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Christians accept by faith that God exists. Most Christians believe that angels exist, too. But what about demons? Are they real? Do they interfere with the lives of people?
Christians use the Bible as their reference book about God; it is the divinely inspired Word of God. It tells us about angels, heaven, earth, Satan and demons. If we believe in its truth, then we must understand that we have enemies, Satan and his demons. The purpose of this article is not to exalt or deify demons but to educate Christians. We are soldiers in the service of Christ and to do battle effectively, we must know our enemy’s strengths and weaknesses.
To get to the topic of demons we need to first learn a little about Satan since he is the chief demon. (Matthew 12:24) Satan started out as an angel, created perfectly by God. Just as God has given us free will, so He also gave the angels free will. Satan desired to be greater than God. (Isaiah 14:14) The Bible tells us that Satan was cast out of heaven for his sin of pride: “Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.” (Ezekiel 28:17)
Satan was not cast out alone: “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” (Revelation 12:9) These angels of Satan are demons. The Bible tells us a great deal about them. They are subtle, deceitful, powerful and wicked. They are given the power to tempt, afflict, accuse and beguile humans. Yet we are not powerless against them.
Demons can be very subtle in their attacks against us. They can pervert anything, twisting truths just slightly to throw us off the path of righteousness. “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” (2 Corinthians 11:3)
Their job is to deceive us. (2 Corinthians 11:13-14) This is the very tactic that Satan tried to use against Christ in the wilderness. (Matthew 4:1-10) Satan took the Scriptures and twisted them to try and deceive Christ into sinning. Yet Christ withstood the attacks because He knew the nature of His enemy; He knew that Satan was deceitful and relied on the truth of the Scripture, the Word of God, to protect Him.
Demons are wicked; they are the enemy of God and their intentions are to do evil. (1 John 2:13b) They use temptation to draw us away from the will of God.
(1 Chronicles 21:1) Each of us has our own weaknesses and those areas of weakness are what we must guard. Those areas are where demons will try to lure us back into behavior that kept us dead inside and separated from the love of God. To fight our enemy we must know ourselves so that we can guard against temptation.
Demons have the power to afflict us. “So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.” (Job 2:7) They will use whatever means they have to try and turn us from the love that God has for us. We must be wary and keep our eyes focused firmly on God, just as Job did when he was afflicted. When we are weak and in pain, we must cry out to God for protection and comfort.
We must watch out for demonic attacks, “Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.” (2 Corinthians 2:11) They will constantly try to tempt and trick us into sin, and because we are weak and human they will sometimes succeed. When they do, we must ask God’s forgiveness and turn our backs on our sin.
We are not defenseless against demons; God has provided us with protection against them. “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” (Ephesians 6:11) While the armor of God protects us, we can fight against demons with the sword that is the Word of God. (Ephesians 6:17) Through knowledge of the truth, we can defeat the lies of demons.
When we resist the lies, the liars leave us alone. “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) Like schoolyard bullies, demons will pick at those who are weak but when we stand up strong against them, they run away like cowards. They know that Christ already defeated them. “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” (Revelation 12:11)
As the army of God, Christians have the authority of Christ over demons. “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” (Luke 10:19) They are powerless against us unless we surrender to them out of fear or lack of faith. When spirits of temptation, deceit, or other demons attack us, we only have to call on Christ to defend us. In His name we have all authority over demons; they have to leave us alone when we demand it in the name of Jesus.
Some have a hard time believing that we have a spiritual enemy but readily accept that we have guardian angels. Why do we need guardian angels if there isn’t a spiritual enemy to guard against? While Christ has already won the war against Satan and defeated death by His sacrifice, all around us a spiritual battle rages and we are the spoils to the victor. We have a choice about the outcome of any battle; we can choose the way of sin and death and be captured by the enemy or we can choose the way of life through Christ and be victorious. “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” (Romans 8:37)
(All Scripture is KJV)
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