: There's the smiling exorcist. That says something about our country. When the most, uh, when the guest that has the most smiles has the most spiritually intense job of anybody. I'm serious. You, you smile more than anybody dealing with a demonic than people do dealing with anything else. I love it. Welcome to The Aggressive Life. Back in April, I had one of the most memorable conversations I've ever had on The Aggressive Life. And I don't think it's most memorable for everybody else. That episode went through the roof, right? Through the roof, yeah. It's in the top five or something, yeah. Top five, and it's only had a few months to build a following. Some of our older ones, like Matthew McConaughey, that are around. Had years. Had years, and people were still watching to him, all that kind of stuff. with my new friend, at least my Zoom friend, podcast friend, Father Vincent Lampert. He's a Catholic priest and exorcist, not like he exercises and does, you know, does body for life. Not at the gym. Yeah, yeah. He might do the gym. Maybe we'll get into that, but spiritual exorcist. He works out of the diocese in Indianapolis. This man's stories, his perspectives, and his demeanor, it really blew me away. just to have that kind of intense job and see the intense things that he's seen and have a lighthearted, open demeanor is just really refreshing. For 25 years, Father Lampert has been conducting his normal priestly duties, which for him includes performing hundreds and hundreds of exorcisms. He was specifically chosen for this role. He did extensive training in Rome and is one of the most outspoken exorcists of our time. Why? Because darkness. thrives in shadows. And Father Lampert's goal is to shine a light wherever and whenever he can and chip away at the works of the evil one. I don't know about you, but I expected an ace to this to be dark, moody, depressing. That's not this man at all. He's full of light and joy. He's quick to smile as he is right now as I look at him on Zoom. I got a lot. I got my script I'm trying to go through. If I look at you, I'm going to get off my game. So stop it. Stop looking happy. Stop it, you're distracting me. If you haven't heard our first conversation, join the tens of thousands of people who already have. I actually would recommend that. We'll be here. It'd really be a good foundation to go back and listen to that first, because I don't wanna keep talking in this podcast about, oh, tell us again what you said before. That first one is actually required listening, because I don't wanna cover. territory we've already done. So just go back there. This one will be here for you. You'll get much more out of it. So this time we're going to do a quick hitting Q&A with questions that you submitted via Instagram. And there is the questions I want to ask. We're going to talk about Halloween, guardian angels, entertainment choices, much, much more. We'll see if a Protestant megachurch pastor has any disagreements with a Catholic priest. Last time he pushed me on some things and we had very few disagreements last time. And if we would have disagreed, I think I came out agreeing with him at the end. I really, really good. I love being pushed by somebody in a different faith tradition. So we'll see if we're in the same place today. It's going to be good. Welcome back to the aggressive life. Father Vincent Lampert. Thank you, Brian. It's good to be back with you. It is good. I hope that you didn't get too much blowback from your Catholic flock making a friend with a Protestant megachurch pastor. Have you been OK? Are we still good? Oh, everybody thinks it's fantastic. Dialogue and conversations is a great thing to help build bridges. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Is there anything new? in your life as a Indianapolis exorcist since we spoke nearly half a year ago? Just many, many more requests to be on podcasts, to give talks and presentations. So it's a topic that many, many people are interested in. Yeah, it sure is. And I think we're interested in it. I mean, early on, I think we were interested in it just for the entertainment value of exorcists, yada, yada. And I think more people are interested in it now because I think more people are recognizing There is a spiritual world and a dark spiritual world with dark entities. Maybe that's how I can make sense of some of the difficulty that I'm dealing with. Do you think that makes sense? Oh, absolutely. I think a lot of people may be dealing with the demonic, but they can't really identify it as such. And just by talking about this topic, the reality of evil, the reality of the devil. Hopefully it's going to challenge people to think more about their own relationship with God and how they can take it to the next level. All of us are dealing with the demonic in one way, shape, or form. We don't know it, but you're dealing with the demonic. Certain urges that we have, fissures, fractures in relationships oftentimes have demonic roots. We may not know it. All of us are dealing with one way or another. You're in a place where you're seeing... some more obvious things, things that we talked about before that would actually be in a movie. I'm curious since we were together in April, is there one of your cases in the last several months that seems to be sticking in your mind more than others that might be of interest before we kind of get into some of these questions? Well, there's one I don't think I shared with you on the last time we were together, but I was thinking about it recently when I was meeting with a young lady who was telling me that she was possessed. And during the conversation, the demon manifested and bit the woman's lip and started bleeding, and then took the woman's hand, put it in the blood, began howling and screaming and drew a pentagram on the wall with the blood. Wow. So the demon bit her, meaning she bit her own lip, the demon had her biting her own lip. Yes. When she was, the demon was manifesting, she was possessed. And then when someone's possessed, the demon takes control of the body. treating that body as if it were its own. So in that case, the demon caused the woman to bite her lip, started bleeding, then stuck the hand in the blood and then drew the pentagram on the wall. The pentagram, the upside down star, the thing that can look like a goat's head, if you will. It looks... You know, that's really odd because I would have said that the pentagram is a Hollywood fabrication. It's just good for the wow factor. But a demon draws that on the wall. Is that because that actually is a sacred symbol in the in the satanic realm? Or do you think the demon is using a symbol that freaks people out and puts that on the wall? What's your thoughts? I think it's a symbol that represents the power of the demon. The notion is that when somebody is within the pentagram, then