Demonism Summary–Part 2
1 Samuel 16:14–23
One thing that I came across in my e-mail today that I wanted to read to
you, because I was completely unaware of this, is another tremendous sign of
the great apostasy that is going on in the mainline denominations.
I get a regular email from Ed Decker. His organization is called “Saints
Alive.” He has been a missionary for probably 30–40 years. He has been a
missionary to the Mormon community in Utah. That is normally the focus of his
e-mails, but in this particular e-mail today he is talking about apostate
Christianity. This is what he says:
“It is not often that you see a mainline Christian denomination go so
off the centrality of our faith that they actually mock God and break several
of the basic tenants of our faith. I figure that they broke the first four right at the start. The Presbyterian Church USA (that is the
United Presbyterian Church. There use to be Northern and Southern, but they
have merged in the late 80s. That is the mainline denomination now. They are
also a denomination that voted in favor of BDS. They are anti-Zionist,
anti-Israel; they are truly apostate.)
Decker said, “The Presbyterian Church USA fell into apostasy after
lifting up prayers to Allah at its general assembly meeting in August (2016).”
Here is the prayer:
“Allah, bless us and bless our families, and bless our Lord. Lead
us on the straight path, the path of all prophets, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac,
Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed.”
“These were the words that rang out over the congregation at the general
assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA meeting in Portland, Oregon. Wajidi
Said, cofounder of the Muslim Education Trust, led the attendees in a prayer to
the Islamic deity, a move arranged by the ecumenical and interfaith ministry
staff at the assembly.
The prayer was a part of the first order of business during the
meeting’s opening session, a time dedicated to praying for those affected by
the Orlando shooting that had occurred just weeks before. Decker goes on to say
that Said prayed in the name of Allah the Beneficent, the Merciful, let us praise the lord, peace be upon them and peace be upon Allah.
Said also prayed peace on bigots and Islamophobes.”
This is a little insight into how our culture is absolutely fragmenting
as we have stepped away from the truth. We cannot understand truth, and we have
no discernment. That is a great example of worldliness and demon influence
through false religions and false philosophies.
We started this study last time—a Demonism
Summary—of what the Bible teaches about demonism.
We started this because our passage in 1 Samuel 16:14, “But the Spirit of the LORD departed from
Saul, and a distressing spirit from the LORD troubled him.”
When the Spirit of the Lord left Saul, a distressing spirit, as it is
translated in the New King James Version,
but actually in the Hebrew it is the word on the lower left of the slide, רַע ra‘, which means bad or evil. This is talking about a demon that
troubles Saul. The idea there is this word בָּעַת bā‘at in the lower right of the slide. It is an external action.
The demon is troubling Saul from the outside. The result is Saul is experiencing
extreme distress and fear that incapacitates him.
The Angelic Rebellion
We started a review of the angelic rebellion.
1. The angelic rebellion against the authority of God that began in
eternity past when the chief angel identified as Lucifer in the old English
translation and popular culture. That name comes from the King James translation, but the Hebrew is Helel ben Shachar, the Bright and Morning Star, the Shining One,
the Son of the Morning, the Son of the Dawn. His fall is described in Isaiah
14:12–14; Ezekiel 28:12–19.
I did not point this out last time, but one of the things that you
should know is that the trend of modern evangelical scholarship is to deny that
Isaiah 14, it is more common there, that that does not refer to the fall of
Satan. It is simply referring to the fall of an historical personage, the king
of Babylon. But a number of people who will deny Satan in Isaiah 14 will still
affirm it in Ezekiel 28, but there are many who deny it in both places.
One of the consequences of that is that the origin of evil in the
universe, in the cosmos, is no longer addressed in Scripture. This lends itself
to a kind of dualism where you have an eternal good and an eternal evil. It is
bad theology, but worse, it is bad exegesis. It comes from the kind of pressure
that is put on evangelical scholars to go along with where their more liberal,
respectable, scholarly brethren are.
This is one of the things that has infected
evangelical seminaries over the past fifty to seventy-five years, because they
want to have the respect of everybody else. This is the same problem that
Israel had … we want to have a king like everybody else. One of the ways in
which this happened is that when they elevated new professors and identified
those who would serve in the future, they would encourage them not only to get
a doctorate from for example Dallas Theological Seminary, but to go on to
Harvard or Edinburgh or Yale or Princeton, or Aberdeen, or Basel, or one of the
European schools.
These scholars always brought back some kind of a Trojan horse. It
influences where those seminaries went. It was not just Dallas Theological
Seminary. I am not picking on Dallas, but it affected Trinity. It has affected
Western Conservative. It has affected Denver seminary, Gordon-Conwell, every
one of these. They have drifted off course.
