Demons

At the last meeting we had, the quarterly planning meeting, I asked for ideas for sermons. One of the things that were brought up was that people had a number of questions about demons. It's not a subject we talk about much. It's not a subject that is brought up much even in sermons.

We go through maybe some Scripture sometimes where Jesus casts out a demon, but we don't talk about it much. Some of the questions were about what is demon possession and why is the Bible filled, especially in the New Testament, with so many instances where demons were cast out by Jesus and the apostles? Can demons hang around a place? There's always this kind of concern. How do they influence us? Of course, demonic possession is a major theme in movies.

All you have to do is keep up with new movies coming out. It's amazing how many new movies. Every three months there's some movie about demons. There was one recently about God had got so upset with the world.

I said recently, this was in the last couple of years, he was so upset with the world he unleashed the demons and said, Go destroy everybody. But there were these couple human beings that somehow could hold it back. I read the review on that and I thought, that didn't even make sense. God says, Okay, demons go destroy the world. But there's this fascination with demons, especially among young people, and sometimes that can get very unhealthy.

The fascination with demons among young people can get very unhealthy. Sometimes, to tell you the truth, we don't talk about demons much in a sermon or a sermonette because there's children in the audience and they can get very afraid. That's not what we want to do. In fact, what I want to do today is help you understand what the Bible says, who demons are, what they are, how they influence human beings, and why you and I do not have to be afraid.

We do not have to be afraid. So, this is a very simple sermon. Every once in a while, we'll go back to a very basic subject. We're going to talk about where demons came from. We're going to talk about what they are and how they influence us. We even go through a couple places in the New Testament where demons were cast out of people. What is demon possession? I think that's the thing that people fear the most. What is demon possession? We'll talk about that. There are a lot of things to talk about first. Let's start with where demons came from. Let's go to Ezekiel 28.

This is where we have to go to, to begin this subject. Ezekiel 28 is a very interesting chapter because the first ten verses of Ezekiel 28 is talking about the Prince of Tyre, which is a person who rules over the ancient kingdom of Tyre. But then the subject changes. It's a very subtle change. But as you go through, starting in verse 11, you see something's changed here because it's not talking about the Prince of Tyre anymore. Verse 11, Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, to Ezekiel, saying, Sederbai, take up a lamentation for the King of Tyre and say to him, Thus says the Lord God, not the Prince of Tyre, but the one who really has power and authority over this kingdom.

You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect of beauty. You were an Eden, the Garden of God. Now, obviously, this isn't the Prince of Tyre anymore. This isn't a physical human being. This is a being that was an Eden. Now, there are attempts by some biblical scholars to claim this is talking about Adam, that if we read through this, it is not talking about Adam. And it's obvious by some of the very terms that he uses.

He talks how he was an Eden and he was beautiful. This King was an Eden and he was beautiful. He talks about trying to describe him. And the descriptions are like the most beautiful stones, sapphires and topaz and diamonds and gold and emeralds. That's what he looked like. He shined like all these different beautiful stones and light-hitting them. He says at the end of verse 13, The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created.

So he's a created being. But it's interesting, his timbrels and his pipes, these are musical instruments. This being was not only incredibly beautiful, this being was created with awesome musical talents. You were the anointed carom and that's why we know this is not Adam. Because caroms are mentioned in the Scripture. They are angels that are at the very throne of God. In fact, when they created the mercy seat for inside the temple and the Ark of the Covenant, there were two caroms on both sides.

This is where the caroms, this special classification of angels that are different than the other angels. They seem to be more powerful. They seem to have many more talents. But this one was the carob who covers. That's interesting because out of the three caroms that are mentioned by name in the Bible, we know two of them are at the mercy seat. There isn't one covering the mercy seat. At one point there was an angel that literally hovered over the throne of God of incredible talent and beauty and music, an incredible personality. He says, you were in the holy mountain of God. You walked back and forth in the midst of the fiery stones.

He was at the very throne of God. And you were perfect in your ways for the day you were created till iniquity was found in you. This angel went bad. Human beings can be called by God. Human beings can even receive God's Spirit and go bad. That's possible. This one of the three greatest beings ever created by God. And he went bad. Sin became part of the way he thought. Rebellion against God became part of his character. Verse 16 says, by the abundance of your trading, you became filled with violence within and you sinned.

He was good at trading, merchandising, making the deal.

He was like making deals with the angels. And he became violent. He actually tried to overthrow God. Hatred, anger, violence, rebellion became the core of who he is. Therefore, God says, I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God and I destroyed you, O covering carom, from the midst of the fiery stones. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. And I cast you to the ground. I laid you before kings, that they might gaze upon you. Now it goes on now, it goes back to, it begins to talk about the Prince of Tyre. And it goes on and talks about how God was going to bring judgment upon them.

This is, as we know from a passage in Isaiah, it's Lucifer, the great covering carom, who rebelled against God. He was cast down to the earth. Now, if you go to Revelation 12, and we won't go there, but if you go to Revelation 12, verses 3 and 4, it talks about how the dragon was thrown down from heaven. We know from Isaiah that he literally tried to seize control of the throne of God, and he was cast down. It says in Revelation that when he was cast down, the dragon drew a third of the stars, stars in the Scripture you will see is a symbol sometimes of the angels.