they're within that realm of the demonic and maybe even seeking the safety and protection of the devil himself. That's good. Okay, let's get into these questions. I'm just gonna read them as they've come in. We're not gonna do all of them, but we're gonna do a good bit of them. Are you ready? Let's roll. Okay, here's one. Here's one right here. As a man of faith, how do you think about Halloween? Is it just fun and games or should I be wary of something more sinister? I think the entertainment industry is an entry point for the demonic and I would throw Halloween right in there with the entertainment industry. The devil doesn't really care if we've used something as just kind of fun and entertaining. He can still use that as an indirect way to kind of get his grip into our lives and on us. So I think Halloween is a time when many people glorify evil. Again, they may think it's all just fun and games, but the devil can use that as an opportunity to kind of get into people's lives. So I think there is something very dangerous about Halloween and how it's celebrated because many people today are, when they celebrate Halloween, I see it today, people are decorating their yards, all kinds of witches and goblins and demons, and it's a way that people are glorifying evil. Yes. So let's take myself for example, curious what you'd say about this. I boycotted Halloween for a long, long time, in large part because there was a guy who was very popular in the Protestant space. His name was Mike Warnke. And do you remember him? You ever hear of him? He was a professed ex-Satanic priest who talked about how they would abduct people on Halloween and... He went around the churches, getting honorariums, talking. He had some books. And then a number of years ago, it came out that he made the whole thing up. He lied about everything. He was never a warlock. The things he talked about never happened, ever, ever. And it was just a money grab for him. I'm in a place right now where what I do is I do some things on Halloween. front house and put a little bonfire out there and have some drinks. And kids come by, give them some candies, and that sort of thing. I do that. But I also have been known to tell a neighborhood, a previous neighborhood, like, dude, you're getting too extreme. Like, hanging corpses and 666 on sheets that are hanging. You're just like, it's a little too much. Are you? Kind of saying my middle of the road approach is OK? Or would you even encourage someone like me, like, no, don't do anything. Don't go out and do bonfires and give people candy. I like your middle of the road approach. I mean, children need to have fun. And we shouldn't see the devil everywhere. We just have to make sure that our actions are not glorifying the devil or that they're not inconsistent with our Christian faith. Because I believe that anything that's not consistent with our faith is something that we should root out of our lives. One of the greatest sins mentioned in the Old Testament is the sin of idolatry, and we have to make sure that we're not allowing something, namely the devil, to take the place of God in our lives. And again, the devil is very, very intellectual. You know, recently there's a new movie out called Nefarious. It's about a man on death row who is possessed and his psychologist who's an atheist, and they have a conversation. What's interesting about the movie Nefarious, it doesn't focus on... all the theatrics of the devil, but he really shows his intellect. And usually that's a side of the devil that people don't really think about. But the devil is very intellectual, he's very smart, and sometimes he may be manipulating us and we don't even realize it. And I think that Halloween is the way that the devil can try to manipulate a lot of people. question about what do you think about possession style movies? Should we avoid them or is it just mindless entertainment? I think if one is grounded in their faith, there's nothing with nothing wrong with watching these types of movies. But if you're not grounded in your faith and you watch the movies, you may become more fascinated with the devil. Because a lot of what Hollywood does is focused on again on what the devil is doing. But in the ministry of exorcism, the focus should always be on what God wants to do in the life of this person. So Hollywood may be glorifying the devil, and if we're not grounded in our faith, then we may end up indirectly doing the same thing. That's interesting. I hadn't thought about this before. When you watch one of these movies, one of these possession movies, is it for you like just watching a baseball game? You know what I mean? Is it? I don't watch them. I don't watch them at all. I'm still freaked out from seeing The Exorcist. I can't. When I do see little snippets of something, I go like, no, that can't be true because of XYZ that I know from the scriptures or my experience with the demonic. But I just get too jacked. My adrenaline pumps, I can't. But when you watch it, is it not? Or when you've seen them, it's just Okay, I'm watching what I do. What's that like when you see those? What is it? Yeah, anymore I don't watch the movies anymore because again, I find them to be rather boring because even in an exorcism, I don't focus on what the devil is doing. I certainly have seen all kinds of manifestations in the 18 years that I've done this ministry, but I'm not fascinated by what the devil is capable of doing. because I know that the power of God is so much greater. It's almost to the extent that when the demon manifests, I almost want to yawn and say, really, that's all you got? Yeah. All right, here's another one. Do you notice any patterns when it comes to spiritual activities? Are there hot seasons versus cold seasons? Are there hot spots in the city versus a cold spot, et cetera? I think it's always a question of where are people glorifying evil? So those hotspots can really be anywhere. Because technically we would say that demons as pure spirits are neither here nor there. They don't have a body like we do. But we would say they are here or there through choosing to act in a location. So if somebody is glorifying evil by doing a seance, for example, playing with the Ouija board, Halloween activities, all of those things can attract the attention of the devil and his demons and then cause them to manifest. So it's really always the question of what are people doing that's attracting the attention of demons that is causing them to manifest? For example, demons don't live in the abandoned house on the end of the street. People may be doing in that house that's causing the demons to be present there. Right, so this phrase that was a bit controversial when it first got popular that I remember in the 80s or 90s maybe was, territorial spirits, that there are demons that inhabit a territory or