Demons

So you want a snack do you? An angel "you" with halo appears on one shoulder all of us dressed in sparkling white and a bad "you" appears on the other shoulder. You have to make a decision. Shall you eat the treat or shall you show will-power and move on? The typical person will respond with eating the treat and worry about the consequences of the decision at a later. time.

This scenario is partially true, but mostly false.  We each are assisted in our daily living by angels!

Hebrews 1:14 (ESV) "Are they not all ministering spirits (angels) sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?"

Angels are sent out by God to protect us from ourselves! One of their jobs is to keep us safe until we're saved. They help us to discern right from wrong. Hence, many have an "angel on their shoulder" so to speak, but they may appear in human form:

 Hebrews 13:12 (ESV) "Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

Hence, angels are real. They are messengers of God, but do demons exist?

Fallen angels are demons. Yes, they too exist:

 2 Peter 2:4 (ESV) "For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment..."

Somehow those dark angels who rebelled are allowed to travel between their darkness and us with relative freedom. They are there to frustrate the sacrifice made by Jesus by foiling the life of humans through deceit:

 Ephesians 6:12 (ESV) "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."

"Heavenly places" in this context is not Paradise, but the cosmos.  Dark angels, or demons as they are called" are there to do opposing things than that of God's angels. If God's angels "lead" you to not sin, the devil's angels will lead you to sin. Your sinning undermines Jesus. That's their job description: Senior Liar and Deceiver for Satan, Incorporated.

So far the caricature first described is partially true! Good and bad angels do exist, but they're not on your shoulder and the bad angels are not friendly advisers. They are liars whereas the "good" angel is there to tell you of truth; God's truth. Demons oppress men:

Matthew 8:16 "That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick."

Men become slaves to demons and hence to their ruler, the "Prince of the Air", Satan who is the present ruler of the earth. If you don't like your government leader, unless he's a born-again-Christian, he's a follower of Satan. Those leaders are "Antichrists".  They do the bidding of fallen angels who carry the message of darkness.

In the original caricature the person has to decide whose advice is taken. For most people, the choice is clear. They choose "pleasure" because that's the wide gate. Satan is in charge of pleasure and he runs a luxurious palace. However, that pleasure is fleeting, providing fun, but not joy! Yes, pleasure is fun. Any sinner should admit that they do things to pleasure the "Self". That's the whole intent. If you're having fun in pleasure, chances are most people are neglecting Jesus. Satan gets satisfaction not only of your sins of commission, but those of omission as well. Satan wins even if you believe in Jesus, but fail to serve him. By doing that the sinner is obeying Satan.

Most people choose pleasure over righteousness without thought. However, some need to be deceived because they intend to do "good". Often Christians are the ones who need this method:

2 Corinthians 11:14 (ESV) "And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light."

The caricature now takes on a different look! Instead of a bad angel and a good angel, the person has two angels who look the same. Both appear to be good, but one is wearing a disguise. They both offer advice, but one uses truth and the other uses trickery. The deceiving angel will talk a good story. He will tell you all the things you want to hear to allow you to make the choice of wrong. He uses "reason" to persuade; hence their is a close relationship between "reason" and "pleasure", both fruits of the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". Just as the serpent beguiled Eve with smooth words and lies to foil her faculties, demons use the same technique on us because we too are children of the "bad tree". Although  many of us have eaten of the "Tree of Life", Jesus, we still get deceived by Satan's demons all the time. Just ask Job how that works. However, Job was truly righteous. We must be too!

One time several years ago I selected the topic of Satan as the subject of my Sunday School Lesson. I was to teach young adults about him and his lies. The night before, while lying in bed, a voice came to my mind. It wasn't audible, but a profound thought with pronounced clarity. The inner voice said "Larry, if you teach about me you'd better be without spot or wrinkle!" I never use the third person when I speak to myself! This was not my thought. It was a thought from a dark place, but I "heard" it and was frightened to high anxiety. I was indeed afraid because a demon had spoke directly to me! It was no longer a belief, but a reality.

I couldn't rid myself of the evil presence so I turned to God. I sang hymns and prayed until my anxiety subsided. However, it made such a profound influence on me, that at 4:00 a.m. I got out of bed, singing my hymns, and wrote it all down. I never wanted to forget the realness of my encounter with a demon. After all these years I still have that treatise. I never want to forget it!

I did teach about Satan who followed through with his threat. I was tempted on every front and failed God in many areas. It was temptations and sins which I never dreamed of and some were sins of pleasure. I fell prey to the bait and disappointed Christ. However, I never forgot my salvation, and remained confident in my faith and eventually through prayer and scripture reading, the demon moved on! I thank God for his not giving me more than I can handle!

I had a friend of a friend who said that he was possessed. A fellow Christian and I went to pray with him and he indeed was possessed. He believed in Jesus, even prayed with us, but the demon didn't leave. My friend and I gave up! We left because we didn't know this:

Mark 9:19, 23, 26, 28, and 29: "He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me....Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth....And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him...And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out? And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting." 

There are different types of demons, some more powerful than others. We must fight demons that even the apostles couldn't defeat. It took both prayer and fasting! It's not just a ritual of asking God, but because we are of so little faith, to increase our faith we must deprive our self of pleasure.  Fasting means that we not only do without food as we pray, but pleasure of any kind! Pleasure is the fruit of the "bad tree' and some demons are so powerful that we must not partake of any fruit of that tree!

People are possessed sometimes by multiple demons. When the demons in possession of the man uttered words from the demons within, they said:

Mark 5:9 And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”

If we examine behavior and thoughts of those with schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder, I can't keep from thinking that a demon is at work in the former and legions in the latter. A girl (let's call her Mary) went to my church. She exhibited multiple personalities and was diagnosed as such. I remarked to the pastor, "She doesn't have multiple personalities. She's possessed by demons!" The preacher laughed! However, months later I found out that the preacher and women in the congregation were reading books by Christian counselors about demon-possession. When I asked "What for?", I found out that it was for Mary!

I found out that Mary, according to her own testimony,  had grown up in a Satanist household and had been the virgin sacrifice. This happened in Warren County, Kentucky. The "Ghostbuster" sergeant of the local police department told me that there were four covens in Warren County. He said that if he wasn't a Christian, he would be powerless with them!

The preacher and the women had prayer and prayed out a demon. I said "good", but you're not through.She has Legions! The last I saw of Mary she still was plagued with demons. Her father and relatives found her later in Bowling Green, shaved her head and broke her knee backwards. This is typical cult activity! Mary had legions and all of us should still pray and fast for her for they are powerful and are many!

Never minimize demons. They like that!  If they deceive you into believing that they don't exist you're vulnerable. I have several more testimonies about demons, but you get the point. There is a supernatural world out there and those cute little angles on our shoulders are only a fiction of what's real. We all make decisions each day. We take their advise. Some of us listen and are discerning. Others fall for the lie! Don't fall for the lie, empower yourself with God's Word. That's your armor and with the help of the Holy Spirit you can finish the race!