A third of the angels followed this brilliant, beautiful being of great talents, a great leadership personality, and he convinced them that God was wrong.

That God had done something to them, and they had been victimized by God, and they needed to get control of God's government, of God's throne. They needed to get control of that and make things right, and they were driven. We have to make things right, so we have to knock God off his throne. Now think about that insanity. What happens to a being that is absolutely happy?

God didn't make angels depressed, unhappy beings. As long as they obeyed God, they were happy, they were functional, they had good relationships with each other, they had a relationship with God. I mean, every angel would have a relationship with God. What happens to a being that is happy and functional and healthy, that decides, I am unhappy and I am angry and I'm a victim? And they became filled with hate and, as we see here, violence.

Now, we now have a whole classification of angels that have left what they were, and they have left the character that they had, and they have become something else. And this is what we mean when we use the word demon. These are angels that have fallen, these angels that have rebelled against God, and they are angels who have been fundamentally transformed in who they are. Fundamentally transformed. When you look at everything God is, they are the opposite. If God is love, they are hate. If God is law, they are lawless. If God is generous, they are envious and colorless. Everything that God is, they are the opposite, because they have now been convinced that that is the right way.

They are convinced that the solution to every problem is competition, not cooperation.

They are convinced that every solution to every problem is in peace but war.

That's who they are. That's how they think, and that's their emotional processes. Now, these beings aren't like you and I, because they have a whole lot more power than you and I do in a certain way. So we say, oh, well, we should fear them. They can control us. They can come into our lives. Well, let's look at five ways that demons interact with human beings, because they can. But if we understand these five ways, then you and I will understand we have nothing to fear. We have nothing to fear. They are irrational, and yet they are brilliant.

Now, they have different personalities.

They are created beings. They have different personalities. They are intelligent.

Intelligence is not a measure of righteousness.

Right? It never has been. Intelligence and righteousness have never been equal.

They are intelligent, and they have personalities.

So they are real.

Should we think about them? Should we worry about them? How should we react to them? Let's look at how they interact with human beings, and it will help you understand. The first way that they interact with human beings is through mediums. People who claim to be able to talk to the spirits or talk to the dead. So the first thing you have to realize about people who come in contact with demons is, many times, what are they searching for? They are searching to come in contact with them. So guess where they end up? So first of all, if you're not searching for them, then you're not going to find them. So this is the first way that they contact people, through mediums, through people who claim to talk to the dead. There was a program on television a couple years ago where a man made a living for years by filling up an auditorium and claiming that he could contact their dead loved ones. People flocked to him. I don't know, he disappeared one time. I suppose the show got boring or people just realized he was a fraud. But there are people who do contact the dead or spirits or claim to do so. Let's look at Deuteronomy 18, because here we have in the law of God our starting point in how we should approach this. Deuteronomy 18 verse 10, There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire.

This is a horrible thing. This was people who sacrificed their children to pagan gods.

And he says, this is forbidden among the people of God. Sometimes I wonder if abortion hasn't become our way of sacrificing our babies to our own selfishness.

He says, or one who practices witchcraft or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells or a medium or spiritualist, or one who calls up the dead. Now that's a pretty complete list there. Anyone who claims to deal with the supernatural in ways that are not prescribed in the way that we worship God are to be absolutely avoided.

Now people ask me, does that mean magicians? Magicians are people who do tricks. Go buy a book of magic, quote, unquote. I mean, you can get into black magic. I'm not talking about that kind of thing. I mean the tricks. And they're tricks. I've had magicians show how they do tricks and you think, wow, how could we not all see that? Because many times it's so obvious when you actually see what they're doing, it's like, how did we not all see that? So we're not talking about that kind of magic. That's tricks. We all get a kick out of the guy that can make the coin come out of the little kid's ear until we see the coins, you know, in his hand, right? He takes it out of his pocket and then pretends to take it out of his ear, right? And the kid says, wow, how do you do that?

But magic, the claim that you could call on supernatural powers to perform deeds is to be avoided. You know what I find interesting? I've watched over the years as movies and television has incorporated into our culture good witches and bad witches, right?

Movies, television shows, there's always the bad witch, but it's like it's okay because there's a good witch. There is no such thing as good witch. You can dress them in white. They have, you know, there's no such thing as a good witch. Witchcraft comes from demonic influences. It is nothing to do with the worship of God. So this is where we start, but there are people who seek these things. They seek to speak the spirits. They seek to speak to the dead. There is a type of Oriental massage therapy, and I can't remember the name of it, but Reiki, I think, is the name of it. Then its first stage is a massage. By the time you get to the fourth stage, you're talking to spirits. It is very dangerous. I've known people that have been involved in it, and they say, when you have the fourth stage, you're talking to things that aren't there, and they're talking to you. So there are ways that people can get into this and not even know it, because the idea in Oriental philosophy is you have to connect with the spirits of your ancestors. So if you believe in the spirits of your ancestors and you believe you can connect to them, sooner or later somebody shows up and claims to be an ancestor. But it's not.