a house or a region. You think that's not true? I think some of that is based on the notion from some of the early writers in the church believe that angels were given territorial rights by God. And then when these angels fell and became the demons, that somehow they still retained territorial authority. The demons don't have any authority over us that we don't give them. So maybe by our actions, by what we're doing, we can give authority to demons, but then we also have the power to take that back by virtue of our faith in Jesus Christ. We can do something crazy that can give an authority to a demon to act in our lives or in a location, but then we can renounce that by the power in the name of Jesus Christ. zero, zero reason for a follower of Christ who possesses the Holy Spirit, which is a spirit that is way, way beyond anything that the demonic can offer or throw, including Satan himself. And people aren't really, when someone says, well, Satan's attacking me, probably not. You're not important enough for Satan himself to attack you. He's gonna send one of his janitors after you. I'm sorry, you're just not that big of a deal, right? But there's really no reason if you're a follower of Christ with the Holy Spirit that you should ever walk into a house, whether it's pitch black and has the reputation of being haunted or not, that you should ever walk in there being afraid, right? Absolutely, because that's what the devil feeds on. He feeds on fear. Yep. And our faith will cast out fear. So that was the question, I think, on our last conversation we were debating. Is it possible for a Christian? to become possessed. And my point was, if you're wearing the label of Christian, but you're not really living the faith, then it is possible that you could get possessed. Because again, you're not really living out the faith. You're just saying, I'm a Christian, but you're not, you know, you may be talking the talk, but you're not walking the walk. But if one is walking the walk when it comes to their Christian faith, the devil has nothing to fear whatsoever. Well, it's interesting build on that. Paul says to Timothy that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power, self-discipline. I think it's arguably true that American Christians, quote unquote Christians, are the most fearful people in the history of Christianity. We have more anxieties, more paranoias, take more medication, have more hang-ups, have more quirks. than anybody in the history of the world does. The data is really clear. Mental health on anxiety is a mess. And there's probably demonic that's happening there. And by the way, just one disclaimer, I'm not saying that if you take a pill, you're possessed. I'm just saying if you looked at ThruLine, fear is everywhere. And it's one of the signs that something's not right with us spiritually. Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. The territorial spirit is an interesting one. This is just my question now. What do you think in the Book of Daniel, when Daniel is praying, and Gabriel comes sometime later and says, hey, man, I would have come. I would have come with you. I would have spent time with you earlier, answered your prayer. But I couldn't, because I got hung up with the Prince of Persia. This stuff got hung up, and I finally got here. Like, what do you think's going on there? Is that a demon that oversees the territory of Persia, or is that something else? I think it would be a demon that may be trying to claim some authority over Persia, because again demons will try to exert their power and their influence maybe beyond what God permits. Demons aren't free to do whatever they want. They're still on a chain or a leash, if you will. If they had a free reign, the world would be even more chaotic than it already is. So whatever they do, God has to permit it. then we could ask the question, why is God permitting this? And it's good for people to remember that the devil was cast out of heaven, but he wasn't cast out of creation. God can still use the devil and his demons for God's greater purposes. That's good. Okay, here's another one. Just simple, do you believe in ghosts? Well, it tends, you know, sometimes people always say something strange is happening in the house. Is it a demon or is it that the spirit of one who has died? It's not possible for the spirit of one who dies to manifest in this reality anymore. They cannot do that. We can reject God in this life, but when we die, there's God. We can't reject him. We have to face that. So I believe that when people believe they're seeing ghosts, it's demons that are masquerading, perhaps as a loved one who has died, as an opportunity to get a foothold into that person's life. Is it also possible that it could be an angel masquerading for comfort? Like my mother-in-law, she was babysitting. I don't know if we talked, did we talk about this our last time together? No, I don't, I know, I don't think so. My mother-in-law. was babysitting her younger sister when she was like six. And Carol was her younger sister. And while she was babysitting her, she went out and did something that she wasn't supposed to do while the mother's away. And she died in a sled riding accident. Oh my. Yeah, right, when she shouldn't have been doing that. As a babysitter, she shouldn't let her younger sister do that. Obviously she's wracked with guilt. She's really tough, tough. And she... She said, well, Carol visited me at night and said it was OK. And she said that moment I was released. And she believed that and said that for decades. And I said to her, I said, Jesus says no one can go from here to there when he's talking about the rich man in Lazarus. He said there's a very clear delineation. You can't go back and forth. And I said, it might be that an angel took on the appearance of a man who was a man of God. of your sister or said something that you thought was just because they knew that would comfort you and let you put her to bed. Do you think that's possible? Certainly, I do think that's possible, that that's a particular gift from God just to give that person some sense of comfort. So I do think, but again, in that case, it's what God is doing. Because again, we can act independently of God in this life, but we don't act independently of God once we die. All right, next one. When you are making an assessment on if someone is possessed or if it's mental illness or something else, we talked about that last time. Again, if you're listening to this, stop listening right now, go back and listen to the foundation, because we talked about this. Go back to the list of the first one. But when you're making an assessment on if someone is possessed, what are you looking for? I'm looking for something that's outside of the scope of mental illness. That's why I will use mental health professionals, a psychiatrist, for