The Devil Ain't Dead, and He Ain't In Your Head.

It's about to get weird, because I'm going to tell you some things about Satan that you might already know, but never hear said.

When you buy a new car, something happens to your perception of the world that allows you to see - almost suddenly - that make and model everywhere on the road. Like an eagle catching the glimpse of a field mouse beneath a stalk of corn from three thousand feet, suddenly you catch in your peripheral vision a a Nissan Leaf in Glacier White, two blocks away at the tanning salon that used to be a Pizza Hut.

Dang it. Another one.

Lately, I’ve been this way with perceiving the demonic. A recent personal experience has opened my eyes, or at least made my brain perceive - some things that had previously been blurred.

Our spiritual experiences have to submit themselves to Scripture, but sometimes our spiritual experiences make specific scriptures pop-out to us a little bit more. I think the Cessationist is more likely than he ought to be to suppress his senses - both spiritual and physical - for fear of getting weirder than what we are permitted to be in our respectable Christian circles.

That’s a shame, but the world God made is really weird to begin with. To ignore the weirdness of God’s creation is to not behold the glory of it. Not only is the physical world full of so many inexplicable wonders no less explained by “magic” as with any scientific explanation, the spiritual world gets even stranger.

Let’s stick to just what the Bible says. There is, somewhere above us (yet it is not a physical place so I’ve no idea how it could be described as spatially directional) there is a Third Heaven. The first two heavens would be the atmosphere and outer space. But this Third Heaven is up, somehow. The Apostle Paul says he was caught up (ἁρπαγέντα) into the Third Heaven and acknowledges he’s quite unsure if he was there physically or spiritually.

Ergo, spiritual places exists. Now, somebody please explain to me how in the world a spiritual place can exist at all! A place, by definition, is geographical nomenclature. I got no idea, man. I can’t explain the concept of a spiritual place, let along wrap my soggy brain around it.

This Third Heaven is some kind of reality, because Paul went there. Sometimes it’s called the “Heaven of Heavens” (1 Kings 8:27). But it’s always “up” somehow, just as it’s described again in Acts 7:55 as Stephen the martyr looked up and saw God.

Meanwhile, demons are real. Despite being real, they’re not described as having a physical body after Genesis 6:4 (and even that interpretation is sketchy). They inhabit humans and commandeer their bodies. They also, like angels - their non-fallen counterparts - don’t have souls (Psa. 8:5-6; Heb. 2:6-7). If you’re tracking, they don’t have bodies and they don’t have souls, but they still exist and are ascribed a separate order of personhood that we would call “spirits.” Or if you want to be spooky, ghosts from the German language, geist.

So, yes. Ghosts are real. They’re just not reenacting the civil war or dressing like little girls sitting at the top of the stairs. That’s Christian belief. Crazy, right?

Demons, who are actually angelic creatures cast out of Heaven (Luke 10:18) at some point before the Garden of Eden, have specific jobs. Some are like spiritual versions of the Dirty Bastards Brigade (that’s what they were called) of World War II who were dropped behind enemy lines and just told to blow stuff up and wreak general havoc. That might be an over-simplification, but it’s not far from the truth. But others appear to be setting into action pretty sophisticated plots and schemes that take centuries to fulfill.

Demons wander the earth looking for someone to inhabit, and Jesus describes them a bit like the walking dead, “wandering through waterless places,” and sometimes come back around to inhabit the same old haunts (Luke 12:43-45). Peter says that the devil is literally wandering the earth, looking for people to devour (1 Peter 5:8). They delight in people sacrificing their kids to them (Psalm 106:37).

In short, these are real spirit beings who are looking to mess you up. They hate you.

Demons can clearly make someone sick, which is something you don’t hear Christians talk about. It was Satan that made Job sick (Job 2:1-11). The casting out of demons was a part of the process Jesus gave to Apostles in making people well (Matthew 10:1), first casting out demons and then - comma - “healing every disease and affliction” (presumably, at least those sicknesses caused by demons within the possessed person). We see this over and over again in places like Matthew 12:22. And despite being spiritual creatures, when they possess someone, they are able to somehow make them exponentially, physically stronger (Acts 19:13-16). Try figuring that one out.

Demons, the demonic, and the devil are largely perceived as being real by modern Americans, and perhaps in greater numbers than those who believe in God (and certainly at higher levels than those who believe Jesus is God).

Ignoring the topic of the supernatural spirit world, as we proclaim Christ and him crucified, is a profoundly dumb strategy. They already believe in spirits, so why are we acting like talking about it is going to scare them away from us?

Perhaps we are ashamed of the supernaturality of God.

I cannot count the number of times that I’ve heard well-meaning preachers refer to mediums or psychics or magic or wizardry or astrology as “mere superstitions.” Can they not read the Bible?

Mediums are confirmed in Leviticus 19:31 and in 1st Samuel 28. Saul successfully used one to speak to Samuel, who was dead (and no, I don’t have that figured out and neither do you). Psychics are indeed real, and the Bible refers to them in varying ways, for example, omen-readers or fortune tellers (Deuteronomy 18:10-12). The same passage speaks of magic and sorcery, as though they are very real. I’ll remind you that Pharaoh’s magicians performed actual miracles (Exodus 7-8). I’ll also remind you that witches are indeed very real (Exodus 22) and the New Testament forbids sorcery, which it calls a “sin of the flesh” (Galatians 5).

Comparing demonically supernatural activity with fairytales is tragic, because it leads to things like Harry Potter Bible Studies (which is so 2014) when the Scripture explicitly says these things “will defile you” (Leviticus 19:31). This tendency, to discount clearly demonic activity as trite or all in good fun, is perhaps the single greatest departure from the doctrine of Supernaturality committed by fundamentalists today.

It’s here that some may argue that demons are no longer pulling their stunts today. This belief is only sporadically held, and I can’t find a specific group or any corner of the Christian world that believes it dogmatically, but the lack of discussion in Christian churches on demonic activity have led many people to believe it.

In 2006, a woman came to our church who our small town in Arkansas all knew to be crazy. She would sway naked outside of her house, try to drown herself repeatedly in the pond out back, and cut her wrists frequently. She began to attend our church, always falling hard asleep when the preaching began. But when she cut her wrists on the church lawn, I presumed it was time that we deal with the matter spiritually once she was healed up.

To make a long story short, the first exorcism I conducted as the “lead” was accidentally began when, feeling as though I was speaking to someone besides her, asked, “Am I talking to a demon, right now?” She - or they - responded in a guttural, male growl, “Yes.”

Now, this is quite a marathon post on the demonic, and I’m putting the rest behind a paywall because it’s not explicitly related to evangelism and this is how I feed my chickens. If you appreciate my efforts and could please support the Feed The Chickens Fund by an $8-a-month or $80-a-year paid subscription I would sure appreciate it.