If you are interested, you can Google an article that was recently
published in American Thinker. The
title of it is “The
Death of Evangelicalism.”
If you have not seen this article I have e-mailed it out. I have also
posted it on my Facebook page and on the Dean Bible Ministries
Facebook page. You can get that. It is an accurate and telling description
of how, as the author puts it, evangelicalism has been committing suicide for
the last forty years. It has just about accomplished the task.
The angelic rebellion began with the fall of Helel ben Shachar. If those passages are
not talking about that, then we would have no idea that evil had a beginning or
when it began.
2. In Revelation 12:3–4 we learned that one-third of the angels fell
with Satan.
3. These angels are collectively referred to as “fallen angels”,
although some may also generally call all fallen angels “demons”. Technically,
the term “demon” or “evil spirit” should probably be reserved only for that
group of fallen angels who can interact today with the human race. They are
organized under Satan.
4. There are several different groups of fallen angels, different
categories of fallen angels.
4A. Sons of God: This is a term that describes all angels, fallen and
elect. It specifically refers to a group of angels that cohabited with human
beings. It is described in Genesis 6:4; Jude 6–7; 2 Peter 2:4–5.
The New Testament passages make it very clear that it is talking about
angels, but when you look at the term “sons of God”, bene ha ’elohim, it clearly describes and refers to angels in Job
1–2.
4B. One demon army is currently confined to the
Abyss. They are described in Revelation 9:1–11. They will be released during
the Tribulation period as part of the fifth trumpet of judgment.
4C. That judgment is followed by a second. This
is the third group of demons that is an army of 200 million that are currently
held in reserve under the Euphrates River according to Revelation 9:14–16.
4D. The fourth group of demons are those who
are alive and well and were involved in these different episodes of demonic
influence and demonic possession that are described in the Scripture.
The fifth and sixth points are definitions. They are very important. I
want to review those again.
5. “Demon influence” or demonic oppression can happen to anybody. It is
an externally based operation. By that I mean that the demon is not inside of a
person. He is outside the person.
“Demon influence” is when a person is thinking according to the devil’s
thinking. The devil’s thinking was arrogance: I want to be like God, and I want
to be worshiped like God. But it also involved antagonism or hostility to the
Word of God. When we look at any world religion, other than biblical
Christianity, it manifests both of those characteristics.
Moral-based religions manifest those characteristics. They are grounded
on arrogance, and they are grounded on antagonism to grace and the teaching of
the Word of God. That fits all philosophies and all world religions other than
biblical Christianity. Any values, philosophies, religions, opinions, and
worldviews contrary to the divine viewpoint derived from the exegesis of the
Scripture are “demon influence”.
6. Distinguishing demon influence from “demon possession” is that demon
possession describes the invasion of the body of a non-Christian by a demon.
The demon is able to enter into the body of a person, a non-Christian only, and
can control the unbeliever’s physical actions from a position within the
unbeliever.
That is not what is going on with Saul. The prepositions are all
external. They are not “into” or “inside of”. Saul was not demon possessed.
7. The New Testament warns about demon influence in a number of
different ways:
1 Corinthians 10:20 says that sacrificing to idols, even though the idol
may be wood, stone, metal, and may not mean anything, it represents a
meaningless false religion. Nevertheless, what Paul is saying is that if they
sacrifice to idols they are sacrificing to a demon. What he means by that is
that demons are behind these false religions and false gods and goddesses.
When you read about Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology, Babylonian
mythology, Roman mythology, Norse mythology, those gods and goddesses are
representatives of various demons. There is a view that I believe holds a lot
of water. It is that after Noah and the family got off the ark and began to
multiply and spread over the earth, those that were negative to God, hostile to
God, rejected God, are the ones that remembered back to the stories they were
told of the sons of God who cohabited with the daughters of men.
That sounds like Zeus looking down from heaven and seeing a human female
that he came down and would rape. The by-product of that would be Hercules or
some other great men. That is what Genesis 6 talks about. This was the source
of the men of renown of the ancient times.
Paul says that worshiping these false demons it is demon influence. If
you believe in the mental mind-based cults, there are a lot of self-help
philosophies that are promoted on PBS and promoted by a variety of churches. In
fact, there are some churches, even here in Houston, that get
a lot of play on the radio and on television, but they are basically
motivational. It is just human viewpoint. It is demonic influence.