example. They can even be a non-believer because I'm I'm not asking the psychiatrist, hey, do you think this person is possessed? I will make that determination in my role as the exorcist, but I want the best possible information that I can get. So I would ask the psychiatrist, is there something about this person's condition that is outside of your scope of understanding? And then that may lead me to have what the church says is moral certitude, meaning beyond the doubt the person in front of me is truly possessed. and they're not dealing with a mental health issue or even a medical issue that could be trying to replicate the same conditions that we would see in someone who is possessed. Do you interact with licensed professional psychologists who prescribe medicines, who would also attest to believing in demons and seeing demons? Do you know individuals like that? I do, I know several. And I would say that they're in the minority. Because it's my experience a lot of people in the mental health field would immediately discount the possibility that the person is dealing with something of a spiritual nature. You know, in the Western world, which Christianity has built, I think we've become very skeptical of our faith. And so we always believe that somehow we have the answer, we have the solution to what everyone is experiencing. But ultimately, from a faith perspective, we would say that... And God is the divine physician, and he has the remedy for everything that else society and the individual person. Yeah, it is awkward that the West was kind of the fulcrum point, the epicenter of Christianity, meaning that in most other countries that have Christianity is because of missionaries that were sent from the West, England or America. And now we've gone from the epicenter to not. utterly discounting all the time things of the spiritual world. And then if you go to these other countries, they're like, oh yeah, that's just the way it is. They're freshening their faith and see things and are embracing things that we aren't. And we've got this really weak form of Christianity that's just really a philosophy for most people. Yeah, oftentimes people will say to me that I'm in the minority because I believe in these spiritual realities. But that's not really true. Maybe in United States, I'm a minority, but when you look at the global population, there are more people that accept the reality of spiritual entities than those who deny them. But oftentimes, perhaps in the West, we look at these people in these other so-called third world countries, and we just consider them to be backwards, and they don't really have the level of understanding that we have. Yeah, people try to bully us into believing certain things and say, well, you're on the wrong side of history. they're kind of projecting forward. And I'm like, dude, you're already on the wrong side of history, right now you're on the wrong side of history. Look at the history of the human race, the things that you're believing or saying are not true. And they've been seen again and again and again in culture after culture, you're on the wrong side of history. I think that's part of the demonic too. Like just think like everybody else. Just go along with my stuff and just think of the future. No, let's look at the data. All right, how about, here's another one. What else does an exorcist do besides performing exorcisms and brushing your teeth? I guess you brush your teeth too. Yes. I'm also the pastor of two churches here in southeastern Indiana. So I'm just outside of Cincinnati, Ohio and Brookville, Indiana. So I take care of St. Michael Church, St. Peter Church. They're within about 10 mile radius of one another. So I would do many normal things that pastors would do. Sunday services, preach the Word of God, visit the sick, and all those types of things. So exorcism is not what I do 100% of the time. It probably takes up 50% of my time. And I would say that's even healthy. I can't imagine anyone doing exorcism ministry 24 hours a day. I think being grounded in church life is a very healthy thing to give a proper balance. That's probably where I get my… my smile and my laughter. Because when you deal with people that are possessed and dealing with the demonic, oftentimes these people are on the fringes and it can really take a lot out of you. I thought you were gonna say. church life is hellish enough. That couldn't even take, I thought that's what you were going to say. Where you slap down. I'm telling you, where you slap down. Let's just talk about our profession for a minute. Yeah. There's not a lot of professions where you have to be a public speaker and come up with brand new content every week and manage a budget and be a psychologist counselor with other people and be a man of prayer. and understand how to maintain buildings or oversee people who do maintain buildings and oversee a staff and know how to write and write things that take people to, whether it's books or letters or what, and I could go on and on. It's an exhausting job for many of us. So that you're doing like demonic, like hardcore demonic stuff with 50% of your job on top of pastoring two churches. Dude, I feel like a loser. I'm like disqualified from ministry now. That's why, you know, somebody will say, oh, you exercise. And I'm like, oh, I thought you said extra size. I was going to get the large fries and the large drink. All right. Let's go next one. Of the people you see who think they are possessed, what percentage do you think actually are? I think it's one out of every 5,000 people. that I deal with are dealing with true demonic possession. It is real, it does happen, but it's not as prevalent as everyone thinks. Oftentimes people will self-diagnose, but it's important to allow the minister to diagnose and to really determine what somebody may be dealing with. You know, we talk about possession. Maybe people are dealing with infestation, the presence of evil in the location, demonic vexation, physical attacks. the demonic obsession, the mental attacks, those are much more common than demonic possession itself. Okay. Demonic vexation, I'm not familiar with that term. What is demonic vexation? I like to use the term vexation. That's where people are being attacked physically by a demon, maybe they're getting cuts or marks or bites or bruises that appear on their body. The reason I like the word vexation and not oppression is that in my view, Demonic oppression is a gift from God. God is allowing someone to be tormented by a demon as an opportunity for that person to show their fidelity to God. Think of Job in the Old Testament. You know, Satan appears before God. He says, well, look at your servant Job. He's, you know, the only reason he's faithful is because he's blessed in so many ways. And then God says, well, okay, you can do what you want, but