Tag Archives: evil

How Powerful is the Devil?

Even though the Scriptures tell us little about Satan’s origin, they do inform us that he is a fallen angel of considerable power. The New Testament describes him as a “great enemy” who “prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.”[1] Jesus Himself said that Satan is such a force to be reckoned with that He is the only one strong enough to conquer him.[2]

Jesus would go on to refer to Satan as the “ruler of this world.”[3] Paul called him the “god of this age.”[4] He also portrayed him as the head of a great, highly organized “army” of evil spirit beings.[5] He is a cunning liar, capable of seducing Adam and Eve by disguising himself as an “angel of light.”[6] The book of Revelation says that his powers of deception are so potent that he is able to lead the whole world astray.[7]

While Satan is portrayed in the Bible as powerful, dangerous, and an adversary to be taken seriously, he shouldn’t be considered in any way equal to God. He is a creature with creaturely limitations. His power is nothing in comparison with that of the Creator of heaven and earth. And according to James 4:7, because of the power God gives to His children, if we submit to Him and resist the devil, Satan will flee from us. Although subtle and cunning, the devil is an already defeated foe who will continue to resist God furiously until the time that he will be sealed in hell forever.

[1] 1 Peter 5:8

[2] Mark 3:27

[3] John 12:31

[4] 2 Corinthians 4:4

[5] Ephesians 6:12

[6] 2 Corinthians 11:14

[7] Revelation 12:9

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Do recent earthquakes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters indicate the endtimes?

There have been some powerful earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and other natural disasters recently, but they aren’t unique to our time. Because population density is much higher today than in past centuries, more people tend to be killed when natural disasters occur.

People of Jesus’ day were superstitious and believed that natural events contained clues about the future. When Jesus’ disciples asked him what the signs of the end of the age would be, Jesus gave them a careful response:

And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved” (Matthew 24:4-13 nkjv).

Jesus may have realized that the disciples would expect the destruction ofJerusalemand the temple to occur in close conjunction with His return and the end of the age. To make it clear to them that they shouldn’t linkJerusalem’s fall with His second coming, He told them specifically not to trust false Christs. He also warned them not to think manmade catastrophes such as wars or natural catastrophes such as famines, epidemics, or earthquakes meant the end of the age had arrived. Such catastrophic events should not be viewed as “the birth pains of the Messiah,” as the Jews sometimes viewed them, but as “the beginning of the birth pains” (v.8 niv) of events that would take place throughout history. Christians should be prepared for these things and for the severe persecution that would rise against the church from time to time.

What Jesus prophesied came true—Israelwas judged andJerusalemdestroyed in the Jewish-Roman wars. Yet, as He said, the horrors of siege and battle along with the natural disasters of that period were in fact only the “beginning of the birth pains.” Thousands of catastrophic events of all types—wars, famines, plagues, and earthquakes—have occurred in the intervening centuries, some of them apocalyptic in scale.

Earthquakes:

Antioch,Syria, ad 525, 250,000 killed;

Aleppo,Syria, 1138, 230,000 killed;

Shaanxi   Province,China, 1556, 830,000 killed.

Famines:

“Great Famine” of Europe, ad 1315–17, millions died;

Indian famine of 1896–1902, millions died;

Chinese famine under Chairman Mao, 1958–61, 20-40 million died.

Pandemics:

Antonine Plague (smallpox),Roman Empire, ad 165–180, 5 million died;

Plague of Justinian, 541–542, 25 million died;

Black Death, the Middle East andEurope, 1338–1351, 100 million died.

Wars:

Thousands of wars and armed conflicts since the time of Jesus Christ have caused millions of deaths.

People who lived during these times can be excused for suspecting that they were living in the end time. However, the wisdom of Jesus’ words of caution regarding the linkage of human or natural disasters with the arrival of the end time has endured.  His declaration that we cannot know the day or hour of His return (Matthew 24:36) is as applicable to us today as it was to the apostolic church.

(See Can we know if current events are the fulfillment of prophecy? How often have people misapplied prophecy? and How serious is false speculation about prophecy?)

 

 

 

 

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Isn’t the Idea of Demon Possession Outdated?

Demon possession isn’t just a relic of more primitive times. It still exists today.

People unfamiliar with the Scriptures often have the misconception that the New Testament considers all physical and mental illness to be caused by demon possession. Actually, the Gospels distinguish between demon possession and ordinary physical and mental illness ( Matthew 4:24 ; Mark 6:13; 7:32; 16:17-18 ).1

The Bible says that spirit beings exist with powers in many ways superior to humans. Some of these beings—the angels—are servants of God (Daniel 7:10 ; Matthew 26:53 ; Luke 2:13 ). Others are angels who rebelled against their Maker. These are the fallen angels or demons ( 2 Peter 2:4 ; Jude 1:6 ). Scripture indicates that fallen angels are capable—under certain conditions—of controlling the mind and behavior of individual people ( Mark 5:7; 9:25 ; Luke 4:41 ; Revelation 16:13-14 ).

The Bible also teaches that there is a fine line separating the evil for which humans alone are responsible, and the strictly demonic evil that results from an external spiritual force taking control of a human will and mind. A striking example of the human tendency toward evil is the apostle Paul’s description of his own struggle in Romans 7:15-24. He wrote:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. . . . I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. . . . When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?2

As the apostle Paul described it, our own sinful nature seems to be independent of our will—to have a “mind of its own.” It is no exaggeration to speak of such a powerful inclination toward evil as “demonic” in a sense. After all, the impulse behind our inner inclination to do evil is connected in Scripture with Satan and the satanic ( John 8:44 ; Ephesians 2:2 ; 1 John 3:10 ).

