For the final entry in this month’s monster
miniseries, we will take a look at the creatures of darkness which inspire all
others, and to which all others aspire. And this may be the most important
question in the list. Do demons exist?
My take on this refers back to some of what I wrote in "Do Ghosts Exist?" and “Do Witches Exist?” While I do not believe in those things, I do believe in demons and I believe demons are the explanation for the activity people have attributed to ghosts and witches. I believe in the existence of personal powers of evil.
Demons in
the Bible
I do so because the Bible could not be more
explicit about them. Nowhere in Scripture does it speak of a need to convince
anyone of their existence. Rather, their role is discussed because their
existence is held as self-evident.
I don’t want to overload this article with references,
which I would do if I attempted to be comprehensive. As it is, I want to give a
few examples to show just how thoroughly the Bible treats the question of the
existence of demons.
In Job
1–2, Satan is the adversary of Job who attempts to get him to curse God. In
Matthew
4:1–11, Satan tries to tempt Jesus and convince Him to give up on His
mission from the Father. Jesus casts a legion of demons out of a man in Luke
8:26–39, just one of numerous exorcism stories. 1
Peter 5:8 is one verse among many that tells us to beware of the attacks of
the Enemy. And in James 2:19,
the apostle speaks of the demons’ intellectual knowledge of God to illustrate
that intellectual knowledge cannot pass for true faith (while treating the
existence of both God and demons as mere common sense).
Demons in
the Culture
Going by the Bible alone, the existence of demons
should be obvious. And yet, there are people who would mock you for saying so.
Why? Why is it so easy to doubt that they are real?
An old standby will probably be referred to here.
“Science allows us to put aside such superstitious nonsense.” But just like it
did in "Can
Zombies Exist?", this answer runs into a problem. Science is knowledge
of the physical world. Or rather, it is observation of it. Science can only
tell us about the things our physical senses can make out, or that can be guessed
about them, and it can never do so completely. No one has absolute knowledge,
and science cannot speak to the things outside its ken.
Don’t get me wrong here. Science is a marvelous
good. It has made our world a much better place. But we should not confuse its
ability to make us more comfortable with an ability to tell us why we are here,
or what is (or is not) beyond the world. It cannot do those things. It was
never meant to. To expect it to do so is to elevate it from a method of study
into a faith. Which, of course, would not be very scientific.
Anyway, many people these days doubt the existence
of demons because they accept a model of the world that does not allow for them
to exist. Furthermore, and more importantly, there is no obvious evidence that
they exist, of the kind secularists demand.
Evidence of
Demons
It is often said that “the absence of evidence is
not evidence of absence,” and that is true. However, it is easy for me to
understand how it would point people to a faulty conclusion. Demonic activity is not
what it once was, seemingly.
Actually, that should be treated as an open
question. There are many places in the world where demonic activity of the type
discussed in Scripture is considered a regular occurrence. In the modern
Western world, these things are less common, but that does not mean they are
not going on anywhere.
Furthermore, this begs the question of the type of
activity. We do not see demons roaming around in monstrous shapes, or haunting
locations, or possessing people so regularly that Westerners can take their
existence as an obvious fact. However, they still may be active in the world.
Recall 1 Peter 5:8 that I referenced earlier,
along with Luke
4:6 (from another account of the temptation of Jesus) and Ephesians
6:16. Throughout the Bible, Satan and his forces are represented as having
a dominion in this world, and of being very jealous of it. They want control,
and they look to destroy those who challenge it. That does not mean they have
to be seen doing it.
Which is the most important point. The demons are
fighting a war, and they are very strategic about it. And of course, deception
is often an important aspect of strategy. The Bible treats the existence of
demons as obvious, but it also notes that their behavior is not always what it
seems. In John
8:44, Jesus calls the devil the father of lies, and in 2
Corinthians 11:14 the Apostle Paul says that Satan can disguise himself as
an angel of light. The enemy can trick us, and is very good at it.