you can't take his life. We all know the story of Job. He loses just about everything. His friends say, you obviously have done something wrong. He's like, no, I haven't. His wife says, curse God and die. And then Joe beats his breast and says, the Lord give it, the Lord take it away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Meaning, if things be good, I glorify God. If things be bad, I glorify God. My personal situation means nothing when it comes to God's rightful place in my life. St. Paul talked about the thorn in his flesh, a messenger from Satan that was sent to torment him. keep him from becoming proud. So, Joe, St. Paul, they didn't do anything wrong. They created this portal or entry point for the demonic, but it was something that God permitted as an opportunity for these people to show their fidelity to God. So, I call that oppression, whereas vexation is somebody has done something wrong that created the entry point for the demonic. to find that as a spirit is inside of you, is possessing you in oppression, something is nipping at you from outside, but they're not possessing your spirit, you've got a different category. Something from the outside is doing something from the evil one, which could be giving you bruises, but you're preserving the word oppression for those times when God used the demonic for his purposes. Yes. Interesting, interesting. All right, that's good stuff. Learn something every time with you. It's really good, thank you. All right, how about this one? Besides possession, what are other ways you might experience demonic influence in our lives? And let's go beyond besides possession and besides vexation. Are there other things that we all deal with that we should go, oh, this isn't just a hangup. This is like, oh, there's a personality, a spiritual personality. that's trying to mess with me. What are those things? It can be like, I think we just touched on demonic infestation. There could be a presence of evil in a location. People might be hearing noises or footsteps, lights going on and off and that type of thing. Obsession would be the devil's literally trying to get inside of your head. So everything that you're experiencing, you're filtering through the demonic. Somebody may get fixated on the number 666. And they're like, I just see it everywhere. I see it on a license plate, a billboard. It's just a sign that the devil's around me. So literally the demon is trying to make a person feel as if they're going insane. I will say that most of us don't have to worry about extraordinary demonic activity, the infestation, vexation, obsession and possession, but all of us do need to be aware of how the devil tries to trip us up in our daily lives. So the ordinary activity of the devil, his temptation. I say he uses a four-stage plan of attack. Deception that leads to division, which leads to diversion, which leads to discouragement. Deception, the devil gets us to buy into his lies. When we do, it divides us, we're broken. And when we're broken, we wanna put our lives back together, but when we don't turn to God, we may turn to some addictive behavior. That's the diversion. Think of the Israelites in the Old Testament who created the golden calf. they found a substitute for God. And then that sense of diversion will lead to discouragement because I believe that the human person has the innate desire for God. St. Augustine, the end of the fourth, early fifth centuries, the classic line where he says, "'You have created us for yourself, O God, "'and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.'" And when people do not give God His rightful place in their lives, I think it ends up in discouragement. So the devil gets us to buy into the lies, it breaks us, and then we look for a diversion, and then we end up being discouraged. When the book of Ephesians, this is my own personal question now, the book of Ephesians talks about Ephesians that there are powers and principalities in the evil realm that we are resisting and fighting against. It gives us an idea. There's almost like a corporate structure, or there is some sort of corporate structure of the demonic and some corporate vision statement for things that they're doing and want to do to mess this up. When I look at our country right now, I've never been an American for 57 years. My 57 years, I've never seen our country as divided as it is. And I've never seen our country be unable to discern truth right now. And I just mean like, just take the pandemic and the, um, I'm not even going to say what's true, because quite frankly, I don't even know anymore. But half of America thinks very clearly this about the vaccine in the CDC. Half America very clearly thinks this or that about the vaccine CDC. Is that demonic? Are these things I'm feeling, do you think they're a result of demonic activity, or is this just human nature that we're always at war with each other? I don't think the devil is the cause of all of our problems. But the devil is an opportunist, and he's quick to insert himself where he can bring about greater division. Jesus came to create community, to pull humanity together from its brokenness, but the devil wants to continue to shatter and break and fracture humanity. So I think a lot of the disagreement we see is how the devil is inserting himself and really trying to rewrite truth. You think of... even the Garden of Eden in the book of Genesis, you know, where the serpent says to her, well, did God really tell you? So, he's getting her to begin to question God's truth. And I think the devil does that in society today. You know, you think of the line when Jesus is before Pontius Pilate, what is truth? And I think we're living in an age when we want to rewrite truth. I think we're almost following that advice of the serpent again in the book of Genesis. where he basically says, you don't need God, you can be God. And if we are God, we can write our own truth. But I think the devil is the one who's behind that temptation. It's important for people to know that the devil can propose that we do something, but he cannot impose. We have free will, but the devil wants us to use our free will to reject God. So he can propose, but he cannot impose. He didn't take the forbidden fruit and cram it down his throat. He presented it as something good, basically rewriting truth, and in doing so caused the fall of humanity. So this line, the devil made me do it, just can't be true. He proposed it, but he didn't impose it, you did it. Yeah, I would reject that line 100% because that's trying to use the devil as a scapegoat, that somehow I'm not responsible, the devil made me do it. When in reality, we do have free will. The devil can propose something, but we can say no. Unless he has possessed you because, right? Because you said you've seen people levitate. He's imposing himself