Demons
The word demon comes from the Greek word 'daemon' which means devil, and we all know that this connotation means nothing but evil. So we can thus assume, that demons are evil beings. Their home will be the lake of fire (Rev. 20). At their head is Satan, the fallen cherub, who is a real person, and not just an imaginary evil or the evil inside of you, as I have heard many churches preach! It is no surprise that the churches who teach these lies are in fact very defeated because they lack the insight into the reality of Satan and his kingdom. I myself heard a preacher in a fully packed church preach that the devil is only the dark thoughts inside of you,the state of your your heart. He went on to tell us that the devil and his minions are not real. I ran out of the church never to return!! What is very interesting indeed, is that the ancient civilization who lived in ancient times, civilizations that knew nothing of the God of Israel, did in fact hold the existence of demons as a reality.They feared them and their power to do evil greatly. Due to their religion of paganism, the ancient people they had many gods, and these gods sometimes needed appeasing, otherwise the demons would catch up with them, or so they believed. These people knew the existence of these evil beings and the harm they could perform. They had a certain respect of them, not like our Western civilization who laughs about it and just takes demons just as a joke. An interesting fact that is noteworthy mentioning here, is that even though these ancient civilizations named their demons according to their times and customs, their descriptions and their doings have remained unchanged up to this day. With other words, we can conclude that the demons of these pagan religions are as bad today as they were in those days. And that is true friends. Demons have remained just as evil as they have ever been. Many stories, ancient and contemporary, corroborate this. Interestingly enough, while studying these ancient religions, I found that many of these ancient believes are still alive today in the form of what we call superstitions. A good example is the story that ghosts are the roaming spirits of the dead, who seek a place to live because they cannot enter heaven, because they did not find their way to heaven. This superstition is widely acknowledged in South America, Africa and in some Muslim countries. Many people fear death because of these superstitions, fearing they might not find their way to heaven and end up roaming the world in eternity instead. Many of these ancient rituals are still performed today in the exact same manner as they were conducted in those days. This sometimes makes me wonder, why we who claim to be living in our so called modern world, do in fact often laugh the spiritual world off as being a delusion, but when it comes down to perform rituals and the belief in ghosts that roam the world, no trace can be found of our so called modern objectivity. For we do keep those ghost stories alive through the centuries claiming these true. Doesn't it strikes you as odd, that whenever you speak to our society about ghosts, for example, they do believe in them, but whenever you speak of Satan and his kingdom they just laugh at you and characterize you as crazy? I have been characterized as such many times in my life, up to the point where people do not want to get even close to me,because they think I suffer from some sort of strange religiosity. How sad the state of their blindness is! Demons, are very real and they do us harm. You do not have to see them, to know they do in fact exist. Jesus talked about them, He often expelled them! So if Jesus did acknowledge them, why in the world are churches denying them? The Bible explicitly tells us that Jesus took the existence of demons(devils, according to the KJV) very serious! Take a look: "When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick"(Matt 8:16)
Comments and statements in the Bible about the demonic, are nowadays being laughed off by some arrogant pastors who think too highly of themselves, claiming that Christians who believe in demons are delusional! (Sorry friends for my harsh words, but it is true and needed to be said). These pastors claim that because this is the twenty first century we ought to think objectively, thus regarding demons and Satan as superstitions of the ancient world. They teach that we need to interpret the Bible according to our modern times.This means not believing in the existence of ultimate evil in the form of Satan, nor in his evil spirits. They go to great lengths to convince their audience with their so called logic explanations, about the existence of these evil beings, claiming these are nothing else but ancient superstitions and can thus not be taken seriously today. This opens the door open wide for demonic bondage in their church. Belief me, many churches have been destroyed by these teachings. Satan has taken their invitation very seriously, invading with force these churches, not only steeling the faith in the Word out of them, but also grabbing every precious soul he can get his claws on, taking them with him down the path of doom and destruction, leaving no hope of salvation. It all fits into his evil plan. These pastors have completely ignored the Bible's stern warning about the devil and have delivered their precious flock into the hands of evil: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour"( 1 Pet. 5:8)