Now we have an interesting situation in the Bible where something like this happened. Let's go to 1 Samuel 28. So be very careful about what you allow, even in terms of entertainment, especially with children, because they will begin to believe that there's good sorcerers and bad sorcerers. There are no good sorcerers that exist. Sorcery is evil, because you'll never see in a movie where the sorcerer says, yes, I'm a sorcerer, my power comes from Almighty God. Of course, the movie said that to be a liar, because there are no sorcerers that get power from Almighty God.

But once again, what do movies do? The bad sorcerers are in black, the good sorcerers are white, and then you know the difference. No, it's not true. It's a subtle process by which people begin to accept that certain demonic activity is somehow good. So you have to be very careful about those things. 1 Samuel 28, verse 6. Saul, of course, by this time, he knows God is not with him anymore. It even says that he has a troubling spirit said to him by God. At this point, God had taken his spirit away from Saul. Saul had gone bad. And now another spirit was allowed by God to trouble him. So the man is slowly going insane, which is where the demonic spirits are.

And so Saul now is seeking some kind of divine interaction. So verse 6 is, when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him either by dreams or by the Yoram as the Yoram was the Thummim, or by the prophets. The priests couldn't answer him, the prophets couldn't answer him, and God didn't give any answers directly. And he was lost.

Then Saul said to a servant, find me a woman who was a medium. Find me a woman who has a familiar spirit, an evil spirit. Go find one. Then I may go to her and inquire of her. And his servant said to him, in fact, there is a woman who is a medium at Endor. So Saul disguised himself and put on other clothes and went with two men with him. They came to the woman by night, and he said, Please conduct a seance for me and bring up for me the one whom I shall name for you. And the woman said to him, Look, you know that Saul has done how he's cut off the mediums and the spiritualists from the land? Oh, the spiritualists were already driven out of the land. When Saul followed God, what did he do? He followed what it said in Deuteronomy. He drove out the spiritists. He drove out the mediums. He drove out the witches. If you stayed in Israel, you were killed if you did those things, because they are a direct rebellion against God. At the heart of this is a rebellion against God, a desire to say, God doesn't know what he's doing, we do. And the longer those beings are from God, cut off from God, the more insane they become, because they're denying absolute reality.

And I stress that because you have to understand the emotional state they're in. You're trying to figure out their thought processes. Don't. Don't go there. But you have to understand emotionally what drives them, because we're going to get into that in a minute.

So she says, why are you doing this? You're trying to trap me. Verse 10, Saul swore to her by the Lord, saying, as the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing. The woman said, whom shall I bring up for you? Who shall I bring up for you? Now, remember, in the Old Testament there is zero. There is no concept of people dying and going to heaven. In fact, there is no concept of the immortal soul.

Everybody agrees with that. What I mean is, almost all Christian scholars agree that the Old Testament does not teach the immortality of the soul. They also agree that you don't go to heaven, that you go to Sheol where the good and the evil, or the evil and the good go, and that they await a resurrection. So, who shall I call up for you is very important.

She didn't say, who shall I call down from heaven, because they believed everybody was dead. But there was a belief that these people had a spirit, an evil spirit, so evil that God said, kill them. And these people could wake up the dead. Now, think about how bizarre that is.

They have the power to do something. God puts somebody to sleep and resurrects them. These evil spirits claim to have the power to wake them up.

They're actually claiming to have a power of God, a power of the sort of a limited resurrection. They can't raise the bodily, but they can get this disembodied spirit to come up.

Although, they all agreed they're asleep. So, who do you want me to bring up out of shield?

And He said, bring up Samuel for me. When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. The woman spoke to Saul, saying, why have you deceived me? You're Saul.

So, she did see something. Now, we have a real problem here. Either this evil spirit, because she's a medium, she has what the Bible calls a familiar spirit. One is condemned as being and rebelling it against God. Either she has the power to wake up the dead, or the spirit does, or this isn't Samuel. Now, when you put all the new Old Testament together, she didn't have the power to do this. The demon didn't have the power to do this. So, what are we dealing here with? It's what we're dealing with every time you have this idea that you can go to somebody who claims to be a medium. Either they're tricking you, they're tricking the person, or the demons are using them to perform these kinds of things, the demons pretending to be sin.

Either that or the rest of the Old Testament is not true.

And he has two choices here. Either the rest of the Old Testament isn't true, or this is not Samuel.

So, she says in verse 13, I saw a spirit ascending out of the earth. You know what that word spirit there is in Hebrew? Elohim. I saw an Elohim coming up out. I saw something that's not human coming up out of the ground.

So, he said to her, what is this for? But she said an old man is coming up with a covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived it was Samuel, and he stooped on his face on the ground and bowed down. Now, what's interesting is, he now has this conversation with Samuel, but I want you to understand something. Saul never saw Saul, never saw.

Saul did not see Samuel. He asked her. Only the woman who was demon-possessed could tell him what she saw. He didn't see it. That's very important in this. He perceives this as Samuel.

He perceives it. He didn't see Samuel. The woman believed it was Samuel.

So, here we have an instance of the Bible where either the entire Old Testament is wrong, or what we have here is the perfect example of what a medium does. Either trickery or there's demonic influence. So, this is the number one way in which people become in contact with demons, or one of the ways. The second way is that when people try to find supernatural ways to get their fortune told. This is called the spirit of divination in the Bible. In other words, someone who can divine your future. There was a sermon I'd given here probably, what, six or eight months ago. Mr. Piper gave a sermon at an astrology. Why astrology is based in paganism.