to have them levitate. So is it a little different if you're actually possessed or not? It is because I think people that are possessed then have united their free will with the will of the demon. And then the demon and that person are kind of operating as one. How many, I'm gonna put two questions in one right here. How many exorcisms have you performed and have you ever done one that appeared to not work? And if so, how did you process that through? I would say that I've done thousands of exorcisms over the last 18 years. In my experience always is exorcisms are always beneficial. even if they don't bring about total liberation for the person at that moment, it does provide them some relief. And usually when the demon isn't cast out, it's because the person is still holding on to something that's allowing the demon to still have a hook in them, if you will. So when I work with people, I really want to understand a person's situation. I'm not there to judge them. But if I'm going to be able to help them, like for example, I was working with somebody of a non-Christian faith tradition, and they were looking to become a Christian, but then they were still praying prayers related to their non-Christian faith that they had before. And I'm like, no, you can't straddle both fences. Because I even said, do you really want to become a Christian, or are you just wanting the demon to go away? Because there's a big difference there. Because casting demons out is easy. That's the easy part. The harder part is to convince people to invite God in. I think of Luke's Gospel in chapter 11. Once the demon has been cast out, it goes in wonders to the arid wasteland and then coming back and finding the house swept clean, meaning it's gone but God hasn't been invited in. Then it goes and brings seven other demons worse than itself and they take up residence in the person. So, it isn't always true that people who are possessed, yeah, they want the demons gone, but they don't really want God in their life. And that is always a recipe for disaster. And my experience is when exorcism prayers have to be repeated, the person is still giving some authority to the demon to operate in their life. And again, God will respect our free will. So if the person is given some authority to the demon, then it really can't be cast out. That's interesting. You know, Ephesians also talks about being restored in the spirit of your mind or renewing the mind. So you're saying here that casting out a demon isn't, okay, I'm dirt and I're sitting in a room here right now. So casting out a demon could be seen as you enter the room, grab this water bottle and cast it out of the room, it's gone. But you're saying while you may be participating in that process, or are you saying this, I, can still make the decision to hold onto this bottle, hold onto this bottle. I have to participate by mentally renew my mind choosing that I at least wanna let go. Is that what you're saying? Absolutely. In an exorcism, I can do my part, but the person also has to do their part. They have to have some skin in the game. So they really have to demonstrate that they want the demons gone. I will say that in an age where faith is in decline in the lives of many people, There's a lot of people who contact me who view me as a magician, that somehow I have a bag of tricks and I can make their problems go away. But people need to realize I don't have any special powers and abilities. The people relying on me, we're all in trouble. But if we're relying on the power and the authority of Christ, that's the right mindset to have. In fact, in an exorcism, Jesus is not a bystander, He's the main actor. And if somebody doesn't really want to invite— Christ into their life, into their heart, then the demon really isn't going to go anywhere. Boy, every time I talk with you, brother, I have different things hit me from different ways. This is really good. You mentioned that faith is in decline. I would say, yes, it is. And I just heard of another person just the other day. I used to actually be on staff at the church that I passed. They're now deconstructing their faith. And I just walk in the club. Everyone's doing that. And I thought. built on your thing. I don't know that faith is in decline, but what was in decline before that was repentance. Repentance is a decline. Repentance is a changing of your mind, metanoia, change, meta, noia, your mind, noose. And these folks who are losing their faith, well, the ones that I know always, that I know of them, always have an area in their life that they're not repenting of. They have an area of sin, a mindset, and they're just clinging on to it. They're holding the water bottle like, no, I will continue to have my sex life the way I want it, even if God doesn't want it. No, no, I will continue to be bitter and angry about XYZ in America, bitter and angry about that, even though the Bible tells me not to be bitter and angry, not to allow that root to grow up and soil you. That's interesting that. that are preaching to me right now, because I want to remind myself to make sure I'm a person of repentance. Are you seeing this link between at some point lack of repentance, lose your faith, demonic possession? Yes, certainly. Because we're all sinners, and it goes back to that notion where if we are rewriting truth, then we're trying to justify our sinfulness. But as long as we can call sin a sin, then we have the opportunity to invite God into our lives. But I do think there's a lot of people today, whether it's addictive behavior, the failure to call sin a sin, that's giving the demonic a hold on the lives of a lot of people. Because again, anything that we can name and give to God, we can deal with. The things that we deny, they control us. So there may be a lot of people that are giving that authority to the demonic in their life, and they don't even realize it because simply they cannot repent and call sin a sin. touching on what I said earlier about ordinary activity of the devil, when we give in to that deception, if we repent, that's what we need to do. But when we don't repent, it leads to that division. And then when we don't repent, it leads to diversion. When we don't repent, it leads to discouragement. Think of the number of people today that are so discouraged, you know, whether it's spiritual death in their lives, sometimes physical death, the increase in suicides, where people... just lack any meaningful purpose or direction in their lives. Because I think the human person is looking for something, but what they're looking for is right under their nose, namely their faith in God. But it's almost like they become disillusioned with it. And people want to revert back to these ancient religious practices that predate Christianity that really don't offer people any sense of hope in their lives. Yes. Let's