- Satan promotes a doctrine that represents itself as pure religion and as truth.
- This doctrine teaches that Jesus Christ is not God in human flesh. Jesus was perfect humanity; Christ was the God idea in Him.
- Jesus is one of many equally good ways. He is an aspect of the truth; he is a fragment of the life.
- Secret knowledge of the future exists outside of God, and should be pursued.
- There are supernatural beings other than God, and they can be contacted and controlled.
It is apparent from the historical record that the ancient world recognized the existence of evil and acknowledged the manifestation of it through demonic activity. From India's bloody goddess Kali to Sumeria's Ishtar; from the Ammonites' god Molech to the Greeks' Harpies and Gorgons; history is replete with the names, faces, and exploits of the demonic realm. The voice of King David echoes from the distant past, revealing the common practice of ancient demon worship and Israel's participation in it: "They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they did not know, to new gods, new arrivals that your fathers did not fear" (Deut. 32:17). And again in Psalm 106:37-38, "They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons, and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with blood."
Rome exemplified the Pagan practice of demon worship, displaying at the peak of its power temples, murals, writings, and graffiti detailing the influence of the demonic. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the ruins of the doomed city of Pompeii. Historian Michael Grant sheds a great deal of light on the immersion of Roman culture in the worship of multiple deities, especially their involvement in what was called the Mystery religions, cults that often included drunkenness and orgies. Although the worship of Jupiter and Vesta drew many followers, it was the Mystery religions like those of Bacchus (Dionysus) and Isis-with all their implied darkness and perversion-that captivated the empire. "There were somewhat formal cults of a national and civic character. But what engaged the emotions of the Pompeians far more deeply, as with millions of inhabitants of the Empire, were the Mystery religions. For they promised salvation in the after-life to their initiates and were only, much later, prevented by Christianity from completing what might have been a total take-over of the ancient world."(1)
The Middle Ages brought a revival in knowledge of the demonic realm and its interaction with people. The Renaissance is remembered for its genius and beauty, but it included a much darker side than the historical picture of enlightenment created by Michelangelo and others. Conjuring demons became so common a practice during this time that the self-proclaimed magicians and sorcerers who summoned them began recording demonic names, powers, and physical descriptions.(2) The Church tried to combat the conjurors with countless books and treaties on how to deal with sorcerers, Witches, and magicians, but the public interest remained strong. Inevitably, the conflict between the Church and those involved in the "dark arts" intensified, culminating in some of the cruelest Witchcraft trials in history. Hundreds of years later, this spirit of hysteria reasserted itself once more in Europe and America, producing the same terrible results.
From ancient times to modern, the presence of evil left its mark on the hearts, minds, and history of humanity. Demons are real, and they are powerful. If people ignore them, they do so at their own peril.
Demonology
The apostle Paul reveals the truth about demonic strategy in 1 Timothy 4:1, and his words have great meaning for today. "Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons." The Greek word here for "depart" is aposteésontaí, meaning to slide back from; "giving heed to deceiving spirits," or wandering spirits; and didaskalíais daimoníoon, meaning the teaching of the demons. Didaskalíais daimoníoon are two words that appear together only once in the New Testament, and this appearance should arrest the attention of every Christian who takes the New Testament seriously. Here, the apostle Paul, with one stroke of his pen under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, reveals that there is such a thing as the teaching of the demons; there is something that originates with Satan that represents itself as pure religion and as truth.(3)
In today's world, some people feel it is politically incorrect or even embarrassing to acknowledge the genuine, and truly important, study of demons in the Old and the New Testaments. But anyone who has knowledge of occultism or the kingdom of the cults knows immediately how foolish this is: demons are not little individuals running around with pointed tales and pitchforks, copies and caricatures of the devil that he loves to see the world make, particularly on Halloween. Demons are malignant beings that are simply other dimensional; they live in a dimension other than this, but they are capable of entering it.
As we saw in chapter 1, Scripture teaches the reality of other dimensions. There is the dimension of heaven, the throne of God. The Lord Jesus Christ ascended-in Greek dieleeluthóta toús ouranoús, meaning passed into the heavens (Acts 1:9; Eph. 4:10)-through dimensions, into the Heaven of heavens, the throne of God (Heb. 4:14).
Then there is another dimension mentioned in Scripture that is under the control of the prince of the powers of the air, and beyond that dimension is the throne of God. The Bible teaches that if it were not for the direct intervention of God the Holy Spirit, the Church would be overcome by the power of Satan. "For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way" (2 Thess. 2:7). God permits evil to go on, and He restrains it as He goes, until the restraint is lifted. When that happens, the Scripture teaches all hell will break loose in the dimension of earth, but it is the Spirit that restrains now. That is why John exults in 1 John 4:4, "He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." Christians are protected by the person, the presence, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
- Grant, Eros in Pompeii, 51.
- Fowler, Demonologia, 315.
- Interlinear Transliterated Bible, Biblesoft.