It's an attempt to look at the stars and be able to use the spirit of divination to determine your future. The Greek word translated divination in the New Testament is very interesting. It comes from the word poothon, which is where we get the word python. It has to do with a snake, a giant snake god that Apollo killed. But this snake god was associated with Delphi.

And if you know your Greek history, Delphi is a real place. Delphi was a place for hundreds of years where all the Greeks would go to to receive their fortunes by these priestesses that lived at Delphi. By the way, they have now done a lot of research on Delphi, and they think that the priestesses really were babbling in different trances. And they think what the reason why is, where the oracle was, where this temple was, was built over a giant crack in the ground where gases were escaping. And they think they're all high, which is quite possible. Although, you know, there's a lot of Greek literature that records what people were told when they went to Delphi, and usually they were told things like, if you go into battle, a thousand men will die. Oh, good, that means I'm going to have victory. Then they would lose, and the priestesses of Delphi said, I didn't say you'd win, I just said a thousand men would die. And it was most of what they were told to be taken a lot of different ways. But Puthon, the python, this snake god, a Delphi that Apollo killed, that's where we get the concept, or that's the Greek word that gets translated into the divination. Let's go to Acts 16. We'll look at a case where this happened.

So sometimes, you know, I don't think most fortune tellers, just like I don't think most people who claim to be mediums are actually demon influenced. I think they're frauds. Who did, he spent a lifetime trying to find one. He couldn't find one. They were all frauds. Now, I know they're not all frauds. Some have demon influence, but a lot of it's frauds. The fortune tellers are mainly frauds. I told you the story before when Chris was young. We were at a flea market. We walked by a fortune teller, and I stopped and looked at it, and she was just sitting there staring out like she was in some kind of trance. And I couldn't help it. I looked at him and said, we're not going to go in there, but that's okay, because she already knows it. She gave me a really dirty look, okay? She already knows it. We're not going to... Most of them are frauds, but they're not all frauds. This is the danger of getting caught up into this, that somehow I can get my fortune told.

Acts 16-16. Now, what happened as we went, and Luke is writing this personally, is that as we went to prayer, the certain slave girl possessed with the spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us and cried out, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation. Since she had a demon influence, the demon knew who they were. The demon, she walked around yelling at everybody, Oh, these are the men of God.

Verse 18, And this she did for many days, while Paul, being greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he did that very hour. But when her masters saw that the hope of their profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas, dragged him in the marketplace into the authorities. You read the rest of the story, they ended up getting beat up and thrown in jail.

Why? Because they made a buck off of her.

They made a lot of money off this woman, who pretended. Now, remember, the demons can use their power to pretend to be something. Just like Saul did not see Samuel, but the woman with the demon did.

And she believed it was Samuel.

A third way, and this is very interesting, because this is more common. As we go through these ways, you're going to see that, you know, the first two you have to go pursue. You have to go to a medium. You have to go try to seek a fortune teller.

But this way is more common, and it can seep into our lives. That is, demons act as gods and paganism.

You know, if you ever go to a Buddhist temple or a Shindu temple or a Hindu temple, there's something there that's not right.

You can feel it. They act as gods there. Look at what Paul says. I mean, this is what he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 10.

This is why so much of paganism, and of course, remember, the majority of people in the world today are pagan.

They're not Christian. The majority of people today believe in religions where they worship their ancestors. They worship various gods and goddesses. They worship trees and rocks.

If you take everyone who claimed to be a Christian in the world, there's still a small minority.

Six out of ten people are not Christians in the world.

Well, between five and six. 1 Corinthians 10.

Verse 16.

Here Paul is writing about, of course, the Passover wine and bread.

I went to zero in verse 19. Paul says, What am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or that it offered what is offered to an idol is anything? He says an idol is just a stone. Things offered to idols aren't contaminated by stone. But he says there's something else I want you to think about. Rather, that the things with the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink of the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the Lord's table, the table of demons. That's a powerful statement. But what he's saying is, is paganism does have a power. This is why there's so in paganism, there's people who go into trances. You know, there's people who do supernatural things in pagan religions.

Where does that power come from?

Where does that power come from? The gods that they worship do produce miracles sometimes.

They do produce emotional reactions in their people.

And the reason why is because there's demonic influence in paganism. This is why, by the way, we make such a strong stance about observing Easter and Christmas. Its origins are in the worship of demons.

That's why we make such a strong stance on that. People think, well, aren't you being silly? It's just a couple of days. No, it's not.

This is where we can be influenced more than the other ways.

Not that we're directly influenced by demons, but we accept or can accept into the worship of God certain practices that are actually demonic practices. That's why we have to be careful about this.

This is why our Sabbath-keeping, for one thing, is so important.

Well, people say, you're just ritualistic. You try to observe this day as if salvation comes through this day. No, it doesn't. It comes through Jesus Christ. But, I want to worship God. We want to worship God out how He wants to be worshiped, not how demons want to be worshiped. Understand?