talk about something that's a little more light in the spiritual realm, a little more light. I like staying heavy. We'll stay heavy. I'm not evading, but just let's look at the other side of the equation for a bit. Guardian angels, are they real? I think so. I mean, Jesus in scripture talks about how, you know, their angels in heaven always behold the face of the heavenly father. So I do believe that they are real. So that notion that we all have a guardian angel, I think is true. Yeah, Peter, when he's in jail and he gets miraculously released from jail, he goes and knocks on the door of all his buddies are and they look at him and they go, ah! They shut the door. They ran away. Oh my gosh! And they go back and say, oh, we just saw Peter there. And they go, no, it wasn't Peter. It had to be his angel. The Art Church believes that there's this guardian angel. I used to think it was ridiculous until myself. This is actually one of the ways, true confessions, this is one of the ways I was judgmental of Catholicism earlier in my faith. I thought guardian angels was just a Catholic thing and it wasn't a thing that was in the Bible, but there's at least three very strong references in the New Testament about a guardian angel being assigned to a believer. And it's pretty cool, it's also pretty interesting when we think about it, where most of us have situations where we say, I should have died. And maybe we didn't die because God had our back. It's pretty cool. It's pretty fun. Well, you know that when you think of an angel, their nature is spirit, but angel is their function because the word angel means a messenger. And what message do they bring? It's always one from God. You think of Psalm 23, even though I walk through the dark valley, I fear no evil for you are at my side. So I believe our guardian angels remind us of the presence of God. They bring that message to us, always reminding us that God is with us. I think that's one of the unique things about Christianity, is that Christianity is not about our search for God. I believe Christianity is about God's search for us. And if you think about that, God loves the human person so much that God is always looking for us. The book of Revelation talks about Jesus stands at the door and knocks. The Good Shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep and goes in search of the lost one, that's lost humanity. When you think of the woman with the 10 coins and loses one, that's lost humanity. When Adam and Eve sinned, they were cast into the wilderness. But then when Jesus begins His public ministry, what does He do? After He's baptized, He's driven by the Spirit into the desert. And I would suggest the desert, the wilderness, why did He go there? He's in search of lost humanity. But He first has to contend with the devil. who brought about the fall of humanity. So again, the unique thing about Christianity is God is always searching for us. We just have to be willing to believe that we're worthy to be found and that we have the strength to open the door and let Christ in. Man, I wish I would've talked to you about four days ago. That would've preached great this last week. And I talked about the Prodigal Son, which is in the back end of the Lost Coins and the. And the, um, yeah, exactly. There it is. Yeah. It actually shouldn't be even called, shouldn't even be called the lost son. It's not called that in the Bible. It doesn't get that title. It probably should be the father who runs the father who seeks, right? I love that. It's not our search for God. It's God's search for us. That's awesome. Think about that younger son. He's been working in, you know, the, with the pigs, he's got a stink. And what does the father do? He puts his arms around him. How many of us could go up to a homeless person that's really that filthy, but God the Father is always able to look beyond the filth of our sins and see the beauty within? Again, that's about God's search for us. But sometimes we may believe that our sinfulness is so great that we're not worthy. There's a younger son again saying, I'm not worthy to be called your son. But God always recognizes our sinfulness. value and dignity as created in his image and likeness. I think God is the one who's always cleaning the filth away, but the devil is the one who's always flinging the mud. When you think about, or when you're in an exorcism, do you think about, do you ever think, oh, I got a guardian angel here, someone has my back, or is there some, or something who has my back, or is there some other grounding exercise you do, like most of us have routines, tennis players have a routine before they serve the ball, they're gonna bounce it on the ground or on the court so many times. I have a routine before I preach, I put my foot on top of a... in a little speaker room, I've got a ceramic block that has a scorpion in it that I killed, and I put my foot on top of that scorpion before I pray. It's kind of a routine. Do you have a routine that keeps you centered and prepped before you do an exorcism? Yeah, even the church herself gives a prescription that as a priest, I would celebrate Catholic Mass. I myself would go to confession and acknowledge my own sinfulness before God. I would spend time in prayer, asking God to, you know, send the Holy Spirit to guide me in knowing how to deal with this person who's possessed, to understand what the demon is doing in the person's life. And then I would do the exorcism and then just be aware of whether it's the guardian angel, the presence of God, that somehow it's not just me alone that's combating this demon. but it's really the power of God working in and through me. That's good. You and I know more than the average person in the aggressive life related to Catholic Protestant stuff, some of the things that we disagree on. There's a couple obvious ones from my perspective, at least my perspective of Catholicism, which could be wrong, depending on which priest I talk to. One is for Protestantism, I don't hold as high a view most Catholics do. The second one is I don't place as much importance in the physical repetitive act of communion as does a Catholic. And part of that is there is some different theo. I don't want to get into some of the different theology between Protestants and Catholics on that. But all that to say, one of the things I do appreciate about Catholicism and people who are really drawn to the mass. What I do like about it, aside from whatever theological difference we have, what I like about it is it is a routine. It's a physical thing that gets your mind in the right space. It's a physical, like when I get up in the morning, I'm not trying to put another plug for an advertiser here. I have athletic greens, AG1. It's a routine. The morning goes, hoo, first thing I'm doing, I'm drinking this Vitamix thing. It's going to help