1 Timothy 4:1 describes these as deceitful spirits and doctrines of
demons that in the latter times, the whole Church Age, people will fall away
from the truth; they will be led astray by these deceitful spirits and
doctrines of demons.
2 Corinthians 11:14–15 warns of their deceptive appearance as servants
of righteousness. This is the devil’s tactic. His role is to appear to be good,
to appear to be an angel of light.
You have examples of this in two great world religions. By great I do
not mean that they are important or good, but that they are large and
influential. They are very similar.
James 3:13–15 identifies the thinking of the world as earthly, natural,
and demonic. The word natural there is soulish, which is used in 1 Corinthians
2:12–14 to describe unbelievers. They are not spiritually alive. They do not
have a spirit. They are described as soulish. That is a key.
When we get into the New Testament one of the important things that you
have to do, if you are going to understand a biblical view of what the Bible
teaches about angels and demons, is you have to deal with the fact that you
only have one strong example of the activity of demons, two if you count Job,
one with Satan. There are only two examples in the Old Testament. There is not
an angelology or demonology in the Old Testament.
The first thing you really see of this outbreak of demonism and demon
possession is at the time of Christ. I believe there is a reason for that. The
Messiah is on the earth. You really have more of a demon influence type of
scenario in terms of influence through world religions. In the Old Testament
you do not have the kind of demonic possession like we see in the Gospels.
We have to analyze the Gospels. To do that initially for some people
there are not a lot of examples of demon possession. Once you boil it down
there are only eight specific examples, but there are three broad general
examples, which tells us that there were really many more people who were demon
possessed than the ones specifically described in those other passages.
8. Three general statements
about casting out demons in the Gospels:
(1) In Matthew 4:24 we are told that “they brought to Him all who were ill, taken with various diseases and
pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and He healed them.”
Matthew clearly makes a distinction between those who were demoniacs,
the demon possessed, and those who were ill or sick or paralyzed. This general
statement has a parallel in Mark 3:11 and Luke 6:17–19.
(2) In Matthew 8:16 we are told that “When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon
possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill.”
Notice, just “a word”.
There is no incantation. There is no formula. He does not go into a lot of
ritual. There are not incense candles. He is not holding up a cross or a Star
of David or something else to scare the demon away. He just says “go” “get out”
and that is it. It is very different than what you find in the human viewpoint
approaches to exorcism. “He cast out the
spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill.” Again there are
parallels in Mark 1:29–34 and Luke 4:38–41.
(3) Luke 7:21, “At that very time
He cured many people of diseases and afflictions and evil spirits; and He
granted sights to many who were blind.” Notice that “evil spirits” is a
synonym for a demon(s).
It clearly makes a distinction between diseases and demon possession,
even though in some of these cases the symptoms of demon possession that the
demon can produce imitate a disease. But it clearly makes a distinction between
an organic disease that is the result of some sort of infection or a virus or
something like that, and that which is caused by a demon who is taking up a
dwelling inside the person.
9. There are eight specific
incidents that are also described in Scripture.
If we were going to take our time I would go through each of these
incidents to build out the characteristics. That is what you do in developing a
solid theology. It is inductive. You look at each and every incident. You look
at the characteristics that are there. What we discover is that there are no
patterns, except for the fact that there are certain words that are always
used, as we will see. EISERCHOMAI is a demon going into
somebody. EX means “coming out”.
EIS means “into.” It is a preposition that is a prefix on the word ERCHOMAI,
which means “to come”. If ERCHOMIA means “come”
EISERCHOMAI means “to go into.”
EX means “out from.” EXERCHOMAI means “to come out
from.” Like BALLO means “to cast or to throw.” EKBALLO means to “cast out, cast out from.” Those
terms are your critical terms for defining demon possession.
(1) We have a man in the synagogue that Jesus confronts in Mark 1:23–28.
He has an unclean spirit.
This is another important thing to identify. An unclean spirit is a
synonym used, for example, when we compare one account in Mark with a similar
account in Matthew or Luke. One writer may use the term “demon.” The other
writer uses the term “evil spirit.” In a long or lengthy account, it may
describe the demon as an evil spirit in one verse and then the person as being
demonized or DAIMONIZOMAI in a later verse. That tells us that an evil spirit is just a synonym
for the word demon. That is in Mark 1:23–28 and the parallel is in Luke
4:33–37.
(2) A second example, and we will look at this in more detail, is the
Gadarene/Gerasene demoniac. It is identified as Gadarene in one passage and
Gerasene in another passage. This is talking about the same region or town on
the Gentile side in the southeast corner of the Sea of Galilee. This is
described in Matthew 8:28–34, Mark 5:1–20, and Luke 8:26–40. You can see that
the longest account is the Mark account. That is the one we will examine.
