Trans-Dimensional Raiders
By Gary Stearman
In Christian thought, the dark
world of the Devil and his
demons is always just below the surface. Sometimes, in
dark occultic tales, or
chance encounters with demonic phenomena, it emerges
full-blown into a wave of
fear that must be put into the perspective of God's
love. The non-spiritual
among us usually snickers at the very idea of a world
of demons, relegating them
to the level of myth or fantasy. However, in our
continuing discussion of
biblical time-space, we must frankly address the
pursuits and ultimate destiny
of the demons. Jesus and the Apostles made it
perfectly clear that we must not
be naive about the world of darkness.
There is a war going on. It is
staged between this dimension
and the one just beyond our sight. In the regions of
earth, wars are accompanied
by soldiers, spies, traitors, money, politics and all
manner of treachery. And
so it is in the spirit world.
As the Bible describes the great
conflict, the legions of
hell are bent upon covertly undermining and overtly
raiding the dimension that
we know as our daily reality. They are best described
as trans-dimensional
raiders. Because our world is populated with fallen
creatures, these raiders
regard us as fair game. Without the coverage of the
Lord's Holy Spirit, human
beings are quite vulnerable to their ploys.
Demons aren't stupid. They have
many methods, schemes and
tricks. Their modus operandi is to discern a point of
weakness and enter there.
Having gained access, they advance the cause of their
lord, Satan. They are
organized under his leadership through a descending
hierarchy of beings called
archons (principalties), exousions (authorities),
kosmokrators (rulers) and
pneumatikons (spiritual underlings).
Their hierarchy (perhaps it would
be more appropriate to call
it a "lowerarchy") is entirely devoted to
thwarting the Lord's redemptive plan.
Their unseen dimension seems concentrated around
planet earth, although it may
extend to the distant reaches of the solar system.
Their leader operates on the
assumption that he is lord of the planet. God seems to
have granted him that
mandate. Satan's dealings with Job provide ample
testimony that he has been
granted an earthly domain. The Lord allows him to
torment Job, just short of
taking his life:
"And the
LORD said unto Satan, Behold,
all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself
put not forth thine hand. So
Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD"
(Job 1:12).
Satan operates as a spiritual
overlord. But the dark spirits
who are his lackeys and underlings appear to function
as a bureaucracy. Like
most earthly bureaucracies, efficiency is sacrificed
to slavish obedience. One
gets the strong sense that the fallen of this world
are not in any way happy or
blessed. Rather, they function as automatons, going
through the motions of
obedience, at the same time, desperately seeking some
resolution of their own
miserable condition.
One of the
most well-known books by
Christian apologist C.S. Lewis deals with this very
subject. The Screwtape
Letters depicts hell's daily drudgery in an amusing
but sharply critical way.
Author Lewis claims to have somehow come into
possession of letters from
Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood.
Screwtape occupies what we might
call a mid-level position in
the bureaucracy of hell. His letters are preoccupied
with instructing his
underling nephew in the ways of demoralizing and
destabilizing his human
"patients." With diabolical patience and
cunning, he shows Wormwood how to lure
them away from any hope of redemption. The uncle seems
to operate at a
mid-to-upper level of management. He could be a
"ruler," or perhaps an
"authority." The nephew does the dirty work
at street level. He deals in subtle
propaganda and allure. His ploys seem part of the
competitive corporate hum. He
functions as a cog in a multi-level competitive
enterprise that is bent on
harvesting human souls for its own use.
If demons have a motive, it is to
save themselves from some
dark fate that has haunted them since the days of
Satan's fall. They operate
under eternal guilt; they know they are wrong, and
that they will be judged.
They must, therefore, suffer an extraordinary,
constant fear that they will be
caught and punished by the Great Judge.
In the New Testament, we have an
excellent example of their
situation. There, we find an account that brings
demons face-to-face with Jesus.
In the process, we discover the way in which He views
the problem of their
existence:
"And when he was come to the
other side into the country of
the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with
devils, coming out of the
tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by
that way. "And, behold,
they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee,
Jesus, thou Son of God?
art thou come hither to torment us before the time?