me. be healthier today than if I wasn't, puts my mind like, boom, it's a physical concrete, I would imagine the masses like that. Oh, okay, it's a thing. I've rerouted myself in the grace of God. I've rerouted myself that I wanna eat of Jesus instead of eat of the things of this world. I like that a lot. And I think that might be one of the reasons why so many people struggle in their faith. Their faith is just something I think, and they can't pin it to things that they actually do. expand on that, agree, disagree, anything you'd amend with that? I agree with that, because whether it's Catholic mass, whether it's the service that you do on Sunday, I think what's happening is that Christ is being presented to people. That Christ is not some abstract out there, but Christ is being made real. And I think when people know that Christ is real, and they have that genuine encounter with Christ, it gives people that grounding that they need in their lives. So again, whether it's mass, whether it's listening to you preach, I think it's making Christ present in people's lives. They got, you know, Jesus wasn't somebody that just lived a couple thousand years ago, way back when. We're not just reading Bible stories about, you know, what happened then, but it's re-presenting Christ to people today. Just as much as Christ was present in the lives of those people back then. He's present in our lives as well. And perhaps we don't really, we may take that for granted. We don't take it seriously enough. But if we truly believe that Christ is with us, what more do we need? Absolutely nothing. Yeah. Dirt, you, when people put these things on my Instagram, all these questions, you captured all of them here, right? You put them all there, okay? We've actually, I believe, done every single question, every single question, because I wrapped like three or four of them up into one question. So we've actually done every single question. And I'm curious, Father, now that we're done with all these questions, Are there any questions that no one asked that you wish they would have asked? You know, nothing seems to jump out at me. The Ministry of Exorcism really is about making God present in the lives of a lot of people, which I think is missing for many people today. And that's why I'm happy to be on your program, because people may believe that Catholics and other Christian faith traditions are always at odds with one another. But I just firmly believe that we live in a period of human history where people of Christian faith need to stand together. We certainly have our differences, but I hope that we could agree that what we hold in common is the same, because what's at the core is our relationship with Jesus Christ. Again, I think of children within the same family, and we're all brothers and sisters, we're all children of God, we're all members of the same family. Maybe as children of God, we live out that relationship a bit differently. I think every child does that. their parents, you know, the relationship is a bit different. It doesn't mean one's better than the other, it just means that it's different. But again, I would hope that at the core is our relationship with Christ. You know, something is significant. I'm a lover of history. Something significant has always happened within every 500 years of Christianity. The first 500 years, we think of the fall of the Roman Empire. The second 500 years was the split between East and West. 500 years later, the Reformation. So we're living in that 500 year window right now. And the question is, will Christians today, who I believe are under attack on many different levels, will we continue to attack one another? Or will we say, we need to stand together and united and make Christ truly present in the lives of people today? Because people are searching for something and they need to be told that what they need in their life. is a relationship with Christ. Well, I think that there is more unity in the body of Christ than the media is willing to portray. There are more solid, great churches, whether they be Protestant or Catholic, than the medium portrays. The media is only giving time to the churches that are dysfunctional and have had a scandal. And why would that be? Maybe it's the demonic. Maybe the demonic wants us to appear like we're more at odds than we actually are. Maybe that's the thing. It's really weird. So I think we've done a couple of good things with our two part series here. We've given people, and you specifically, have given people a lot of insight as to how the demonic works and to. focus on Jesus. The point is Jesus in relation with him, not the cool factor of exorcisms, and you've gone back to that again and again and again and again. And then the second thing is, is the unity that we can have between Catholics and Protestants. It's really good. I count you as a brother. I'm thankful for your generosity of wisdom and knowledge and spirits. And I'm going to miss you, man. I got to figure out some more ways to talk about exorcism just so I can hang out with you every six months. Anything else you want to talk about at all? Anything else you want to say? Final word? It's just great to be with you and have this conversation and give people something to think about in their lives. Yes, it is. Okay, everybody. Boy, we've gone in the deep end every time with my friend is a time in the deep end. I think we're all helped. I'm personally helped in a big, big way. I'm going to be thinking a lot about not my search for God, but God's search for me. I'm thinking a lot about, about Satan, not imposing on me, but allowing him to give me a proposition that I might follow through on. I'm going to talk a lot about a thing, be thinking a lot about this repentance thing. Repentance, friends, if there's something in your life that you know Jesus doesn't like, you got to repent, you got to turn from it. You're just. You're just messing with yourself too much. Not only are you getting outside the will of God, going to have a less victorious life, but you're increasing the likelihood of some spirit messing with you that you don't want. So keep your heart clean, keep your heart repenting, be aggressive in your spirituality, not passive. And we'll see you next time on The Aggressive Life. Thanks for joining us on this journey toward aggressive living. Find more resources, articles, past episodes, and live events over at bryantome.com. My new books, a repackaged edition of The Five Marks of a Man and a brand new Five Marks of a Man Tactical Guide are open right now on Amazon. If you haven't yet, leave this podcast a rating and review. It really helps get the show in front of new listeners. And if you want to connect, find me on Instagram, at Brian Tome. The Aggressive Life is a production of Crossroads Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.