“So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons, after whom they whore. This shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations.”
Leviticus 17:7
“Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.”
Acts 19:13-16
Just as there may be active spiritual beings on the side of God, there most certainly are evil beings on the side of the adversary. You know from previous sections about the theory that Satan has a priority list when it comes to temptation, and individuals on the intermediate tier of importance are in theory tempted by demons.
This is one possibility for the activity of evil spiritual beings in the modern day – they are tempting men directly or indirectly through circumstances. Again, this is just a possibility, not a certainty. We can only speculate – this is a thought exercise, not a teaching on doctrine.
We also know from the Bible that demons were once directly active: possessing people, controlling them, and making them take action against their will.
Examples of this can be found in Matthew 8:28-34, Mark 5:1-20, and Acts 19:13-16.
Demons do not do that anymore. There is no evidence of this. To suggest that demons are completely inactive, however, does not seem likely either.
Obviously, we can only speculate, but why would a vast number of spiritual beings sit idle when they have a mission to destroy the church and lead individuals astray?
Demons are not just sitting around doing nothing. They are likely active just as angels are likely active, and their missions directly oppose each other.
Demons may be more passive now, trying to tempt us rather than trying to possess us.
They give us opportunities to fail. They study us and tempt us using our personal weaknesses. C.S. Lewis’s book The Screwtape Letters was arguably the greatest story about demon activity, personalized weakness, and resultant spiritual introspection that the world has ever seen, in my opinion.
The book is about how demons tempt men and the strategies they use in doing so, yet the book can also be used as a tool to look into ourselves and see why we take certain actions and why we desire various evils.
Satan does not have the time to tempt everyone himself. He is not omnipresent. Nor is he omniscient. Because he does not have those God-like qualities, he may delegate and decentralize the task of temptation to his subordinates, otherwise, nothing will ever get done outside of his personal work.
Some people think could be that there are demons on Earth in the form of men just as there could be angels on Earth in the form of men.
This, again, is mere speculation and cannot be proved. Nor does it seem to be very likely. Being in human form would allow demons to create temptation that appears to be harmless interactions among men. Demons could pull other men to do wrong just by getting them to go to the bar for a few drinks or something along those lines. It would be tempting because the invitation would come from a “friend”, who is a demon and you don’t realize it yet.
There may be no demons anywhere on Earth just as there may be no angels on Earth either, we can only speculate, we cannot know everything.
However, there may be a mental benefit to thinking that there are demons on Earth. This thought would make us more vigilant and aware of the possibility of temptation and the presence of vices that draw in our personality by their very nature. Awareness of the possibility of demons makes us more apt to avoid temptation or to recognize “demonic activity” where we think we see it. This itself is a tool, and we as men should never reject a tool that could benefit us in our work.
Mantra
None
Application
Avoid the trappings of demons and the devil. Conduct yourselves like men.