Month: June 2022

The lunatic world of demonic warfare

eejoseph, , ,

You may not have heard it and hopefully you will not have to endure the sideshow but blaming every variation from our creature comforts on spirits.  Children behaving badly is because of a spirit.  Financial,  interpersonal, and interracial problems are the result of spirit activity.  If humans were something more than flesh (and  blood!) the analysis might hold water.  The decisive battles of human existence  and destiny are not being fought against evil spirits; demons.  Christ has so destroyed the devil’s works, there is no need to create the impression that Christ’s followers are enrolled in an “arrest and jail” operation against demons.

Angels and people

Demons are not flesh and blood creatures, and humans are not spirit beings.   Demons are angels, beings in essence more like God than humans.   They exist in three environments: heaven, earth, and tartarus (a kind of house arrest action for rebel angels, mentioned by Peter 2:24 ),  The idea that humans can send demons to a hell is not merely without foundation, it is lunacy. 

Demons, the engine for bogus discipleship

But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons…

1 Timothy 4:1

If you read what follows the first verse from 1st Timothy 4 you would have discovered that there is hypocrisy in the demonic influence and that the hypocrisy is the behavior of the departing believers.  They are the ones “speaking lies” (a once-used term, oral falsifying, ψευδολογος, pseudologos) in playacting.

A demon-influenced person can be expected to have a primary interest in the following:

  • forbidding marriage (total ban, interracial, international)
  • advocating for abstinence from foods (seasonal and  categories such as clean, unclean, vegan, animal)
  • denying God’s creation of all good things
  • showing their ingratitude for all things (and people)
  • opposing the sanctifying power of God’s word and prayer (1 Timothy 4:3-5, NASB)

There is no question that Catholicism is a hotbed of playacting doctrines.  Catholicism recommends seasonal food restrictions, celibacy regimes and perpetual virginity.  There are rules about who one can marry, there are prayers to saints, there is making Mary a mediator, and the veneration of objects.  This departure from the faith is seen in one or more particulars all over Christianity.

A notch below angels

A popular mantra, which does not deserve the label “doctrine” is  “man is a spiritual being”, because it stands opposite the facts.  God formed man “dust of the ground”, and refers to him as follows.

  • flesh and blood
  • flesh
  • all flesh

What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him?  Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty!  You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet,  All sheep and oxen, And also the beasts of the field…

Psalms 8:4-7

Good and bad service providers

Humans are at their best in this age as servants and have a date with angelic likeness. The great among us are those who serve.  Of the angels we read, “Are they not all ministering [[on-duty]] spirits, sent out to render service [[= doing “deacon” service]] for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?” (Hebrews 1:14, NASB). 

In the likeness of angels

The Lord himself gives a picture of what the future eternal existence is like when he says, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; for they cannot even die anymore, because they are like angels, and are sons of God, being sons [[the products]] of the resurrection.” (Luke 20:34-36, NASB). 

Now we know that angels are not the way they are through resurrection, so let’s not take this saying out of its field.  It is a bogus Christian who claims to have no service commission.  It is equally bogus for citizens of any country to think that they have only the pursuit of liberty and happiness and no duty to serve their families and communities.

The possible and the inevitable

There is another narrative that talks about the eternal – unending – punishment of those who have not measured up to God’s call and standard. This narrative runs parallel to the one about how separate God is from sin without acknowledging God’s personal investment in paying the price for sin.  In a rush to make God a hardline law and order operative they have created a case in which the world would never be rid of rebellion and resistance as long as there are demons and people burning forever in torment.   At some point the universe will be rid of all such annoyances and Scripture is graphic about that as well. The lunatic fringe is on display everywhere dishonouring the name of Christ with political convictions, neo-Israel and mighty warrior delusions.

Gods of no account

eejoseph

The difference between god, gods, and God may make little sense, but in a world where a single deity is said to be real the difference is like night and day,  and quite literally, like life and death.  We may think it is weird for a person to have a god fashioned by human hands, but even the people with an invisible deity have tons of objects that assist them in their devotion; objects ranging from literature to charms, amulets, objects of mysterious origin and worldwide fame.  When a city gangster pulls a pocket knife on Crocodile Dundee, a rugged Aussie outdoorsman, he pulls out a humongous blade, saying, “That’s not a knoife. This is a knoife”.  A real deity cannot be ranked by size, or the number of devotees. Most ancestral or tribal deities are just that; ancestral and tribal, and the imagination of people wanting to be recognized as associates and friends, if not outright deities themselves, of a great deity are too many to count.

Wazzup and what’s coming up

An incident in Yeshua’s life illustrates how connected intelligent people can be to daily life.  The Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Jesus, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. But He replied to them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ “And in the morning, ‘There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ “Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times?  An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” And He left them and went away.” (Matthew 16:1-4, NASB)

Isaiah had a rough time dealing with people who saw themselves as God’s messengers or officials of some sort.  I suspect he may have had a chuckle or two from what they were claiming.  Isaiah’s generation was not very different from ours in this century 2500 years later.  People expected God to advance their interests and they put God, his interest and his instruction, at arms length.  They could not be convinced that calamity was knocking at their doors.

Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place; As for the former events, declare what they were, That we may consider them and know their outcome. Or announce to us what is coming; (Isaiah 41:22, NASB)

A genuine deity ought to know past and future equally

Declare the things that are going to come afterward, That we may know that you are gods; Indeed, do good or evil, that we may anxiously look about us and fear together. (Isaiah 41:23, NASB)

Behold, you are of no account, And your work amounts to nothing; He who chooses you is an abomination. (Isaiah 41:24, NASB)

Mankind has built nothing bigger than a single neighbourhood. The gods we have fashioned are dwarfed by the failed empires. There are god who affect nothing in the world, who do not see or hear, and are carried about by people even when they have legs and feet. We have not forgotten the Egyptian deities who were decisively exposed by the events in the Hebrew exodus from Egypt. It is surprising that the Egyptians did not calculate that the sun was going to die, or notice that the moon was scarred by meteorite bombardment and was barren lifeless. The ancestral homeland of Jacob was known for its amulets – called gods, elohim and teraphim in Jacob’s departure from Padan-aram.

Now you have indeed gone away because you longed greatly for your father’s house; but why did you steal my gods (elohim)? (Genesis 31:30, NASB)

Jacob’s uncle wants to know

“Now Rachel had taken the household idols (teraphim) and put them in the camel’s saddle, and she sat on them. And Laban felt through all the tent but did not find them.” (Genesis 31:34, NASB)

Exactly what was Laban looking for

“She said to her father, “Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the manner of women is upon me.” So he searched but did not find the household idols (teraphim).” (Genesis 31:35, NASB)

The household gods were untouchable because Rachel had put them in a virtual vault: the circumstance of her menstrual flow and the camel saddle on which she was sitting.

Why one is more than enough

Hold your horses, tanks, missiles, firearms, homicidal state warriors, and perjured justices! Most people expect a deity to protect, defend them, and supply their needs, even those things people can easily do for themselves. Deities are supposed to have excessive kinds of powers that are represented by military and people-in-council. Obviously, amulets, charms and idols neither see, nor hear, much less aim, fire weapons successfully. They most certainly do not have any wisdom to impart to intelligent human beings. One blank stare from a carved deity, one sacrifice it can never consume, one tear it can never dry, is sufficient to end the illusion that any dead material or living entity we can control, can be confined to a country, city, house or box is a deity.