So, this is one of the things we have to struggle with.

One of the great examples of this in the Bible, of course, is Simon Magus in Acts 8. Remember, Simon Magus was a sorcerer, and he had great power. And all the people of Samaria came, and they actually worshiped him because of his power. He did miracles. He probably did a lot of tricks, too. They have found out in the ancient world, the priests had a lot of tricks they used. They created machines in the temples that cause statues to talk, all kinds of things. Steam power was used. It's interesting what they did in those temples to make the idols come alive, including in one temple they had one of the idols fly across the room. Just a few pulleys was all was. A darkened background that, you know, a few came into worship in this dark room, and all of a sudden, you know, your gods started to levitate. It was pretty impressive.

But he actually had demonic influence, and he was baptized into the church. He fooled Philip. Of course, when the apostles came along, they lay hands on him so he could receive the Holy Spirit, and now he had a real problem. Because God was not going to give his Holy Spirit to a man who had demonic influence. And they said, ooh, you have real problems. And what's very interesting, if you read through over the next 300 years of history, he started a sect, a cult, that claimed to be Christian. It was actually one of the founding Gnostic cults. And in the early 300s, his cult is still mentioned, the cult of Simon, and what it taught. And it's a total perversion of Christianity. But he was a sorcerer.

So this third thing is what we have to be very careful of, that we don't incorporate customs into our worship that are directly linked. I mean, Christmas and Easter, Valentine's Day. I know Valentine's Day seems very harmless, but it's not. Because they actually are rooted in demonic worship. So we're very careful about that. Also, we have to be aware of what's going to happen in the future. Look at Revelation 16, where here during the day, Revelation 16 is all about the day of the Lord, when God begins to pour out His judgment on the earth.

In Revelation 16, verse 12 says, Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl of the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared. Now notice, And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are spirits of demons performing signs which go out to the kings of the earth and to the whole world, to gather them to battle the great day of God Almighty.

You know, the false prophets, the beast power, are going to perform miracles.

And here at the end time, there's three great demons that go out and perform all kinds of miracles. And that's why it says that if it were possible, a very elect would be deceived. People are going to see those miracles and say, this must be from God. Just like Saul believed that somehow this demonic spirit had called up Samuel from Sheol.

And, you know, he talked to him for a while. Well, he talked to her, and he believed it. The demons are going to go out, and there's going to be great signs.

So they are very much involved in pagan religions, and they are worshiped in pagan religions. And they interact with people directly through pagan religions.

A fourth way, and this is really what we have to look out for the most, is that demons actually broadcast the same emotions and thoughts as Satan.

You know, when you think about as human beings, we have an ability that's nonverbal to communicate to people. You know what I mean? Have you ever walked up to somebody or sat down beside somebody, and you just look at them and you know they're sad? It's almost like you can feel their sadness.

And you say, are you okay today? Or somebody that's really happy?

Now, this is one reason we all like happy people. You're around them for three or four minutes, and it's like you just plugged into some electricity, right? You just, wow! Because they're happy people. And we feel that from them. Okay, if we can do that as human beings, say, people get all spooky about this stuff. Let's just think about it. If we can do that with each other as human beings, and you have these great spirit beings, we can't see them, but they exist around us, how much can we absorb from them? Satan literally just radiates what? Think about it. What does he radiate? Hatred, rebellion, strife, competition, envy, greed, violence, right? That's what he radiates. The closer you are to Satan, guess what you feel like?

Demons do the same thing. The more we allow ourselves to slide into certain attitudes and emotions, the more we will find that we feel what they're feeling. That's what's important. This is this idea of broadcasting. Mr. Herbstow, you started a month, a broadcast. That's what it means. They radiate these things. This is who they are. And the more we get like that, the more you are filled with anger, the more you will feel their anger. That's what we have to understand. So much of the influence of demons is emotional. It's not like they're possessing us.

It's like we live in their world, right? Who is the god of this world right now? It's Satan.

They have power in this world. And pagan religions tap directly into that power. You and I don't. We walk around every day not aware. It shouldn't be walking around thinking about demons. We're not supposed to think about them, but we have to understand that they're there.

And we can't allow ourselves that we almost like we just sort of tap into their energy.

Look what Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 4.1. If you remember the old analogy that Herbert Armstrong would use, it was like a radio. Change the dial. Right? It's simple. It's just change the dial. Change the dial in your mind, and you're on a different station.

If there's okay, I'm not in covetous anymore, I'm now an envy. Well, okay. You're on a different station, but you're getting the same results. Change the station so that you're in tune with God, because God does not radiate those things. 1 Timothy 4.1. Interesting passage. I won't go through all of it. I just want to do verse 1. Now, the Spirit, this is God's Spirit, explicitly says that in latter times, some will depart from the faith. Why? Giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. Deceiving spirits. This is what we're talking about.

What does God's Spirit radiate? The closer you and I are to God, the more we will—think about the series of sermons they gave a few months ago—the more we're going to experience love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That's what He radiates. That is His Spirit. That's what comes out from Him.

