I got curious the other day, wondering if I could find any accounts of someone being possessed in the old testament, but came up emty. I have to assume it was happening, does anyone know of any reference to it before Mathew? There's accounts of sorcery multiple times and other demonic things. Are there accounts of possesion I don't know about?
Here's an interview with Pastor David Berzins about the topic of >
Angels<
A sizeable portion of the time is spent on the fallen ones. I found it worth listening to 2 or 3 times.
As to your topic, there are at least three good reasons why I believe that demon possession occured in the OT.
1. There's continuity of the time of the old and New testament. What occured in the OT would be true of the NT and vice versa, unless there is a specific statement to the contrary in the NT.
2. The satanic spiritual gifts were strongly forbidden by God. He forbade any practice which people employed for trying to predict the future, receive supernatural power, or revelation outside of Himself and His word.
Examples would be practices like soothsaying, astrology, witchcraft, and like.
Although there would naturally be charliton's who are con artists, the practices involved fallen spirits.
3. There are no doctrines that teach that demon possession would not occur. The reason that there were so many cast out of people by Jesus, I suspect is because there was such intense concentration of demonic activity in the region that He was in. Satan would naturally summon his evil forces against God's Son. We see much possession in the gospel of Mark.
4. I was just reminded of the voice that came from an ex girlfriend who was possessed.
It was described in Isaiah 8:19, which is an Old Testament proof text for demon possession. The Lord reminded me of the following....
"
And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? "
It's too late to go into details explaining this verse. What it is basically saying is that which I already described in #2.
I believe that wizards peep and mutter as is often the voices that are heard from the vocal cords of those possessed. That best describes the strange voice that came from Mary as it manifested.
Good night
) ends by saying:
