I've done a few biblical studies on spiritual warfare, 95% of those studies revolved around Eph 6 10-19.
Have I been attacked by a demon??? I say yes and no... I was spiritually attacked by a human, but I believe her "powers" were demonic. A wiccan girl tried casting a spell on me. I almost puked in a lunch line after starving and laughing and having an excellent time with my freinds.
I never through up either, and the only time I have thrown up for the past two years was due to stress... which ironicly enough was stress caused by spiritual reasons.
6 months ago, I found out that my g/f, at the time, had sex with two guys in my class. It ripped me apart caus eof the simple fac thtat these two guys I despised, and I realy cared for my g/f. Needless to say one of my friends told me, and it has still been the worst night of my life, and the most spiritual warfare I have ever faced.
I don't beleive demonic influences are what people think.
Everyone usually thinks of polterguist or the exorcist movies. Look at Job, he had TRUE spiritual warfare, and by satan himself at that.
Michael the Arch Angel had spiritual warfare with satan as well, twice mentioned in some detail in Jude 9 and another time (yet to come) in Revelation 12:7-9.
Michael also protect daniel and his country, as it mentions Michael being "the great prince" in daniel 12:1
Finally, Jesus Himself was tempted by satan 3 times, and was victorious over satan.
Now these are the only mentions about satan directly, except for eve, but she lost, big time.
If we are being attacked, it's more than like not satan, but just a demon or two. The way you defeat spiritual warfare is by putting yourself aside and relying on God and his word. Jesus Fought off satan just by simply quoting scripture. Michael put God first and Rebuked satan, Job had faith in God and lived through his trials.
Stigmata... yeah I am not going there...
a demonic influence will more than likely tempt you into doing something VERY evil, unless you think you compareable to Job or Jesus...
Not doing something like burn your skin off or making cuts into your flesh.
I constantly hear people "Satan is really on my case today" or "I feel like job." Yes, I realize they are exagerations, but they are very huge exagerations.
Satan and his demons cannot hurt you, unless they have permission from God to test your faith and strength in Him. However, they can make you inactive from doing Gods work.
Now heres the Punch line... Satan and his demons and God and h is angels are constantly fighting in the heavenlys and we are stuck in the middle.... BUT WHY ARE THEY FIGHTING? They are fighting for souls, to do Gods work which is to go out and make disciples, us, christians, and that is our job too. Satan will do everything in his power to stop you from doing that, cause he wants to take down as many people to hell as he can. He can attack us and make us inopperable to attempt and save souls, but he cannot take away our salvation and neither can we for that matter. Satan is strong than us guys, if he cannot take away our salvation, then we sure as hell (literally) cannot lose our salvation either.
Heres an interesting thought. I personally beleive you cannot lose your salvation. I also beleive that satan has a demon that does nothing but try and convince you other wise, cause if you think you are not saved, then shoot, you sure aren't going to go and try to save others. Satan has just won.
Being a christian is not about "us" it's about God, and about others, and by thinking you can fall away from salvation, then you just hav ecompletly focused the situation on YOURSELF b/c one, you are saying God is not strong enough to save you and that you are jsut screwed. Secondly, you are backing out on the work God has called you to do which is to save souls... I mean come on people!!! PEOPLE NEED CHRIST.
No matter what you believe, if you were at one point saved, you are still saved.
yeah sorry that was so long.