The more we center in on the negative feelings and attitudes of Satan and the demons, which is what they radiate, guess what happens? We get plugged into them. They just sort of, you know, it's like I say, if you're sitting next to a person that's absolutely depressed—now, some people are more sensitive than others. Some women are very sensitive. They can sit against the—you know, in a bus next to somebody they don't even know and say, oh, wow, that person's really depressed. They can just feel it. Whereas, guys, it's like, oh, there was somebody next to me? I didn't even realize it, right? I think all of us have at times experienced that feeling where we're with somebody. It's like, ooh, that person's scared. They just were angry. I mean, the look on their face, the way they thought it seemed like being around them, right? We've all experienced that. Now, think about if you are filled with anger and hatred and meanness and it is all these things and you have all these beings around here that that's what they radiate.

You're going to start to pick it up. That's the reality we have to understand. That doesn't do away with our own will. That doesn't mean we're demon influenced or demon possessed. It means this is the battle you and I fight all the time because Satan and the demons exist. And we pick that up if we're not careful. This is the most dangerous thing that we face, not demon possession.

It's just we sort of tune the radio in.

And we just sort of listen to the music, right? We listen to the anger. We listen to the fact that I believe I'm a victim. We listen to God isn't fair. Can you imagine the first time Satan went, or Lucifer, he was turning into Satan, went to a group of angels and said, you know what? God just isn't fair. He just isn't fair. And he sat down and told them that.

And there were some angels and said, oh no, no, no, no. And there were some angels that said, you know, I never thought of that before. He's not. And they began to feel that way.

They all feel that way now. God isn't fair. You know what? God really doesn't know what He's doing. If God would just give us a shot at this, we could make this better.

And if you start thinking that way, guess what you start feeling?

The same way they feel.

So am I demon-influenced? Nah. It's just radiating. You know, it's just the whole air is filled with this. Deceiving spirits. The second one is doctrine of demons.

Now remember, if demons are the gods of the pagan world, and they're actually worshiped in the pagan world, then those doctrines are going to be their teachings. They're going to influence human beings and those teachings. That's why we have to be very careful. Now, the fifth reason or way they interact with human beings, okay, we look at these, the ones we've looked at so far, they interact with human beings through mediums. Okay, well, you and I are going to go to mediums, okay? We just have to be real careful about the sorcerers and witches and so forth in entertainment. I'm not saying never go to... I guess like I've told people, okay, I know people... I've watched Star Wars. Not all of them, but some of them. But I also know there's Eastern religion in Star Wars, okay? I understand that. And there are certain people that shouldn't watch it. I wouldn't let certain children watch it. I wouldn't, you know, at a certain age.

So I'm not saying we have to be paranoid. I'm saying we have to be real careful, though.

We can be receiving propaganda in our own lives or in our children's lives by the idea of the good witch-bad witch, good sorcerer-bad sorcerer. We have to be real careful with that. Real careful. So be careful with what you allow.

Yeah, I'm not going to give a Talmud. No, I'm not going to publish. Here's 50 movies. You should not watch. Okay. But be real careful. Okay.

The second is fortune telling. Okay, well, most of us aren't going to go to fortune tellers. I don't think that's a real problem, right? We're pretty safe with that one. They act as gods of pagan religions. I don't think any of you are going to go up and go out and go out and be Hindu tomorrow. I don't think any of you are even going to go down to the Catholic Church and start worshiping Mary tomorrow, right? So I mean, okay, we don't have to worry about that. The influencing part, that's the part we have to be aware of because that's the part we're least aware of. Because we're not being directly influenced, we're just turning the radio on. And that's the tune they play. It's the music they play. And we tune it in, and we just receive it because the air is filled with it. So that's the part that we're influenced the most, is the part we're least aware of. Now, the fifth way they influence people is the area where we fear the most. And that is, they actually come into a troubled mind, and they influence and begin to control a troubled mind. And this is what we call demon possession. Now, I want to stress they come into a troubled mind. They come into a troubled mind. A person who is already mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in trouble. Unhealthy.

You know, most people, they don't have to do this, too. We're all walked around, tuned into their radio station. We're all, everybody walked around, tuned in, right? But they search for troubled minds that are minds like theirs. Lost people. People who have no hope. People whose minds are scrambled. And they can begin to control those people, when the person loses a certain amount of control over their thoughts and their actions, their emotions. But let's start this discussion with James chapter 4 verse 7.

Now, remember, you have been given a spirit. We'll talk about this on Pentecost. You have been given a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. You do not. Now, yes, you have troubles. You have a troubled mind at times, right? You're sad. You're depressed. You have your moments where you lack faith. You have your moments where you want to give up. You have your moments where you have guilt. You have your moments where you're struggling with sin. That's not what I'm talking about. We all have that.

And you still have God's spirit.

So, you know, in those moments, you're not going to somehow face demon possession.

Because remember what James says in James 4 verse 7, Therefore submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. The more spiritually healthy you are, which means the less you're tuned in to the radio stations, the more demons and Satan flee from you. You want some proof of that? I know people who don't even hardly believe in God, and they're not demon-possessed, right? Your neighbors aren't demon-possessed.

They may be tuned in.