"And there was a good way
off from them an herd of many swine feeding. "So
the devils besought him,
saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into
the herd of swine. "And
he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out,
they went into the herd of
swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran
violently down a steep place
into the sea, and perished in the waters. "And
they that kept them fled, and
went their ways into the city, and told every thing,
and what was befallen to
the possessed of the devils. "And, behold, the
whole city came out to meet
Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that
he would depart out of
their coasts" (Matthew 8:28-34).
The Demons Know the Time
This incident, recorded here by
Matthew, and also by Mark and
Luke, affords us a remarkable view of the relationship
between the Lord of the
universe and the hoards of corrupt evil spirits who
haunt the world of men. In
all three accounts, the encounter comes immediately
after Jesus had preached in
Galilee. He and His disciples entered a boat with the
intention of crossing the
Sea of Galilee. A storm arose and threatened to swamp
their little craft, but
Jesus stilled the winds. The sea calmed and they
sailed to the east coast of the
sea.
Arriving at a little seaside
village called Gergesa (still
there today as the town of Kursi), they encountered
two demon-possessed men.
These men are described as "exceedingly
fierce," from the Greek word, chalepos.
It means "difficult to handle, or ragingly
insane."
They are possessed with demons, spirits whose normal
state is disembodiment, but
who seek to inhabit the physical bodies of living
creatures. In an episode we
will later examine, Jesus describes them as wandering
in a desert, in search of
a home. We cannot know the exact nature of this
"desert," but one thing is
certain; it is not a pleasant place. But as
intolerable as it must be, it is
still better than their ultimate destination in the
lake of fire. The story of
the men's encounter with Jesus makes this abundantly
clear.
The first and most amazing thing
that we discover in the
narrative is that the demons recognize Jesus. The
people of Gergesa and
Gadara certainly did not. Gadara, mentioned as a
capital of the local people in
Mark's and Luke's account of this episode, is about
six miles east of the sea.
This region, to the east of the sea and the Jordan
River, was called "The
Decapolis." Its Aramean population was composed
of a multitudinous jumble of
pagans who were the hapless inheritors of generations
of Seleucid rule.
Demonic power always rises to its
greatest extent in such a
culture. And in this simple encounter, we learn that
in the dimension of the
dark spirits, there is common knowledge of the
spiritual battle that rages just
beyond the visual range of ordinary human beings.
Think of it; the demons not only
knew the real identity of
Jesus, they acknowledged him as Lord, calling Him
"Son of God." Not even his
closest disciples had come to realize that He was the
God incarnate. Though they
had some dim recognition of His status, at this time,
they were still thinking
of Him as the political "Messiah ben David,"
who had come to restore David's
throne and defeat their Gentile oppressors.
Neither the Jews nor the Gentiles
of the day had come to
realize His true identity. In the entire Old
Testament, the term is used only
once, in the book of Daniel, where the three Hebrew
men were bound and thrown
into Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace. There appeared
with them a fourth man, whom
Nebuchadnezzar, himself, described as having the form
of the "Son of God."
In the New Testament, this title is
first used in the fourth
chapter of Matthew, where Jesus is tempted by the
devil. Twice, the old serpent
calls Him the "Son of God." These incidents
tell us that from the top down, the
demonic world knew the truth about Jesus. They knew
that He had come to earth on
a mission as the Son of God, to redeem this
sin-wracked place. And they knew
that if He succeeded on this mission, they were
doomed. As the angel Gabriel
told Mary, this title would accompany His
incarnation:
"And the angel answered and
said unto her, The Holy Ghost
shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest
shall overshadow thee:
therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of
thee shall be called the
Son of God" (Luke 1:35).
The demons were obviously well
informed about the
implications of this event. In retrospect, it seems
that they were remarkably
well informed about both His identity and His power.
For example, in the fifth
chapter of John, we find a statement whose
implications are often overlooked.