While all of us harbor this inner inclination toward evil, occasionally a person transcends this and enters into true demonic possession. In such cases these individuals come under the control of an external demonic power—an alien spiritual being. Probably the most dramatic account of demonic possession in Scripture is in the Gospel of Mark:

They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet Him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No-one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of Him. He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that You won’t torture me!” For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man,you evil spirit!” Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” “My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area (Mark 5:1-10).

In this case, Jesus commanded the demons to enter a large herd of swine, which stampeded down a steep slope into the sea and drowned.

Most accounts of demonic possession in the New Testament occur prior to the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ ( Matthew 8:16,28; 9:32; 12:22; 15:22 ; Mark 5:15 ; Luke 4:33; 8:27 ).3 Interestingly, the Epistles make no mention of demon possession and give no instructions for exorcism.

Although it doesn’t seem to be as common today, we are convinced that demonic possession still occurs. There are many credible missionary accounts of confrontations with demon possession in pagan cultures. These involve such manifestations as unnatural strength and knowledge of foreign languages not known by the possessed, along with other preternatural knowledge. With the rise of Paganism and occult idolatry in our culture, demon possession is likely to become more common.

The ways that evil manifests itself have always been mysterious. In his book, I Have Lived In The Monster (St. Martin’s Press), expert FBI crime profiler Robert K. Ressler makes this striking observation about the demonic:

Supernatural causes, people felt in the era before Freud, were the only logical explanations for excessively savage murders,blood-draining, and other such monstrous acts. People felt there were demonic elements to such acts — and I cannot say that they were entirely wrong, because even today, when we try to explain to ourselves the acts of a Jeffrey Dahmer, those acts seem satanic, at least in part, because they are in large measure beyond rational understanding. We can attribute them to human behavior, pushed to extremes, but even saying this,and demonstrating how such behaviors can be traced back to childhood and genetic stresses does not completely suffice as explanation. After all, in the Dahmer family, Jeffrey had a younger half-brother who grew up in the same household but did not commit heinous acts.

M. Scott Peck is an example of a person with a thoroughly skeptical, secular outlook who became a believer in demonic possession:

As a hardheaded scientist—which I assume myself to be—I can explain 95 percent of what went on in these cases by traditional psychiatric dynamics . . . . But I am left with a critical 5 percent that I cannot explain in such ways. I am left with the supernatural . . . . (People Of The Lie, pp.195-196).

These observers intimate what most of us sense: Although a scientific understanding of human motivation and genetic predisposition provides a degree of insight into human destructiveness, human evil has aspects that are (and probably always will be) as paradoxical and impenetrable to human logic as are other essential elements of human experience — such as the relationship between free will and environmental/genetic predetermination.4

  1. We should not equate mental illness with demon possession, as some did in the past and still do today. Malachi Martin warns:

    Many people suffering from illnesses and diseases well known to us today such as paranoia, Huntington’s chorea, dyslexia,Parkinson’s disease, or even mere skin diseases (psoriasis and herpes I, for instance) were treated as people “possessed” or at least as “touched” by the devil (Hostage To The Devil, p.11). Back To Article

  2. A sampling of other passages that refer to the natural, inborn propensity of mankind to sin are Genesis 8:21 , Job 14:4 , Psalm 51:5 , Isaiah 64:6 , Mark 7:21-23 , Ephesians 2:1. Back To Article
  3. The large number of miracles during Christ’s ministry was a special “sign” of His divine authority. It may be that Christ’s authority over evil was expressed through a greater amount of demonic activity and more overt confrontations with demonic power. In the book of Acts,there are only a few accounts of possession, and they generally take place in the early stages of Christian penetration into pagan areas. Peter cast out demons while in Jerusalem ( Acts 5:16 ). Philip did so in Samaria ( Acts 8:7 ). Paul delivered a young woman from a fortunetelling demon at Philippi ( Acts 16:16-18 ) and cast out indwelling demons at Ephesus ( Acts 19:11-12 ). None of these cases involved a demon-possessed believer. Back To Article
  4. “When speaking of emotional conflicts one is attempting to designate certain processes of an ill-defined nature which operate deep within the uncharted recesses of the subconscious mind, and which are thus not readily amenable to detailed clinical delineation. It is known, however, that the vital forces of the human personality function within this area of the mind, and that there is always a significant emotional or psychic element in most diseases, and not least in idiopathic mental afflictions. If such states are to be seen in terms of the evil, destructive powers found in the subconscious mind gaining the ascendancy over the positive forces for good in the human personality, it is possible to think of all mental disorders as being to some limited extent at least the result of temporary possession of the human mind by demonic influences, a situation which could conceivably become permanent. Because modern psychosomatic medical research has shown that attestable clinical disease can result from such metaphysical entities as suggestion, emotional conflicts, fear, and the like, it is no longer possible to dismiss as implausible the noxious effects which the various forms of evil, working through the personality of fallen man, can have upon individual and mental well-being” (Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia Of The Bible). Back To Article
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Why Would an All-Powerful God Permit Evil?

God permitted evil to enter His universe as the price of freedom. Although He could have created the universe without the potential for suffering or sin, such a universe would not have allowed free creatures to exist. It would have been a robotic universe, with no more awareness of grace or God’s goodness than a colony of insects.

The Bible teaches that God became a human being and entered into the suffering of His creation. By experiencing and sharing His universe’s suffering, He made redemption possible. He made it possible for all of the wrongs of the world to eventually be made right.

God’s true nature is revealed in Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul declared:

In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form (Colossians 2:9).

In the natural universe, underlying reality appears at times to be good and at times to be evil. Only Jesus provides a clear definition of God’s holy, loving nature.

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