“How much power does Satan have?”

Steve Brown:
How much power does Satan have? The answer to that and other questions on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
If you think laughter isn’t spiritual or that faithfulness to God means conformity to Christian stereotypes, then this program probably isn’t for you. But if you’re looking for honest, Biblical answers to honest questions, welcome to Key Life. Here’s our host, author and seminary professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. Happy Friday.

Steve Brown:
Can you remember the day when Fridays were not happy Friday? No. You never experienced that because you wrote your sermons six months in advance. And that used to intimidate me so much. You did. You took a retreat and you went out and you did sermons way into the future.

Pete Alwinson:
I knew where I was going, but I still had to write it and finish it. By noon, Friday, that was when it was good cause I’d usually be done writing it then.

Steve Brown:
Let’s see. I was not even thinking, I didn’t think about it until Saturday morning,

Pete Alwinson:
I know.

Steve Brown:
because I worked better scared.

Pete Alwinson:
You do. And that just scares me to death.

Steve Brown:
That is Pete Alwinson. And Pete comes in and has for a long time on Fridays and we answer your questions cause we love to do it. And we love your questions. You can ask you a question, 24 7, by calling 1-800-KEY-LIFE, recording your question. And sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you can write to

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Or you can e-mail your question to [email protected] and if you can help us financially, please do. I promise we’ll be faithful with your gift as you were in giving it, if you can’t, we would appreciate a prayer for this ministry. And by the way, I mentioned, I haven’t mentioned it in a while, you can give on your phone. You can text Key Life at 28950 and just follow the instruction. That’s 28950 and follow the instructions. I’m finished. I want people to give, and I have a tendency to say more than I should, like you’ll get the hives if you don’t, but I wouldn’t say anything like that.

Pete Alwinson:
Don’t say that. You wouldn’t say that.

Steve Brown:
So quick. Pray for us, then it will get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
Sounds good. Sounds good. Our Father, we come to you and just praise you today, on this Friday. The day’s not over, it’s just getting going, but Lord, we recognize that you’ve been with us and sovereign and caring for us all week long. We thank you that we belong to you, that you’ve known us before the foundation of the world, that you have a plan for our lives. And that Lord, even though we don’t always understand that plan, you relentlessly move toward us, with love and mercy and grace, you teach us, you’re restoring us to the image of Christ. All of this because you are a glorious and majestic God. And so, we worship you today. And we ask Lord for the rest of this week-end, that you would enable us to rest up and to rest in our identity in you. And be Lord, we pray with our spiritual leaders, those who you put over us, pastors and priests and teachers and leaders and spiritual directors. Father, worship directors in our church, Lord, we ask that you would be with them, fill them with your grace, use them to bring Jesus to us and us to him. And so, we commit this time of Q&A to you and ask that you would be glorified as we pray in your Holy Name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, we work from a sheet that is prepared by staff person, with the questions that we get with e-mails and phone calls and stuff. And the staff person said you may want to answer the next two questions together. The first is how much power does Satan have over our lives as Christians? And the second is, can Christians be possessed by demons?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, a great subject. And I think more and more, increasingly it’s important for us to address. I was telling you earlier that I read Mark’s gospel this morning in preparation for some future teaching. Isn’t it amazing how much in the life and ministry of Jesus, we see demonic activity.

Steve Brown:
We really do, and we have a tendency to poopoo it and we shouldn’t do that because it’s a serious subject. And especially in our time,

Pete Alwinson:
You know, it is and I think that there’s, in one sense, as you look historically, you could say, well, did Satan go underground? Well, in America because of the strength of Bible teaching and the church historically, maybe he did go underground some, but it sure seems that his work is on the surface these days.

Steve Brown:
It really is. There’s evil and I started to name things, but I’m not sure when this will be aired. But there are a whole list of things that are just scary, that are dark and evil. And there’s hatred and division and we’re going through some really, really rough waters. And I believe, I don’t want to be a fanatic about it and find demons under every bed. But the truth is that Satan is the source of evil. And that evil seems to be rampant in our time. And that’s why Christians need to learn to pray in a supernatural way, that Satan be bound.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s right.

Steve Brown:
Because that’s an important prayer in our lives and in our country and in our work and in our ministries. And sometimes, because we’re sophisticated Americans, we don’t do that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. I absolutely agree with you at a hundred percent. And, how much power to Satan have over our lives as Christians. He has a lot. He, he, he, he doesn’t, he can’t control us, but he can demonize us. That’s the word, I think the New Testament Greek really is, he can’t possess us, but he can influence us and he can harass us and he can oppress us.