Humanity has to ponder the extent of its meanings. The
demons know it as a
living, moment-by-moment reality:
"For the Father judgeth no
man, but hath committed all
judgment unto the Son: "That all men should
honour the Son, even as they honour
the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth
not the Father which hath
sent him. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He
that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life,
and shall not come into
condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
"Verily, verily, I say unto
you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead
shall hear the voice of the
Son of God: and they that hear shall live. "For
as the Father hath life in
himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in
himself; "And hath given
him authority to execute judgment also, because he is
the Son of man. "Marvel
not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all
that are in the graves
shall hear his voice, "And shall come forth; they
that have done good, unto the
resurrection of life; and they that have done evil,
unto the resurrection of
damnation" (John 5:22-29).
This remarkable passage boldly
proclaims the equality of
the Son with the Father. But it begins with a
statement that the demons know all
too well. Namely, that the Father has placed all
judgment under the jurisdiction
of the Son. James, in his epistle, leaves no doubt
that demons understand
that the Righteous Judge will one day surely mete out
the penalty that they
deserve:
"Thou believest that there is
one God; thou doest well: the
devils also believe, and tremble" (James
2:19).
And what,
precisely, do they believe?
>From their outcry on the eastern shore of the sea, it
is obvious that they know
of God the Father and His Son. This means that they
must also know that He is
the Creator, and the Jehovah of the Old Testament.
They knew of His incarnation,
and must have wondered about all its ramifications.
They probably didn't know
that He would allow Himself to be crucified on
Passover, as; the Lamb of God,
which taketh away the sin of the world" (John
1:29). But they certainly knew
that this world would never be the same, now that He
had arrived.
Before What Time?
Their question to Jesus ("Art
thou come hither to torment us
before the time?") reveals that they knew that He
would punish them at an
established, future time. Actually, the word
"time" here, is translated from the
Greek kairos. This word is used to describe a due
season, or a time period when
an event or series of events is scheduled to come due.
It speaks of something
long awaited and sure to happen. It does not speak of
duration, but of
expectation. It is more than obvious that the
demons expect to be judged at a
certain future time. That is, they knew that His
first coming was not in
judgment. They expressed shock and surprise that Jesus
had appeared in
face-to-face opposition to men they had possessed.
Just what "time," were
they speaking of? In other words, when
will the Son of God advance in judgment? Obviously,
it is the Day of the
Lord, referred to by Jesus as the Great Tribulation,
called, "the hour of his
judgment" in Revelation 14:7.
Among the spirit beings of heaven,
this "time" has been
well-known for ages past. And on earth, from the dawn
of the human race, it has
been prophesied as the coming of the Lord. We call it
"the Second Coming." Since
His first coming, we have a pretty good idea of how
the events of the judgment
will proceed.
Most
probably, the dark spirits did not
know the details of His incarnation and resurrection.
Nor did they know about
the subsequent formation of His called-out body of
believers, the church. But
they knew He was coming. And so did the earliest
members of Adam's family:
"And Enoch also, the seventh
from Adam, prophesied of these,
saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of
his saints, "To execute
judgment upon all, and to convince all that are
ungodly among them of all their
ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and
of all their hard speeches
which ungodly sinners have spoken against him"
(Jude 14, 15).
The demons
obviously know about this
future time. And the demons who met Jesus that day
were deeply fearful,
begging Him not to cast them into a place from which
they would not be able to
return. Apparently, Jesus could have sent them to dark
chambers of imprisonment
and torment. But they implored Him that when they were
cast out, to be allowed
to possess a nearby herd of swine. This He did, and
when the demons inhabited
those pigs, they stampeded madly down an embankment
and into the sea.
Apparently, they had committed suicide.
Dry Places
Why? Because no matter how
uncomfortable their present
situation as wandering spirits, it was still
preferable to imprisonment; or
worse. Actually, we don't really know what Jesus had
planned to do to them. But
much of His public ministry was devoted to casting out
demons. In fact, the
sages of ancient Israel had always taught that Messiah
could be recognized by
his ability to cast out the dumb demon. This dark
spirit has the power to
completely captivate a person, so that he is unable to
speak. Jesus accomplished
this feat, as recorded in Matthew:
"Then was brought unto him one
possessed with a devil, blind,
and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind
and dumb both spake and
saw" (Matt. 12:22).