(3) The example of the Canaanite woman’s daughter. This is a Gentile
woman who comes to Jesus. Her daughter is being possessed by a demon. That is
described in Matthew 15:21–28 and Mark 7:24–30.
(4) Then there is a young boy whose father comes to Jesus and says the
demon comes on him. He uses a term that would appear to him to be epileptic,
but it is more than that. He has a demon. Jesus casts out the demon. This boy
would go into convulsions and be thrown on the ground. If there was a fire there, he would land in the fire. He would do
harm to himself. The father comes to Jesus pleading that Jesus would cast out
the demon, which He does. This is described in Matthew 17:14–21.
(5) The mute boy who has seizures in Mark 9:14–29 with a parallel in
Luke 9:37–43. Again Jesus casts the demon out.
(6) The blind and mute man, Matthew 12:22 cf., Luke 11:14.
What we can see is that there are different symptoms that a demon can
produce that imitate a disease. One is blind. One is mute. One has seizures,
what appears to be epileptic but it is not.
(7) The woman bound by Satan 18 years in Luke 13:10–21.
(8) A mute demon-possessed man in Matthew 9:32–34.
One of the funny things that we will look at later on has to do with how
people in later generations, in the medieval period, the Puritan period, and
even the modern period will come up with various symptoms. How can you identify
somebody who is demon possessed?
Remember, we have these biblical examples. We will look at these things
later. We do not see the kind of things that we see here:
These are the biblical examples that we find. That is all part of the
ninth point, which are the eight specific examples described in Scripture.
10. Fallen humanity is ground zero for the angelic rebellion.
We are ground zero. Genesis 3:15, “I
will put enmity between you [the serpent/Satan] and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise you
on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel.”
Once Satan enticed Eve and Eve enticed Adam, and as head of the race he
ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then you have man falling
prey to Satan, losing his dominion over the earth. Satan becomes the god of
this age and the prince and the power of the air.
Genesis 3:15 predicts the battle that will take
place. The anger and hostility between you (God is addressing
the serpent) and the seed of the serpent (who is Satan) and the woman. And between your seed (the seed of the serpent) and her Seed.
Her Seed ultimately refers to the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the Greek of the Septuagint the word “seed” is SPERMA.
That obviously is the seed that is produced by the male. A woman produces the
egg. This is an unexpected term to describe the Seed of the woman. This is
something the male produces. It does not say specifically the virgin birth, but
it fits that idea, because it is the woman who is going to produce that which
is normally produced by the male. It fits the doctrine of the virgin birth.
That is ground zero. We are involved in this spiritual warfare, Ephesians
6:10–18.
11. A case study of demon possession, Mark 5:1–20 and Luke 8:27–37.
Mark 5:1, “Then they came to the
other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes.
Mark 5:2, “And when He had come
out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an
unclean spirit,
Mark 5:3, “who had his dwelling
among the tombs; and no one could bind him, not even with chains …”
Turn in your Bibles to Mark 5. We will start off with the beginning, the
opening description of the scenario.
Jesus and His disciples, after they have been out on the Sea of Galilee,
cross over to the other side. They have been in the north near Capernaum and
Bethsaida. Jesus has been teaching the disciples. He now says, “Let us cross over to the other side.” in
Mark 4:35.
This is described in Mark 5:1. He says “Then they came to the other side of the sea,
to the country of the Gadarenes.” They are in Gentile territory now. That
is important because there is going to be a herd of pigs. That was legitimate
for them to be raising pigs on that side of the Sea of Galilee. “Then they came to the other side of the sea,
to the country of the Gadarenes.”
Mark 5:2, “And when He had come
out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an
unclean spirit,”
If you read Mark, I know a lot of you are reading your Bibles. I am very
gratified to hear from different people that they are reading through the
Bible. Somebody asked a question last week. He said that as he was reading
through the second or third time or I am trying to read it through faster,
sometimes I get a little sleepy. We all do that. You read it and you just sort
of go into neutral.
One of the things you should do when you are reading is try to look for
specific things to underline or highlight as you are going through a book. Make
a note of this. When you are reading Mark underline the word “immediately.”
Mark loves that word. He must be very young and everything has to happen very
quickly. Everything that Jesus does is “immediately.” That is Mark’s style.
Mark 5:2, “And when He had come
out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an
unclean spirit”
What does that mean to be “with an
unclean spirit”? I can go somewhere with my wife. That does not mean that
she is inside of me. We have to look at examples to understand what this means
“with an unclean spirit.” Are they
hand in hand, arm in arm, the evil spirit outside of
his body or inside of his body?