The devil and his minions are surely having a good time, afflicting so many people due to their own unbelief. Another easy target nowadays for them is the youth. Why the youth? These are usually in a rebelling phase and therefore easy to influence and devour. When you are young, you are in fact not only discovering your own identity but your place in society as well. It is a difficult time for both parents and youth, and rebellion in the home and in their lives lies dormant. All kinds of things are to be explored, such as alcohol, rock music and the like. Conclusion, it is a phase where things can easily turn out of control if not monitored carefully by parents. Alcohol for example is steadily becoming a major problem amongst our youth. Too many young people are experimenting with it, to the point where it becomes life threatening. I just recently heard of two horror stories. One in Germany; there seems to be a rage amongst young people between 13 and 16 years of age, to drink strong alcohol to the level of drinking oneself knock-out. One boy already died from it! The other horror story I recently heard is as bad as the first one. Apparently young girls today are impregnating their tampax with alcohol in order to remain drunk all day. What a sad state of affairs. Alcohol as we all know, may be a booster for insecure people, it soothes shyness away, and gives them boldness instead. And as we all know many youngsters suffer from insecurity. Demons love this kind of behavior, for there are many demons to like to be drunk. Yes, they need alcohol to make them feel good. When a doorway has been opened by a youngster to these kinds of demons, the result is often that alcohol will take over the life of the youngster due to the demon requesting alcohol all the time. This is the pattern we are seeing more and more every day. Satan knows his time is running out and therefore he seeks every opportunity to prey on victims to destroy them. And he is succeeding. Even in the area politics he is succeeding. In Europe for example, the European Union have shunned God completely out from their constitution, claiming that politics and religion have nothing in common! When the European leaders signed this new set of rules and regulations at the beginning of this year, the event took place in Rome. The room where the signatures were going to be placed, had a stature of the apostle Paul. Needless to say, the leaders of the European country insisted this statue to be removed from the room claiming that God had nothing to do with politics. Not one politician protested against this! That is the sorry state of affairs of this world today. We shun God out of almost all areas of our lives, thinking and deluding ourselves that we can do better. There really is no hard for God in our society today. We have completely forgotten that God must rule every area of our lives, politics included, in order for us to stay within His shadow (Ps 91), protection and His blessing. Only God can make live good for us. Sad to say, that His counsel has been forgotten, and our state of affairs in the world becoming more worse than ever. The devil is succeeding to lead people astray. The rise in occultism is enormous. Churches are running empty and believers are running straight into the arms of Wicca, hunger for power in their lives. Many people do not realize the enormous consequences these involvements have on Christians (of course the consequences for unbelievers are huge also, but we as Christians ought to know better, and will be judged more severely). People who dabble in Wicca and all kinds of occultism do not realize that their behavior gradually changes into abnormal, schizophrenic behavior. This is also demonic. Yes witchcraft has power attached to it, but never the power of Jesus and His blood. This power is the ultimate power and we should grab hold of this power. This power is the only power that God allows, it sets us free from all kinds of bondage.
By all means I am not a person who sees demons behind every bush, but I can see the difference between the demonic or when something is not. I think it should be the duty of all Christians to do so. 1 Pe 5:8 does not give us the warning just for fun. We ought to take heed of the warnings of the Bible, they are given to us for our own protection! We must be on our guard at all times, pray as the Bible says. This of course does not mean that we cannot be deceived, for the Bible tells us in the book of Revelation that in the end times even the very elect will be deceived. Nevertheless we should do everything possible not to let ourselves become easily deceived. If we know the Bible it is not easy for us to become deceived. Read your Bible, get acquainted with the Word of God. God has given us many tools to overcome the devil (Eph. 6) and we should these and arm ourselves against the devil and his evil spirits. Another tool of which I deem very important is that of discernment of the spirits. This tool can be very helpful when confronted with evil spirits. Even though not everybody has this gift developed in the same degree, I think that we all need to learn to discern when something is evil and when something is not. Many times this gift makes us aware of an evil presence, as I am sure many of you have had experience with this. I am blessed that I have a strong discernment and needless to say it has always helped me during spiritual warfare. And believe me, I have had many battles with evil forces over the years. I am so grateful to God that He has blessed me with this gift. Let me give you an example of my personal life regarding this gift. While on a holiday in Andalusia, Spain, an area that worships the Black Madonna (almost all houses have statues incarved into the walls of this madonna), I had an encounter with this spirit. It appeared at 3 AM (many think, and I do agree this to be the demonic hour). I was alarmed by the Holy Spirit through discernment that something evil was in the room. I was sleeping of course, and when I opened my eyes there it stood. Shocked at first, having this thing looking down at me, and sensing the ice cold air in the room, my fear turned into anger. I rebuked the thing in the name of Jesus and off it was. Unfortunately this was not to be my only encounter. A couple of days later, again in the middle of the night, I woke up through the urging of the Holy Spirit who was telling me that I was now in real danger. I never felt so much danger in my life! The Holy Spirit made me aware that the devil himself was roaming the hotel corridor. This alarmed me greatly and immediately I started to rebuke the devil and praying Psalm 91 which I know by heart.You see, it is always good to know your Scriptures. I battled for one long hour, my husband sleeping peacefully while I was really fighting this heavy battle. But Jesus said that the victory is His and it was!
The god of this world is Satan. How does he usually operate? Through our minds. Our minds induce us to sin, to sinful handlings, to all kinds of evil. That is why we need to renew our minds with the Word of God. "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus"(Phil. 4:7) Only in this way we will be able to withstand the viles of the evil one!!
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