The crowd who
watched this amazing
event immediately demanded that Jesus be recognized as
Messiah. The Pharisees,
on the other hand, accused Jesus of calling upon
Beelzebub to cast out the
demons.
In the dialogue that followed,
Jesus rebuked the Pharisees
who demanded that He perform a sign to validate His
Messianic claim. In His
criticism, He described the phenomenon of demon
possession. He likened Israel to
a man who had been cleansed of a demon, only to have
it return to take up
residence again. Being comfortable, this demon then
invites his best friends to
come and share his attractive abode!
The Israel of Jesus' day had once
again fallen into apostasy
and idolatry. This rendered the nation vulnerable to
demonic assault. In the
past, there had been revivals, but the demons of
satanic worship returned; first
one, then many:
"When the unclean spirit is
gone out of a man, he walketh
through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
"Then he saith, I will
return into my house from whence I came out; and when
he is come, he findeth it
empty, swept, and garnished. "Then goeth he, and
taketh with himself seven other
spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in
and dwell there: and the
last state of that man is worse than the first. Even
so shall it be also unto
this wicked generation" (Matthew 12:43-45).
Demons
seem to regard human
habitation as a house, perhaps a home. Jesus
refers to their natural place
of habitation as "dry places." One thinks of
trackless deserts, where no comfort
can be found. There is only stark discomfort, without
amenities of any kind.
Food, water, lodging and any sense of belonging are
totally absent. Demons
wander in a hostile land, the land of hell, or hades.
We are immediately reminded of the
rich man in hades (Luke
16:19ff.), who was in torment, desiring even a drop of
water to cool his tongue.
Like the demons, the rich man was consigned to a place
of torment, awaiting the
final judgment.
What Is Hell?
As we have often noted, the
underworld is a very real place.
In the Old Testament, it is a place of waiting. Sheol
is both the place of
Abraham's abode and the habitat of imprisoned spirits.
It seems to be a parallel
dimension that lies very close to the one we call
reality. Between us and the
region of the spirits, the veil is quite thin.
We have an excellent illustration
of this in the life of
Israel's ancient king, Saul. Because of his failure to
execute the Lord's
command to destroy Amalek, he had been banished from
the throne, to be replaced
by David. From then on, he was obsessed by the
consequences of his own failure,
and Israel's subsequent calamities. The prophet
Samuel, upon whom he had deeply
depended for advice and spiritual counsel, had
recently died. Saul was
inconsolable. Somehow, he knew he had to speak with
Samuel. In desperation, he
visited a woman at Endor, who had a "familiar
spirit." In modern terms, we would
call her a spirit medium. She was practicing the
iniquitous art called
"necromancy," calling up the spirits of the
departed. With the help of an
intruding demon, she was able to communicate with the
underworld. Saul, who had
recently banned all necromancers from the land of
Israel, knew very well that he
was breaking God's law. Nevertheless, he instructed
her to bring back the spirit
of the departed Samuel: "Then said the
woman, Whom
shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, Bring me up
Samuel.
"And when the woman saw
Samuel, she cried with a loud voice:
and the woman spake to Saul, saying, Why hast thou
deceived me? for thou art
Saul. "And the king said unto her, Be not afraid:
for what sawest thou? And the
woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the
earth. "And he said unto
her, What form is he of? And she said, An old man
cometh up; and he is covered
with a mantle. And Saul perceived that it was Samuel,
and he stooped with his
face to the ground, and bowed himself. "And
Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou
disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am
sore distressed; for the
Philistines make war against me, and God is departed
from me, and answereth me
no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore
I have called thee, that
thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do"
(I Samuel 28:11-15).
The brazen and willful Saul had
spawned a wicked act. Samuel
had been rousted from his place of rest in sheol;
Abraham's Bosom. This was not
supposed to happen. Through His prophets, God had made
it plain that the
underworld was to remain inviolable. But this
remarkable incident shows us that,
if one chooses to break God's law, it is a simple
thing to violate the barrier
that stands between us and the world of the spirits.