Mark says he has this “unclean spirit.” The Greek word here is EN PNEUMATI AKATHARTO. We know the word PNEUMATI is PNEUMA. That is the Greek word for “spirit”.
AKATHARTO is “unclean.” It has EN, which can mean “with,” “by,” or it can mean
“within,” but that has to be determined by context.
Slide 23: In this slide I have references from Mark 5:2, 8, 13, 15–16, 18, and in
the parallel, Luke 8:27. By comparing them we can see that there are four
different phrases that are used to describe this. That helps us to understand
that each of these phrases means the same thing:
(1) EN PNEUMATI AKATHARTO, “with an unclean spirit”, Mark 5:2
(2) TO PNEUMA TO AKATHARTON, “unclean spirit”, Mark 5:8, 13. In this
example it is a little different construction in the Greek, but it means the
same thing. It means an unclean spirit. It is just two different ways you can
express the adjective in a Greek structure.
(3) DAIMONIZOMAI used to refer to the man with the “unclean spirit”, “to
be acted upon by a demon” in Mark 5:15–16, 18. This word and the mistranslation
have led a lot of people to shift their theology.
There was a man, a Dallas Seminary graduate, ThM, ThD. He taught at
Moody Bible Institute for many years by the name of Fred Dickerson. Early in
his career he wrote a book called Angels,
Elect and Evil. It was one of our textbooks when I went through Dallas. He
hints toward the end of that book of his future position. His future position
was that Christians could be demon possessed. His basic argument was that I
have a file cabinet filled with examples. That is called empiricism. That is
not coming from the Bible examples, but from personal examples. “I have got
files of hundreds of Christians who have been demon possessed.” But when he
tried to argue it from the text he went to this word DAIMONIZOMAI.
If you break DAIMONIZOMAI down it is a participle, a passive participle. A passive verb has the
idea that you receive the action. You are passive to the action. You are
receiving the action. You are receiving the action of a demon. What Dickerson
did with that is he said, and he is accurate to a point, that all this word
gets you is that this person is being acted upon by a demon, but he went a step
too far. He said but that does not mean demon possession. He said that means
being acted upon by a demon. That could be demon influence, or it could be
demon possession. It is a word that could mean either one. For that he would
get an “F” in Greek.
DAIMONIZOMAI is
a general word. He was right about that. It is a general word, but what defines it are the specific words that surround it. The
specific words that surround it are those words I mentioned already, “going
into” and “coming out of”, EISERCHOMAI and EXERCHOMAI. Those are the technical terms that give
precision to this general word. This word means to be acted upon by a demon,
but in what way?
In Luke 8:27 this same person is described as someone who (ECHO DAIMONIA) “had unclean
spirits.”
We can define this from other contexts, from other words used in this
context. For example, when it talks about an unclean spirit in Mark 5:8, 13.
Mark 5:8, Jesus said to the demon, “Come
out of the man, unclean spirit!”
That unclean spirit and this whole activity, the way the unclean spirit
is with the man, is described as DAIMONIZOMAI,
but the specificity is that this demon has to be inside of the person to come
out of him. That is what tells us what He means when He says he is with a
demon. The demon is in him. It has to be to “come out.” Jesus says EKBALLO, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit!”
Mark 5:9, Jesus has a conversation with him. He asks the demon’s name
and the demon says, “My name is Legion,
for we are many.”
A Roman legion would have upward of a couple thousand soldiers. This
indicates that numerous, thousands of demons could be inside of one person.
They are immaterial. They are not restricted by space.
What has happened in the occult and in exorcist mythology is the idea
that you are going to control the demon you have to know its name. That is how
you can control a demon. The first thing you should do if you are casting out a
demon is to ask the name. Then you can control the demon.
That is hogwash. That is not biblical. That is not what Jesus is doing
here. He is teaching something here about how many demons can potentially
indwell an individual.
Mark 5:10, “Also he begged Him
earnestly that He would not send them out of the country.”
This demon begs Jesus not to send him out of the country. We will look
at what that meant later. The demon basically says for Jesus not to send it to
the ABYSS. The demon wants to inhabit something.
Mark 5:11, “Now a large herd of
swine was feeding there near the mountains. So all the demons …”
Notice that, “all the demons.”