Steve Brown:
True, but we do need to remember that we’re not dualists, we don’t see two equal powers, one evil and good and the outcome of the battle is not yet determined. That’s nonsense. And it’s from the pit of hell and it smells like smoke, by the way. And, the book of Job is very instructive there, where Satan has to ask God’s permission before he does anything, which makes him the lackey of God for God’s purposes. So, what you said, there’s a lot of power and Satan is scary and he’s real any he hates you.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. He hates our guts.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, that’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
And it’s profound hatred because he hates God. I love the old preacher who said this though. He said, if you give the devil a stick, he ought to beat you with it.

Steve Brown:
Good point.

Pete Alwinson:
And I liked that because sometimes we do, we throw up a softball to use another metaphor to Satan and he just powers it back at us. And, so don’t give him, you know, part of not sinning, is trying not to enter into his territory where he can get a foothold.

Steve Brown:
Give him a stick that he can beat you up with.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. Why would we do that?

Steve Brown:
And , you know, there is a sense. And like we just laughed about that comment, Rutherford dealt with Satan by, he heard a noise in his living room, or this story’s told it’s probably apocryphal, but he came out into his living room and Satan was sitting in his easy chair and Rutherford said, oh, it’s only you. I thought it was somebody important. And went back to bed and went to sleep. That’s leaning on Jesus in the proper way.

Pete Alwinson:
It really is. And that was kind of Luther’s mentality too. He said, you’ve got to fight those battles and call it what it is. I like that.

Steve Brown:
And though the world with demons filled, from A Mighty Fortress is Our God.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
You know, I was, as you know, I’ve gotten my theological education from a very, very liberal institution in Boston, a graduate school. And, they didn’t, you know, Satan was not real, metaphorical personification of evil. Not certainly not real, in terms of personified or person, but they wanted to sing the hymns of the faith. And sometimes in chapel, which I attended, they would sing that a mighty fortress is our God. And you just couldn’t remove what Luther said about, though this earth be filled with demons, one word shelf fill him. So yeah, Satan’s real.

Pete Alwinson:
And that’s why we do need to stand with brothers and sisters. We need to be in community groups. We need to fight together because when we get out there alone or get in our own silo, then we’re much more vulnerable.

Steve Brown:
What should I look for in a church?

Pete Alwinson:
Good question. Good question. I mean, vibrant, theocentric worship would be one and that’s one of the first. And then vibrant, God centered, Christ centered preaching are the first two things on Sunday morning. And, Steve it’s fascinating because there’s so many good, vibrant worship songs that are out there today, but when you start peeling away the theological layers, you know, you and I probably find it hard to worship sometimes because we start evaluating the words. A lot of the words are really man centered, this is what you do for me, thank you for what you do for me, me, me, me, me, instead of the focus of the old hymns that really started out with God first.

Steve Brown:
And, you know, that’s not a brief against contemporary Christian music.

Pete Alwinson:
It is not, nope.

Steve Brown:
There is a lot that is profound and deep, and there are a lot of old hymns that are pretty shallow too

Pete Alwinson:
That’s true.

Steve Brown:
but we really need to be careful in terms of our worship, that it’s Biblical and it’s solid, and there’s nothing wrong with me. I mean, Jesus did die for me.

Pete Alwinson:
You are so, well for you. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
It was pretty important and I want to thank him for it, but I also want to sing, a mighty fortress is our God.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. I’m totally with you. There’s a lot of good contemporary songs out there, but we need to be relentlessly God-centered. I love that.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. I have a new book coming out probably in two or three years, if it ever comes out.

Pete Alwinson:
It’ll be out sooner than that.

Steve Brown:
It was about, the title is Laughter and Lament: the Touchstones of Radical Freedom. But one of the things that I said, and I had to be careful because I didn’t want to be somebody just throwing rocks, was about worship, that we rarely give times in worship to lament, to really be, to really go through, you know, the tears that we shed and our music ought to reflect that, the laughter, the praise, the thanksgiving and the worship of an awesome, sovereign, in control, good God.

Pete Alwinson:
Absolutely and guys, we need this just as much as the lady’s did, we need this. It’s crucial for us.

Steve Brown:
And that’s so true. And by the way, when you’re looking for a church, look for one where people try a love each other. We’re out of here. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.