So demon possession deals with an unhealthy mind, and you and I have the absolute power to resist that because of our closeness to God. And the closer you are to God, the less you even can have that influence. It just won't even be there. The closer you are to God, the more you're turning out the radio stations, too. The more you're tuning into God and what he radiates from his being through his Spirit. Just this look at, then, and very quickly, two places in the New Testament, Mark 9, where demon possession takes place. I thought about giving a sermon like this for a lot of time. I think, ah, just, you know, everybody knows this. But then I think the questions that come up, we need to every once in a while—and I have given a sermon on this subject in years and years and years. We need to be reminded that it's real, but we need to be reminded we don't have to fear this.

I do feel a little uncomfortable sometimes talking about this with children in the room, because I don't want them to be scared. Okay? Because God is greater than any evil force, and God will protect us. And this is not a contest, okay? This is the contest of who will win.

Once God's involved, the outcome is preordained. It is preordained.

It'd be like me playing Tim Duncan in basketball. It's preordained. Right?

The battle is already won by Tim, Mark 9, 17.

It's interesting. We used part of this passage in a BT program last week, not talking about demons at all, but talking about this man's reaction and Jesus' response to it. Now, one of the crown answered and said, Teacher, I brought you my son, who is a mute spirit. Whenever it sees him, it throws him down, he phones at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to your disciples that they should cast it out, but they could not. Now, this is very important. Jesus had told them they had the power over demons, but they couldn't cast this one out.

He answered to them and said, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to me. Then he brought him to him. When he saw him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground, a wallow foaming at the mouth. So he asked his father how long has he been like this? And he said, from childhood. So how often? And he has often thrown himself into the fire, into the water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.

Jesus said, If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.

Immediately the father of this child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. It's verse 23 and 24 that we used in the program. The whole program, the title of it is, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Sometimes it's only in our absolute weakness when we say, I can't do this. And God says, Oh, good, because I can't.

And sometimes God doesn't interact in our lives, not because he's far from us, but it's because we don't get to this point where we finally go to God and we say, Lord, I can only go so far. You have to do the rest because Jesus did not chastise this man for this comment. He healed his son. That's what's important. His reaction. He did not chastise this man. In his weakness, God's greatness was shown. And it's in our weakness that the greatness of God comes out. And that's what we forget. We keep trying to base everything on ourselves. When we finally are able to go to God and say, Lord, I believe, help me, unbelief, that's sometimes where the miracles happen because it's in our weakness that his greatness is shown.

But that's a different subject. Verse 25, when Jesus saw all the people came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit and it came out of him. And Jesus lifted him up.

In verse 20, he says, when he had come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, why couldn't we do this? See, they didn't understand. They had been told, you have the power to do this.

God's Spirit is with you and you have the power to do this. But when they tried to do it this time, it did not happen. And he says something very important here. We need to understand about our own sins, about demonic activity, about the evil world that we live in. He said to them, this kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting. In other words, he said, you know, there is some evil that is so evil that you have to draw close to God in a very powerful way to be able to withstand it. He didn't tell the disciples, well, it didn't come out because you don't understand or you didn't do the right ritual. He said, no, this evil was greater than anything you have ever faced. They had obviously cast out demons before. They said, but this one was greater. You had to be a lot closer to God for God's power to come through you on this one.

They were trying to do it by their own power. It didn't be formal. Do it this time.

Wait a minute. You never faced this one.

It tells us something even about demons. Some are more powerful than others.

And sometimes the answer is really drawing close to God in prayer and fasting to deal with the evil in our world. We live in an evil world and human nature is developed by what? We're born into this world and Satan begins to develop our nature right away. We come out with a radio station already tuned in. You know, in your car you have the buttons you push and you have four or five radio stations. We have the four or five demonic spirits we're just connected to right away.

Somehow in that early stages we have our buttons and that's where we like to go.

And we get tuned in. And sometimes the way we get tuned out is through really drawing close to God and that's through a lot of prayer and a lot of fasting. And if you say, I don't have time for that, I'm too busy, then you already know which station you're on.

Think about that. I don't have time to draw close to God, but my life's a mess. If I could just get it straightened out, I don't have time for prayer and fasting. I can't take a day off and just spend the whole day praying and fasting. I don't have time for Bible study. I'm too tired. I don't really have time to keep the Sabbath right. No, I don't come to services regularly because I'm just too tired. You already are tuned into the station. Your words are the song we've all heard before. We know who's singing the tune, right? We know who's singing. We know the words of that song. We all know it. We know the beat. We know the tune. You're already tuned in. You're already tuned in.

So we have to get into that prayer and fasting mode to have the power to turn the radio off.

You're not going to get possessed by a demon, but you're going to turn the radio on on a regular basis.

That's what we have to be aware of. One more case. Luke chapter 12. Luke 11 verse 14.

Very interesting situation here. Verse 14, Jesus cast out a demon, and since there were lots of people who couldn't accept Jesus Christ, they came to a conclusion. You know why He's casting out demons? He's possessed by Balsabob. Like the chief general of the demons.

That's why He's casting out demons. Jesus' response is very interesting. He says, Whoa, wait, wait, wait. Let me get this straight.

I'm casting out demons through the power of demons.

Well, that won't last long. No house divided against itself can stand. That's what He says. That's ridiculous. That's a stupid argument. And He goes on and says, You know, this is from God. And then He says something very important. He says, He tells them, If you take the power of God and claim it is the power of demons, then you are very close to the unpardonable.

