Demons Part I: A Biblical Framework

     I am not an expert in Demonology or any Theological field for that matter. I have a 40 hour "minor" in Bible from a small college and a 24 year life of trying to figure things out. Neither of these things make me an authority on anything. However, I do fancy myself a thinker, mainly because other people have referred to me as such, and have endeavored to apply said thinking to the events and characters which comprise Demonology. Unfortunately, in my opinion, I must say that striking out on your own to discover the secrets of the Demonic world is not a good idea. This is fairly obvious. If you have any inkling in a belief in God you are immediately aware something similar to Him is in opposition to His will and actions. By similar I am referring to spiritual beings. Beings which do not posses corporeal states continuously (it is documented they can assume them at times) and do not age or die in the natural meanings of the words. If we believe God is good, and I hope you do, we can assume something opposed to God is bad. We can follow this assumption with the revealed Biblical evidence of Satan and his cohorts, demons, which are always portrayed negatively and in opposition to both God's overarching designs and to Jesus and other Christians in person.

Some Biblical cases of Demonic (and Satanic) activity include:

• King Saul - the evil spirit that God sent to torment him 1 Sam 16:14
• King Saul - the witch at Endor (always reminded me of Star Wars...not the witch the place) 1 Sam 28:7-8
• Elijah - the maniacal actions of the false priests of Baal at Mt Carmel 1 Kings 18:27-29
• Christ - the temptations in the wilderness Matt 4:1-11; Mark 1:12; Luke 4:1-13
• Christ - the Gadarene demoniac(s) Matt 8:23-32; Mark 5:1-13; Luke 8:26-33
• Judas Iscariot - possessed before the betrayal of Christ Luke 22:3; John 13:2,27
• Paul - Elymas the sorcerer Acts 13:8-11
• Paul - the healing of the Demon possessed girl Acts 16:16
• Judgment - fallen angels awaiting the end in chains II Peter 2:4
• End Times - Revelation (all over the book)

     This is by no means an exhaustive list, however these are highlights and as noted before the demons are always on the wrong side of things. But I doubt you need me to convince you demons are bad, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.

      We can draw a few other conclusions from these events. First of all, God is in complete control of the demonic world. He allows (it says sends in the KJV) a demon to torment Saul. He has an nondescript number of them chained in darkness awaiting the end. He releases them to wreak havoc on the earth in the Tribulation. At no point are we to think God is in a fight (or any other type of contest) with Satan and his forces. God is orchestrating His perfect designs while Satan and his forces try (and fail) to muck things up. Second, humans are definitely subject to a demon's influence and this is never a good thing. The Gadarene men, the prophets of Baal, Judas all suffer much at the hands of their possessors. However, thirdly, we learn that demons cannot be blamed for our wrongdoings. Judas is still guilty of betrayal whether Satan possessed him or not. Saul rejected God before Samuel says God rejected Saul. The Gadarenes had to have their sins forgiven not the demons. As it says in Matthew, if a man cleans his house (his soul) and kicks out a demon, he needs to fill it with something (Christ) or the original and seven more will move in and he'll be worse off then when he started (Matt 12:43-45).

     I read a lot, see my Goodreads account, and some of what I've read addresses demons, both fictionally and non-fictionally. Some titles that I'd consider references on this topic are: The Screwtape Letters (fiction) by CS Lewis. This Present Darkness (fiction), Piercing the Darkness (fiction), The Oath (fiction), The Wounded Spirit (non), The Visitation (fiction) all by Frank Peretti. Spirit of the Rainforest (non) by Mark Ritchie. Peace Child (non) and Lords of the Earth (non) by Don Richardson. The Witches Bible (non) by JS Farrar. I also have several books on my shelf I haven't read (I haven't read all of the above in their entirety, still working on Lords and merely flipped thru Witches but I own both). I plan on at least looking through them. Why? Two reasons and then part one is finished.

          1. God spends time on them so I think we should too. Not an inordinate amount of time, not in a fascination, but in order to understand them. God seems to think we should know about them, so I think we should know about them.

          2. While God is not in a war against Satan and the demons, we are. The first rule of combat is to know your enemy. When I've finished this set, thinking 3 parts right now, I'll hopefully have connected demons to everything from pop culture to ancient world religions. They are relevant, prevalent and malicious.

Next Time: Demons and Spirituality.

Braves dropped the last two at Arizona. Huddy looks more and more like a candidate for retirement when he has outings like yesterday. On a bright note, back home for 6 against the Dodgers and Twins so here's to catching fire for a double sweep! #GoBraves