Saul, in disguise, had
tricked the medium into calling up Samuel. When he
arrived; to the shocked
surprise of the woman; the chicanery was exposed, and
an angered Samuel
delivered the ex-king a horrible decree:
"Moreover the LORD will also
deliver Israel with thee into
the hand of the Philistines: and to morrow shalt thou
and thy sons be with me:
the LORD also shall deliver the host of Israel into
the hand of the Philistines"
(I Samuel 28:19).
The deposed
Saul had received a death
sentence. In his arrogant selfishness, he had gone too
far. Even after death,
Samuel spoke the prophetic word that Saul and his sons
would die. And that they
did, in ignominious defeat at the hands of the
Philistines. Deprived even of the
death of a warrior hero, the wounded Saul fell upon
his own sword.
The medium of Endor had opened a
forbidden door to the spirit
world. In a split second, the spirits instantly
enabled her to discern Saul's
true identity. Having done so, she cried out in
fright, because the monarch had
lately banned all necromancers from the land. But he
assured her that he was
only interested in obtaining an audience with the dead
prophet. He asked her
what she saw, and she told him she "saw gods
ascending out of the earth."
In Hebrew, she used the term for
"gods" or "celestial beings"
coming up from beneath the earth (that is, from
sheol). She seems actually to
have been shocked when Samuel arose, wearing his
prophet's mantel, the miel that
had been a badge of his earthly office.
She had prophesied by the ob, a
familiar spirit who would do
her bidding, but Samuel appeared in a powerful way
that exercised authority over
her accustomed spirit guide. Of course, Saul knew all
too well that the Law of
Moses strictly forbade his illicit activities:
"There shall not be found
among you any one that maketh his
son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that
useth divination, or an
observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,
"Or a charmer, or a consulter
with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
"For all that do these
things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because
of these abominations the
LORD thy God doth drive them out from before
thee" (Deuteronomy 18:10-12).
Obtaining access to forbidden
powers can be accomplished
through a variety of occult practices. The black arts
run the gamut from infant
sacrifice, through astrology, drug-induced trances,
dark invocations, mediumship
and sorcery. The Lord has forbidden them all. The
reason seems obvious.
Sinful man desires power, and believes that he can
manipulate the forces and
beings of the other world to his own advantage.
Actually, he is playing the
fool. He is the one being manipulated; by wicked
beings whose experience extends
back into the distant past. It is for man's own
good, that he is warned away
from contact with the dark spirits.
But why hasn't the Lord simply made
the veil so strong that
it can't be penetrated? The Bible's answer is that
Satan has some prescriptive
right to this planet. He was allowed into the Garden
of Eden to tempt the first
couple. His fallen angels were allowed to enter this
dimension and corrupt the
human genome. They coupled with earth's women,
producing a strain of monsters,
whose souls were beyond redemption.
After the Flood of Noah, he allowed
the same spirits to
influence the worship of the Babylonians,
Medo-Persians, Greeks and Romans. In
fact, the native residents of all the world's
continents had systems of worship
based upon the dragon, the serpent and the demons. In
China, the dragon is still
exalted. If you doubt it, visit the nearest Chinese
restaurant. In the ancient
Americas, the feathered serpent was honored as the
source of all power.
Sorcerers and shamans have long
practiced the art of
penetrating the forbidden veil. Rather than closing
it, the Lord gives His
redeemed the choice of avoiding it; or not. In His
grace, He extends to man, the
honor of making the proper choice. Then, through His
Spirit, He has given man
the power to uphold that choice.
The spirit leaders of hades
apparently have the power to wage
war, but the focal point of their assault is the body
of the redeemed. Jesus
once plainly told His disciples that these powers (He
called them "gates") would
be a constant threat, but in the end, would be
vanquished:
"And I say also unto thee,
That thou art Peter, and upon this
rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it"
(Matthew 16:18).
In the rules of warfare, He has
forbidden any form of
communication between this world and the underworld;
hades.
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