Very close to the unpardonable. It's very dangerous for us to ever take the work of God, the power of God, and what He may be doing, even to another person, and then claim that's the power of Satan, or claim that that person is even possessed. That is a very dangerous thing to do.

He says in verse 24 something, though, that's very interesting. It shows our responsibility, and it shows people who submit to demon possession. They have a responsibility. When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, verse 24, He goes through dry places seeking rest, and finding that He says, I will return to my house from which I came. And when He comes, He finds it swept and put in order. Then He goes and takes with Him seven other spirits, more wicked than Himself. And they enter and dwell there, and the last fate of that man is worse than the first. In other words, when we are, when a person rejects a demon, or a demon is cast out of the person, or the person is influenced by a demon and rejects it, we must replace that with God. For a human being to be demon influenced, and then add a demon influence cast away, and then they just go on life without, like nothing's happened, guess what may happen again? This also shows us that people have a responsibility.

Many times demon-possessed people will not give up the demon.

And I've seen that happen. But can't you understand? He can tell you what it's like at the throne of God. I've heard that statement. And guess what happened? It just came back. The mind was cleaned and swept, but it came back. Here's what's difficult for us, is there is a huge difference between mental illness and demon possession, and it is sometimes very hard to tell the difference. There's a lot of mental illness out there caused by stress and trauma. There's lots of mental illness out there caused by organic damage to the brain. There are people who, there are lots of people who have Alzheimer's who hallucinate. Most of you know of Alzheimer's people who hallucinate. That doesn't mean they're demon-possessed. A lot of times it means that memories are sort of packed on top of each other, and they're actually experiencing numerous things at the same time. It doesn't mean they're demon-possessed. And that's what's hard to tell. I mean, it used to be there was a time when anybody sees an hallucination, they're demon-possessed. No, that's not true. There's people who have mental illness just because they're selfish, by the way. If you're narcissistic, you're going to have all kinds of mental and emotional problems. That's why narcissism is classified as a mental illness. And there's lots of narcissists in our society. We are a nation of narcissists, right? So we're all, you know, narcissism in this country which causes people to be overly selfish, and the more overly selfish you are, the more depressed you are, the more unhappy you are, the more you don't like other people. I mean, it's just the way it is. The more selfish you are, the more everything in your life is somebody else's fault. And you're just miserable. And people actually become mentally ill. So there's mental illnesses because of trauma and stress. There's mental illnesses because of organic problems. There's mental illness because of narcissism. Those are not demon-possessed people. You say, well, they may be demon-influenced. Yeah, but sometimes you and I are too, right? The radio is turned on. The radio is turned on. So we have to understand that. Demon possession involves evil. It does happen. Now, it is true that mentally ill people can become very vulnerable to demon possession. You know why? It makes them feel like they have power. It gives them special knowledge and power that they like. So that's very important to understand.

Remember, once again, I just want to touch on this. I want to spend time on it because I think people get too obsessed with it. This is not an issue that you and I have to worry about, except every once in a while a demon will try to come into the church. We have to be aware of it.

And he'll try to affect somebody to get in.

So, first of all, a person who becomes extremely influenced by a demon is already a very troubled and emotionally and mentally unhealthy person. Many times the person is physically run down.

Many times they have gone long periods of time without any sleep at all. That happens.

But you know, there's even a physiological reason for that. If you take people and suspend them without any physical input, they've done experiments with, you know, astronauts. They suspend them for long periods of time. No touch, no hearing, no smell, nothing. No taste, no nothing, just total blackness. And given enough time, they start hallucinating.

And given enough time, somebody says, hey, what you doing? And they start talking. They're talking to them. Long-term deprivation of physical senses can have a very bad influence on human beings. So that can happen to people. Many times there's long-term use of mind-altering drugs. And that seems to be a prime catalyst, long-term use of mind-altering drugs.

And because of that, they seem to feel that they have particular insider power, so they want it.

Now, one last question people ask. Do demons hang around particular localities? I think if you went to certain pagan temples throughout the world, you would say yes.

Because they're worshipped. But yeah, that can't happen. Do you have to be afraid of those localities? Remember the Apostle Paul said, no. Because he, remember, he's in a world where there's nothing but pagan temples. Every block. I mean, they were just constantly, if you ever been to Rome or Pompeii, there were every place. We think there's churches, a lot of churches today, you should see the pagan temples. They were every place. Temples upon temples.

And people ask him the same question, and he answers, well, no. You don't have to worry about that. You're protected from that. You're involved in that. So don't worry about it. You don't have to be afraid.

The spirit world is real. Angels and demons exist. But you don't have to fear demons.

We don't have to. You have been called out of this world by the power of the living God, the Creator of angels. A third of them rebelled against him, and they got thrown out. It really wasn't much of a battle.

In fact, they still can't do anything without his permission. They're given a short time to rule this earth, and they will be removed from this earth. They'll be removed at some time, and it says that they're cast in the outer darkness. That's their reward for rebelling against God. His spirit, remember, is not a spirit of fear.

They're a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. And here's the promise you have from God, and here's why we don't have to fear. As long as we submit to God, Satan and the demons will flee.