They are begging Jesus. This must have been quite a scene. All these demons are
chattering together and begging Jesus, “Send
us into the swine.” Notice, you have Jesus saying
“come out” and they want to go “into [EIS] the swine.” This is not some passive sort of
external action. It is very specific. DAIMONIZOMAI means to have a demon in you, and it has to come
out. “Send us into [EIS] the swine, that we may enter [EISERCHOMAI,
“enter into”] them.”
It cannot be more specific. I am really laboring this. I am going to
make a point on it in a moment.
Mark 5:13, “And at once Jesus gave
them permission. Then the unclean spirits went out [EXERCHOMAI,
“come out of” or “leave”] and entered
[EISERCHOMAI, “enter into”] the swine (there
were about two thousand); and the herd ran violently down the steep place into
the sea, and drowned in the sea.”
People ask, “What happened to the demons then?” I do not know. The text
does not tell me, so I am not going to go there.
Mark 5:7, “and shouting with a
loud voice, he said, ‘What business do we have with
each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You
by God, do not torment me!’ ”
The demon is shouting “do not torment me!” Do not
send me to Torments. The demon wanted to be on the earth. Torments
was their eventual punishment.
These are the words I have been talking about:
EXERCHOMIA, to
come out from, get out, proceed out of, which means you have to be inside of
something. EISERCHOMAI is to enter into or go into someone. That is what defines DAIMONIZOMAI. EKBALLO is the command that Jesus gave.
Jesus never said I am exorcising you. EKSORKIZO,
the Greek verb from which we get the word exorcism only describes the magic of
unbelievers. The ritual kind of thing. It is never
used to describe what the apostles did or what Jesus did. What they did is
always described by this word EKBALLO, to cast out.
I want you to turn in your Bibles to John 13. This has been a point of
confusion for some people. It is very clear in the Greek. What is the word that
describes “going into”? EISERCHOMAI. I want to make sure you have got that.
Demon influence is external influence of a demon or Satan from outside
the body. Demon possession is when the spirit takes up residence inside the
body. What happens in John 13:2? Jesus is getting ready to celebrate the
Passover, the Seder with His disciples.
John 13:2, “And supper being
ended, the devil [this is Satan]
having already put it [the text does not tell us what the “it” is] into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s
son, to betray Him.”
If you look at some other translations, like the New American Standard, there is no “it” there. It says, “having already put into the heart of Judas
Iscariot to betray Him.” We will see this.
What we have here is this word “put,”—“having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot”. The word
“put” is the word BALLO, which means “to cast or put.” If it is EKBALLO it means “to cast out of.” This is putting an idea into the
heart of Judas Iscariot. The devil is not going into Judas Iscariot. He is
putting something into the heart of Judas Iscariot.
The phrase in Greek is EIS TEN KARDIAN. It means “into the heart.”
Satan is putting thoughts there. Satan is not going into the heart. He is
putting an idea there.
The last word to look at is the word “to betray”, or PARADIDOMI, which
means “to deliver over or to betray.” It is preceded by the word for “in order
to,” purpose. The reason this idea is put into the heart of Judas, into his
mind, is the idea to betray Jesus. Is that demon possession or demon influence?
That is demon influence or satanic influence. Satan is not inside of Judas at
this point.
John 13:11, “For He knew who would
betray Him; therefore He said, ‘You are not all clean.’ ”
A little later on Jesus makes this statement that all of the disciples
are clean except one of you. John makes it clear that Jesus knew who would
betray Him. The one that is not clean, not saved, is the one who is going to
betray Him. That would be Judas. Therefore, Jesus said
“You are not all clean.” He is talking about positional cleansing. Jesus is
saying that Judas is not positionally cleansed. The other disciples are. In
other words, Judas is not saved. The other eleven are.
If you do not agree with, that you eviscerate the whole meaning of the
teaching on forgiveness and confession and cleansing in this passage. You
absolutely eviscerate the doctrine. You cannot teach confession out of 1 John
1:9 if you do not get it right in John 13; otherwise, you are inconsistent.
What happens next?
John 11:27, “Now after the piece
of bread, Satan entered him. Then Jesus said to him, ‘What you do, do quickly.’
”
The word there is EISERCHOMAI, to enter into.
Let me remind you of what we have done. DAIMONIZOMAI
means simply “to be acted upon” by a demon. The only way you can understand
what that word means in terms of precision is the verbs that surround it. EISERCHOMAI “to
go into” and EXERCHOMAI “to come out of.”
Some people have done this. They have said that all this in John 13:27
is demon influence. But if that is demon influence, using the word EISERCHOMAI,
then that means that all those other examples in the Gospels have to be demon
influence. You no longer have any biblical teaching on demon possession. You no
longer can have a biblical view of demonology. It undercuts every thing else
that we believe about demon influence and demon possession. That is why Greek
matters. That is why exegesis matters. If you know the original languages it
should keep you from making sophomoric errors like this.
