Throughout the New Testament, we see moments when demons spoke to Jesus and others through the people they possessed.

One of the earliest encounters took place as Jesus spoke at at synagogue in Capernaum. A man in the service shouted out, “Leave us alone! What business do You have with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” (Luke 4:34 NASV).

Jesus rebuked the demon and cast it out.

The Apostle Paul had a similar encounter in Philippi when a slave girl possessed by a spirit of divination (literally python) followed Paul and his group proclaiming, “These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you a way of salvation” (Acts 16:16).

After doing this for several days, Paul finally got so annoyed he rebuked the demon delivering the girl.

These type of spiritual conflicts were taking place regularly in the early church, and if Chris DeFlorio is right, it is still happening today.

As a police officer in New York City, DeFlorio had a similar run-in which led him to start his ministry, New York Demonic Investigation, Faithwire reports.

DeFlorio, who was on a night shift, had just been a Christian for a short time when he was called out to a suicidal woman who was threatening to jump off a building.

When he arrived and saw a disheveled woman pacing back and forth on the roof, DeFlorio calmly said, “Ma’am, God loves you, and this isn’t what He would want for you.’”

The woman’s reply sent chills down DeFlorio’s back, as she spoke in what he described as an ‘unworldly’ voice saying, “God doesn’t even know who you are.”

It’s was an unusual response to DeFlorio’s encouragement, but suggested that dark forces were at work.

While he and another police officer eventually prayed for the woman, DeFlorio said that the dark look in her eyes was something he had seen before while working for the NYPD.

“There’s a blackness and an evil that, again, you really can’t describe unless you see it and I saw it in that woman’s eyes,” DeFlorio said.

As a Christian, he began to understand that the satanic realm was behind much of the evil he was witnessing.

“You’re seeing these really dark events happen, and, being a Christian, you start to see things from two worldviews, not just the physical worldview, but the spiritual,” Florio added.

Using his skills learned as police officer, Chris and his wife started a ministry that examines situations to detect if demonic influences are at work.

This ability is so important, that the Holy Spirit provides a spiritual gift, discerning of Spirits (1 Corinthians 12:10), which enables Christians to identify any demonic forces at work in a particular situation.

We see an example of this in the Old Testament, when Zechariah received a vision of what was taking place in the spiritual realm.

Looking at the scene with his physical eyes, Zechariah would have only seen Joshua wearing his high priest clothes working in the temple.

However, the vision revealed that something else was taking place in the spiritual realm as Zechariah saw Satan standing at Joshua’s right side “to accuse him” (Zechariah 3:1).

While it would have appeared as simply as another day at the temple, Joshua was being condemned and beaten down by satanic words pouring at him from the spiritual realm.

Such revelations provide the information needed to properly deal with the situation.

In Phillipi, Paul and his group were being pestered by a woman crying out “These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you a way of salvation” (Acts 16:17).

What she was saying was true, but it was coming from a demonic source. After, a few days, Paul tired of this and having recognized she was being influenced by a spirit of Python and cast it out of her.

I don’t believe this gift, discerning of spirits, was limited to detecting demonic activity.

During its early days, the church was being infected with false teachers (Acts 20:30), false prophets (Revelation 2:20) and even false apostles (2 Corinthians 11:13), so there was a need to discern the legitimacy of these critical ministries.