“Demons”…when that word is mentioned, many people bring to mind the graphic and offensive images of actress Linda Blair playing the role of Regan MacNeil, a demon-possessed 12-year-old girl in the 1973 horror film, “The Exorcist.” Others conjure thoughts of Ouija boards, witch’s covens, black magic, human sacrifices, and Satan worship, all things of sinister evil that don’t top the best choice list
for late-night reading before falling asleep. Those things are not the character of this series of books nor my motivation for writing them. If it were, I wouldn’t read them either!
Why then? Why a book about demons? To be more precise, they are not books about demons but rather certain doctrines that demonic spirits carry about and, more importantly, how to dismantle those doctrines in our modern culture – hence the title, “Dismantling Doctrines of Demons.” To dismantle something requires a systematic process. You don’t just take a sledgehammer to a wall you want to remove in the house. If you don’t take the time to inspect & analyze the wall and ensure it is not weight-bearing to the structure, you are liable to cause the ceiling to cave in!
Inspecting and analyzing demonic doctrines to determine the weight-bearing influence they are having on our modern culture seems to me an insight every believer would want to understand. Jesus never backed away from demonic presence and influence in His culture, so why would we shy away from the reality in ours? In fact, Jesus directly confronted these surrogates of darkness and dealt them a dismantling blow!
I’m not proposing that every believer should take on the role of exorcist as Jesus occasionally did. I’m sure there are real persons who are actually possessed by real demonic spirits across our land. If you can’t imagine that, just talk with some of our Christian missionaries who serve in foreign & pagan lands. They will share testimonies with you that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up! Just as sure as Jesus is alive and well at the right hand of the Father, Satan is alive and well on planet earth, and just as the Holy Spirit of Christ indwells & possesses the lives of true believers, demonic spirits can indwell & possess the lives of lost persons across our world.
Satan is subtle and appealing. Just ask Eve. We may not see the gross disfiguring features that Jesus encountered in His day or that which Hollywood makeup artists graphically depict in our day. I’m proposing that demonic activity today is much more covert, shrouded in common legitimacy, and perpetuated by respected members of society, government, education, the media, and even religious institutions, with little awareness of what they are actually advancing. The shifting values and radical changes we are seeing across the American landscape are not just the competitive ideologies of partisan government. I contend there are diabolical doctrines – systems of beliefs & practices – that are compelling these unprecedented moves.
The book series, in fact, is based on the revelation of the Apostle Paul when he wrote – But the Spirit explicitly says that in the later times, some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons (I Timothy 4:1). Therein lies the divine source of this revelation, the season of human history in which it will come to pass, the separation it will serve to produce, the surrogates that will facilitate the process, and the standard of evil that define its values. While other doctrines could certainly be at play, I see five basic ones having the most impact on our society and world: dominance, deception, division, deviation, and death. The prophetic nature of Paul’s revelation can mean nothing less than these sinister influences and activities are feeding the world directly into the dictatorial aspirations of the Tribulation antichrist and his one-world system of government, global economy, and a unified religion of abominable desolation.
So, this is why a book about demons. It might equally be characterized as a book series about spiritual warfare and the role of each believer as soldiers on the battlefield with the Lord. The battles are being waged in our nation’s capital, the news media, the legislature, the judiciary, the public schools, and the entertainment industry. If we are not taking up and putting on the armor of God, wielding those weapons on the frontline of the battlefield, then we are likely more a casualty of that war than the conquerors God declared us to be.
I’m convinced that the church can no longer allow the world to silence our voices and beat us back into our corner based on their erroneous misunderstanding of “the separation of church and state.” Radical evil is on the increase because Satan and his sinister forces are running out of time, but the clock ticking on their eternal fate of torment is the same clock ticking on our eternal promise of redemption. In the meantime, I am hoping these books will help call the church to rise up out of her complacency and fight the good fight for God & right while we still have time!
Rick M. Smith
Pastor, Author & Speaker
Opmerkingen