the headlines and see some things that at least show me a little bit of what I've seen in a person.

Nothing is to the extent, of course, like the demoniac of the Gadarenes living among the tombs. But the times that I've been called in, whether it's a kid trying to kill his mother or someone trying to kill themselves, in dealing with all of those things, I think, okay, I'm not here seeing the same kind of relief often. In preaching the gospel, where my focus is, when I have someone that is either trying to kill themselves or someone's trying to kill someone else, which I think is the ultimate example of the enemy's work—he's a murderer, John 8, and he wants to destroy people—drugs certainly do that, self-harm does that.

I've been there in many instances in pastoral ministry where that is going on. My response to that is to preach the gospel. My response to that is to get people to bow the knee to Christ and to say what you need is not self-destruction, but you need redemption. I've watched some lives turn around pretty dramatically. I had one guy so hooked on drugs, I finally moved him into my own house and he detoxed for a couple of weeks and later went on to become a pastor. So I've watched the dramatic turn of events.

Since I think in Scripture my focus as a follower of Christ is to trust in Christ to deal with the spiritual side of things, I'm going to deal with the human side of things by preaching to people as they are able to converse with me. I am able to at least preach the gospel in such a way as either I have success or failure in that. I can't say I've had the same kind of demonic showdowns that I've seen in the gospels, but I've watched God do some amazing things with people that were self-destructive or so tied up in drugs that their life was going completely down the tubes.

I haven't called out to have Legion talk to me. That hasn't been my experience. But I've seen a lot of stuff living in downtown Chicago for three years and doing ministry in Southern California. I've seen a lot, but nothing quite like in the pages of the gospels. Dion, does that help?

Dion: Yes it does. I appreciate it.

Mike Fabarez: I don't go looking for it and I don't think anybody should. I see a lot of bad things going on and I don't want to deal with it. If I watch the text of Jude, for instance, and Michael the high-ranking archangel is not willing to directly say boisterous or brash things to Satan but says, "The Lord rebuke you," that's going to be my pattern. Michael's a whole lot stronger than I am and I'm just going to pray to God to protect me from spiritual forces of evil and say, "God, please deliver these people."

I know that in Scripture, it's all about the truth of God's word and the preaching of the gospel that can do that. So I stay with that, I stick with that. I often have prayed for protection in the midst of some really hairy counseling appointments, but haven't seen any demons talking through people.