Satan possesses Judas Iscariot because he is not clean. He is an
unbeliever.
12. Experienced-based opinions on the symptoms of demon possession.
Then ask the question, “Well how do I know if anybody is demon
possessed?”
Is it not interesting that the Bible never gives us a description? It
never says, “Okay, if they have a temperature of 103°F, and if they vibrate at
night and have tremors, that is how you know.”
The Bible never gives us that. In the church-oriented epistles, from
Romans to Jude, there is not only no description of demon possession, there is
also no warning about it, and there is no description of what you should do to
get rid of the demon or to cast it out.
If the Bible tells us every thing we need to know about the spiritual
life of the Church Age, and it does not even mention the problem of demon
possession, that ought to tell us that it is not a problem for the Christian in
the Church Age. It is not something to be concerned about; otherwise, God in
His sufficiency would tell us. We have a lot of people through the ages who
have come up with their various guesses as to this is how you can tell if
someone is demon possessed.
(1) There was a Rabbi Huna who died around AD 297. He said there are
four characteristics:
What does that mean? Sleepwalking at night, or you are
an insomniac? You have got what I call middle-age insomnia. You wake-up at two
in the morning. You go get a snack. You go watch a little television. What does
that mean?
Have a little Halloween party and go down to the local graveyard. I will
not ask for a show of hands of who might have done that when they
were a teenager.
Getting mad and ripping up one’s clothes.
That could describe any adolescent at some point or another. Then we
would be painting with a broad brushstroke. Those were Rabbi Huna’s four
characteristics.
But notice, if you look at the biblical examples, which we went through
briefly, none of them were walking around at night or spending the night on a
grave. Although you did have the demoniac who is in that area of the tombs, but
that did not apply to the others. Tearing one’s clothes might have applied to
one or two who were having the seizures. Destroying what is given is not
relevant. Rabbi Huna is not building this from the Bible. He is building it
from experience.
(2) From the 1600s (17th century) we have a list of symptoms
by a Puritan writer:
Who decides what wicked is? Wicked in the 1600s is a far cry from being
wicked today. They did not know what wicked was.
Did that ever happen in Scripture? I do not think so. And with the
little boy who gets taken over by the demon and casts himself into the fire.
Was he living a wicked life? He was probably 3–4 years of age according to the
word that is used that. Was he living a wicked life? I do not think so, not at
that age.
I know a lot of Christians who would come under that category.
None of those examples in the Bible have anybody making a pact with the
Devil. We do not know that they blasphemed. In fact, when Jesus showed up they
did not blaspheme Him. They ran and bowed down to Him, because they knew who He
was.
I know some alcoholics who are troubled with spirits, but I think that
is another kind of spirit.
Some of us do that when we wake-up every morning.
Most of these have no basis in Scripture. In fact, I do not think any of
these have a basis in Scripture.
(3) There was a writer who was recommended when I took Angelology and
Demonology at seminary named Kurt Koch. He was a 1970s European writer. He said
that evidence of demon possession was “cursing, grinding teeth, suicide,
falling into a trance.” Koch also stated that possessing demons “emit a
scornful laugh if he hears someone talking about the Cross of Christ or the
blood of Jesus.”
That is not what we see in the Bible. That does not happen in the Bible.
Koch goes on to say, “and that the person possessed will display evil and
hateful expressions especially if spiritual things are talked about.” We do not
see an example of that in the Bible. Where are they getting this? Just from
personal experience.
Chuck Swindoll, a well-known pastor and radio Bible teacher, a former
president of Dallas Theological Seminary, wrote a book in the 1980s called Demonism. He asked the question: “Can a
Christian be demonized? For a number of years, I questioned this, but now I am
convinced it can occur. If a ‘ground of entrance’ has been granted the power of
darkness.”
A lot of people come up with this idea that you have some sort of ground
of entrance. You get involved in doing something. You were not looking for a
demon, but you inadvertently bought a Ouija board, and you picked up a demon.
You went to the Far East, and you bought a little Buddha and picked up a demon.
You are completely unaware of the fact that now you have got a demon that is
Velcroed to your back. It is causing havoc in your life.
This is the idea of a ground of entrance. You think that little 3–4 year
old boy had a ground of entrance, or the Canaanite women’s daughter had been
involved with the occult? There is no evidence of that anywhere in Scripture.
