The following is a question that I received from a member of my youth group on Thursday night. I will post the question and then the response that I gave to them. Hope that this might find someone that needs it and they draw some answers from it. This was shared with permission. It has been edited to protect those involved.
My friend has been telling me some really stange things and I was wondering if you knew anything about it. They say they can see angels and demons and the God talks to them. They went to some church and they said that they were a "see er". her friend is supposed to have 'healing hands' and they and 3 other people were told that they has special gifts and would go around the world and help people. They said that God talks to them all the time. and so do demons. They say they saw 1 at our school by their locker and it was yelling at them. They said "flee from me satan" and it disappeared. I guess this has been going on for a while. Since like 5th grade... I don't know but it doesn't sound right. It sounds like some kind of cult. I don't know what to say to them, but its kind of creeping me out. I asked a few of my Christian friends and they didn't know either. I really don't have any information on all this so I don't know what to say or react to this. I was hoping you could help me out.
This is the response I gave:
Demons, Angel, Seers, and People with Healing Hands
It is important to understand when dealing with this area of “the spiritual” realm to remember the reality of angels and demons. They are real. We believe that God created angels, and therefore if demons are fallen angels (II Peter 2.4), they were created too. Billy Graham and his book, Angels, states that there are over 300 references to angels in the bible. We have to begin from this understanding to further answer the question.
The idea of demons or angels being visible is highly debated. However, the fact that they claim to be seen by people is not entirely false. Today, people will label people who “see” spiritual things as having hallucinations, or some sort of mental illness. With this view, I personally feel, we add fuel to the fire of their work. C.S. Lewis said in his introduction to the Screwtape Letters that “there are two equal and opposite errors into which our race [humans] can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.” So to make too big of a deal about them is just as bad as not believing in them at all.
When it comes to a demons interaction with people, we have to assume that they work in the same exact way they did in the scriptures. In the scripture we see them possessing people (actually taking over their bodies) and oppressing them (bringing oppression in their life; illness, harm, etc.). The truth is that if you are in Christ, bought and paid for by His blood, YOU CANNOT be possessed by a demon. Jesus is your Christus Victor which gives you the victory over sin, death, Satan his servant their works and effects. Conversely, anyone that is outside the protection of God’s grace and salvation, is open to any works of demonic activity.
The advice given by the “church” about your friend being a seer, is completely and utterly false. There is not a spiritual gift of seer (for a full description of spiritual gifts see I Corinthians 12). There are cultic and black magic gifts of seer, but none of these have anything to do with Jesus and His work. There is a gift of discernment, which allows one to distinguish between holy and evil spirits and works thereof, but the gift of “seer” is predominately a Mormon doctrine, with Joseph Smith, their blasphemous founder, holding the office of seer.
With the gift of “healing hands” the only references to this that I found were in magical, almost like you established, cultic references. Let me be forward to say that I fully believe that God is in the healing business. But I believe that it is God, and not man. I believe no longer, nor can it be proven scripturally, that people are still able to heal others. These are gifts that were given to the 12 apostles, and vanished with the death of the last apostle.
These issues are very difficult, and very strange, but very real. Demons, angels, and cultic sin are very real. Is your friend seeing angels and demons? Quite possibly. Does she have the gift of seer and another friend with the gift of healing hands? No, not if they claim to be Christians. One question to ask is if they have ever been involved in Wicca, or witchcraft magic of any kind. If so, it is highly possible this is a manifestation of that sin. I would personally advise that you be careful with the amount of time you spend with these people, because it could be a very dangerous thing, the spiritual realm of angels and demons is real and not something that humans should really be caught in, if given the choice. I will be praying for you and will be praying for your friend, hopefully she can meet Jesus and be given the victory over this seemingly distracting oppression.
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