The seeming lack of demonic activity is really
nothing more than dissembling. It is useful to them to be less obvious than
they once were because it allows them greater control. Pretending they are not
there gets people to drop their guard, which opens the door for increased
influence. Think about it. The most effective manipulation is the one you do
not know is happening. As “Verbal” Kint said in The Usual Suspects, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing
the world he didn't exist.”
Change in
Tactics
But why did the demons ever have a different
approach? I think part of the answer is in 1
Corinthians 10:20. Service to idols is service to demons. The ancient idols
were representations of forces beyond human control, forces people attempted to
placate because those forces were so often destructive. My belief is that the
main tactic of the demons in the past was fear. They tormented and oppressed
humanity in order to keep them in a position of subservience. It was their path
to power.
So what changed? Why retreat into the shadows?
Because of Jesus Christ. I already mentioned one exorcism above, but it was by
no means His only one. Beyond that, Jesus also gave power over the enemy to His
disciples, as Luke
10:17 tells us. And that power is more than just the ability to cast them
out.
The strength of the demons had been in their
ability to intimidate mankind. Humans are slaves to the enemy when there is no
hope. The demons hate the Gospel because it is the ultimate message of hope. Christians
carry the news that there is an end to despair. We do not have to go to Satan
for table scraps in a short and dreadful life, because Jesus through His own
blood provides an eternal and abundant one with Him.
This is the most important thing I think I can say
on this subject. Christians should not run from discussing the existence of
demons, even though we might face derision for it. We should not run from
anything. And we should not have a fortress mentality. This world is already
Satan’s kingdom. We are invading it, not the other way around.
Going on
the Offensive
We often have this mindset that we need to defend
ourselves. While that is true, we are supposed to be moving forward while doing
it. Remember Ephesians 6:16? You don’t have to stand still while carrying a
shield. In fact, if you do, you will usually end up losing ground. You use a
shield to keep yourself safe, but with the other hand you can go on the
offensive.
This is also what Jesus meant in His response to
Peter’s Great Confession in Matthew
16:18. He says, “The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” When we
read that, we somehow take it to mean that darkness is advancing on the kingdom
of God, but it will never break through. Read it again, though. Is that what it
says? No! Gates don’t advance against anything. Gates are on a fortress. When
Jesus says the gates of hell will not prevail against His church, He is saying
they will not prevail to stop it. The church will break through them and
conquer.
Demons do exist. And they are very powerful, so we
should not think of them flippantly. In fact, that is what they want. It suits
them just fine for people to dress up in red costumes with horns and tails and
pitch forks. They want people to treat them as a joke, because that way they
will drop their guard.
We must be careful not to do so. But even more
importantly, we should not fear them. Ultimately, because of what Jesus has done,
they fear us. We need to move forward, confidant in the power of our Savior,
and continue the conquest of the enemy’s dominion until the day the Lord comes
to end this war once and for all.
Happy
Halloween
If you fear demons, or any other monsters that
lurk in the darkness, the best piece of advice I can offer you is to step into
the light. I would be lying if I said I do not have moments of weakness and
fear. But ultimately, when they press in on me most closely, I find renewed
confidence because I do not look for it in myself. I look to Jesus. What He did
for us gives us so much more than we can give ourselves. I have victory in Him,
even in my weakness. You can have it, too.
When we look at anything that inspires fear,
whether witches, or zombies, or ghosts, or vampires, or demons, or any of the
other threats, perceived or real, that surround us in this world, we only need
to know one thing to be free of them:
Neither death nor life, nor angels
nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor
height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38, 39).
Knowing that, nothing seems quite as scary in the
end. God is love, and love casts out fear (1
John 4:8, 18). The only thing to really be afraid of is deciding to stay
away from Him. Eternal life and victory cannot come through anything else. I
hope you know that, and lean on it. That way you can have, and I wish you, a
truly Happy Halloween.
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