That any of these people were doing anything out of the ordinary that caused
their demon possession. They were not playing with Tarot cards. They were not
getting involved with astrology and other forms of fortune telling. None of
that is there.
Swindoll says, “If a ground of entrance has been granted, the power of
darkness (such as trafficking in the occult, a continual unforgiving spirit, a
habitual state of carnality, etc.).”
I do not think that is true about those examples. Every unbeliever is in
a habitual state of carnality. Is that not right? They cannot do anything else
but be carnal. This is not very well thought through.
Swindoll says, “the demon(s) sees this as a green light—okay to proceed
…”
Notice there are no Bible verses here to support what Chuck Swindoll is
saying. I am not jumping on Chuck. I am pointing out critical-thinking skills.
Is he going to the text to support his position or is he going to experience?
Swindoll says, “I have worked personally with troubled, anguished
Christians for many years. On a few occasions I have assisted in the painful
process of delivering them of demons … while present within the body (perhaps
in the region of the soul) that evil force can wreak havoc within the life.” He
thinks Christians can be demon possessed.
13. Here are some other examples of experienced-based exorcisms that are
not biblical. There are not a whole lot down through even the New Testament.
Here Josephus talks about this legend that comes up about Solomon. He says,
“God also enabled him (Solomon) to learn that skill which expels demons … He
composed such incantations also by which distempers are alleviated …”
There is no evidence of any of this in the Scripture. “They drive away
demons, so that they never return; … I have seen a certain man of my own
country whose name was Eleazer, releasing people that were demoniacal in the
presence of Vespasian …” Vespasian became Emperor of Rome.
“He (Eleazer) put a ring that had a root of one of those sorts mentioned
by Solomon to the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he drew out the demon
through his nostrils; and when the man fell down immediately, he abjured him to
return into him no more, making still mention of Solomon, and reciting the
incantations which he composed ...”
That does not fit anything that we see in the Bible. You have got
incantations. You have got this ring that is put into the nostril that pulls
out the demon, all of these things.
Then Josephus goes on:
“Eleazer would … set a little way off a cup or basin full of water, and
commanded the demon, as he went out of the man, to overturn it, and thereby to
let the spectators know that he had left the man.”
There is a little empirical data. The demon is going to leave and you
have a little slide of hand and flip over the little bowl of water. Awe! That
is evidence that a demon came out. It is just magic. That is all it is.
We get into the Book of Tobit
where we have a story of an exorcism. Tobit married a girl and her former
suitors are killed at the wedding by a demon. This happens in the
intertestamental period and is written down. Tobit 8:2–4 tells this story: “And
as he went, he remembered the words of Raphael (an angel), and took the ashes
of the perfumes, and put the heart and the liver of the fish thereupon, and
made a smoke therewith.”
That is how you are casting out the demon. You are taking a dead fish,
some perfumes, ashes, and take the liver of the fish on the person’s heart and
that will cast out the demon.
“The which smell when the evil spirit had smelled, he fled into the
utmost parts of Egypt, and the angel bound him. And after that they were both
shut in together …”
That is that view.
These are so different from the Bible.
We have an experienced-based exorcism in Acts 19:13. You have these
itinerant Jewish exorcists. The word is EKSORKIZO.
Acts 19:13, “Then some of the
itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord
Jesus over those who had evil spirits saying, ‘We exorcise you by the Jesus
whom Paul preaches.’ ”
They are going to exorcize by the Jesus whom Paul preaches, not that
they have any relationship with Jesus. We are told:
Acts 19:14–16, “Also, there were
seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so. And the evil spirit (it
is kind of a smart aleck) answered and said, ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know;
but who are you?’ Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them,
overpowered them, and beat them up, so that they fled out of that house naked
and wounded.”
They got their comeuppance.
The last example I have is from a work called the Pesiqta of Rab Kahana. Rab is short for Rabbi. This is dated from
the AD 5th to 7th century. He says, “Has an evil spirit
never entered into you? Have you never seen a person into whom an evil spirit
has entered? What should be done with one so affected? Take the roots of herbs,
burn them under him, and surround him with water, whereupon the spirit will
flee.”
Does that have anything to do with what Jesus does or what we see in the
Scripture? He does not even use a harp. He does not even go back to 1 Samuel to
come up with something.
What we see here is in contrast to all this juju black magic. Jesus
commands the demons to come out. There is no use of chants, spells, smells, or
incantations. He does not touch. He speaks to them and they depart. That is it,
because Jesus has power.
Next time before we go further we will finish up with the issue of can
Christians be demon possessed? The answer is, no. We will find out from the
Bible next week.