Then [the King] will say to those on his left,
'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and
his angels…
1 Corinthians
10:19-22 & Matthew 25:41
Demons are
spiritual creatures that almost everyone knows about without knowing very much
about what they are really like. Unfortunately, too much of what we think we
know derives from the imaginations of medieval artists or modern video games rather
than what the Bible actually says about them.
Or perhaps C S
Lewis’ classic Christian satire, The
Screwtape Letters, has been rather too successful, inadvertently leaving us
with the idea of well-educated demons acting like business managers and concerned
about the careers of their young relatives.
Jesus of
Nazareth referred to demons as fallen angels and unclean spirits: spirits are
currents of the air that are rational beings but, being ‘unclean’, are evil,
lewd, lustful and vulgar. The Bible has examples of people who were ‘demon
possessed’, although this is not a very good translation of the original
language, which speak of people being aggravated or oppressed by them. Demons
do not come from hell but hell was created to punish and destroy them: it is in
their future. For now, demons are proactively rebelling against God and
delighting to annoy, trick, trap and oppress people.
St Paul warned
the Christians in Corinth that although there was nothing to the pagan idols,
that the ‘gods’ they represented had no real existence, nevertheless idolatry
is a vehicle for demons to use to attack the purposes of God and his people.
For Christians
to participate in idolatry, even on the fringes, was disloyal to God and they
put themselves in harm’s way. And by deliberately putting themselves in harm’s
way, they were testing God and his promise to look after them. It is one thing
to trust God in difficult situations but to rely on his goodness when indulging
our desires is not really trust but presumption.
By joining in pagan festivals, the Christians not only gave credibility to those gods, they not only were disloyal to the true God, they not only served pagan ideas, they not only tested the the true God who was faithful to them but they made themselves vulnerable to the influence of demons!
By joining in pagan festivals, the Christians not only gave credibility to those gods, they not only were disloyal to the true God, they not only served pagan ideas, they not only tested the the true God who was faithful to them but they made themselves vulnerable to the influence of demons!
By trying to
serve money as well as God, living as dictated by financial need or expediency, running businesses like capitalists and
conforming to the consumer society, Christians today risk serving pagan ideas, testing God and making themselves vulnerable to a host of dark influences.
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Scripture
quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright
© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by
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Handling
money and dealing with debt can be complicated and neither the author nor
anyone else involved in the production of these Reflections is responsible for
any action you take, or fail to take, based on what is written here.
