Retired Military chaplain Steve Dabbs (Master of Divinity Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) told apologist Sean Mcdowell (Are Christians Safe From Demons, YouTube Video) “Christians can be demonized”. I found his arguments “eisegetical” for a number of reasons:
While it is true Satan and demons attack believers, that isn’t “demonization”. Never does the Bible say Christians can be possessed by a demon.
Temptation isn’t “demonization”. Christ told us to pay God not lead us into temptation, not “protect us from demonization”.
Scripture is clear, “God does not run a duplex” (Walter Martin), the Church which is the Temple of God is inhabited by God’s Holy Spirit. Scripture emphatically declares of the true believer, “the wicked one does not touch him” (1 John 5:17). Contrary to Dabbs eisegesis, nothing in the context limits this to “only when casting out demons”.
Also, God is Holy, without any limitation of finite creatures. Contrary to Dabbs conclusion the appearance of Satan before God in Heaven (Job c. 1) occurs in the realm of finite creatures where God’s presence in heaven is “localized” in the “form of God” (Phil. 2:6).
Therefore, “Omnipresence” does NOT mean Satan is in God’s “presence” and it is blasphemous to claim otherwise. The Omnipresence of God can be likened to a “mind generating a matrix”, the “mind” truly is everywhere in the matrix, but nothing in the matrix “touches the mind”. Imagining a burning match doesn’t burn the substance of the Mind. Just as a person imagining a burning house doesn’t experience the burn in his brain, neither does anything in this “matrix” “touch the substance of God”
Scripture clearly says about true the Christian “the wicked one does not touch him” (1 John 5:17). Nothing in the context limits this to “only when casting out demons”.
Tares believing themselves to be “wheat” can be “demonized”, but they are the devil’s children, their “house” “empty”, without God’s presence:
43 “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. 44 “Then he says,`I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 “Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.” (Matt. 12:43-45 NKJ)
Scripture is always 100% true. Early church fathers or other personal experiences are “disinformation” when they contradict scripture.
An “argument from silence” carries weight when the “silence is inexplicable” otherwise. If Christians can be “demonized” then the silence of “deliverance events in scripture” is impossible. It is impossible such “exorcisms” not exist in scripture. The only explanation for such “silence” is “it doesn’t happen”, Christians cannot be demonized.
Having over forty years of experience of demonic warfare I can testify even when Satan circled me like a lion does its prey, the Holy Spirit within me pushed him away, never permitting he touch me. Telepathically they can flood your mind with temptations and lies, but putting on the whole Armor of God, bearing especially the Word of God which is the Sword of the Spirit, will cause him to flee from you:
Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. (Jas. 4:7 NKJ)
I never carry on a conversation with these unclean spirits. I do as Christ did commanding them to “keep quiet”:
23 Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit. And he cried out,
24 saying, “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are– the Holy One of God!”
25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet, and come out of him!”
26 And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him and cried out with a loud voice, he came out of him. (Mk. 1:23-26 NKJ)
Those who carry on conversations with them are being deceived. Lies and false doctrine is being seeded:
Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, (1 Tim. 4:1 NKJ)