Demons and us (part 1)

Grudem suggests that there is no reason to believe that there is any less demonic activity in the world today than there was at the time of the New Testament. How can we recognise demonic activity? How can we deal with it?

The New Testament gives only limited, and indirect, instructions with regards the casting out of demons. Its main instructions concern resisting sin and living in righteousness. Although demonic activity may be very real it is not to be the centre of our preoccupations. Our central aim should be to share the gospel and live lives that honour God. Grudem points that there is no mention of 'strategic level spiritual warfare' or that demonic strongholds need to be broken over an area before the gospel can be effectively proclaimed there. The instruction is simply to preach the gospel. As we go about our lives as Christians we may become aware of demonic activity and so be called to pray against it. One of the ways to counteract the devil's schemes is to keep our thinking biblical.

1 John emphasises that the hostile acts of unbelievers may have demonic influence or origin. He points our that all those who are not born again are of the devil. 'When we . . . see that Satan is thought of as the originator of lies, murder, deception, false teaching, and sin generally, then it seems reasonable to conclude that the New Testament wants us to understand that there is some degree of demonic influence in nearly all wrongdoing and sin that occurs today. Not all sin is caused by Satan or demons, nor is the major influence or cause of sin demonic activity, but demonic activity is probably a factor in almost all sin and almost all destructive activity that opposes the work of God in the world today. 'In severe cases, like those recorded in the gospels, demonic influence shows itself in bizarre and often violent actions, especially in opposition to the preaching of the gospel. The violent actions might be particularly shown in actions aimed at destroying the affected person.

In healing Peter's mother-in-law there is the impression that her illness was demonic-he rebuked the fever, and it left her (Luke 4:39). On many other occasions Jesus simply prayed or spoke a word and the person was healed, and there is no impression that their illness was demonic.

While not all false teaching is necessarily demonically inspired blatant false teaching made by people claiming to be speaking by the power of the Holy Spirit may seem to be. 'When in Corinth there was active, entrenched opposition to Paul's apostolic authority by those who claimed to be apostles but were not, Paul saw them as servants of Satan disguised as servants of righteousness (2 Cor. 11:13-15)' (Grudem).

The gift of being able to distinguish between spirits (1 Cor. 12:10) would seem to include an awareness of demonic influence. In all believers there may be times where we are given an awareness of the demonic influences in people. Regarding general spiritual perception Grudem writes, 'In the ordinary course of life today. sometimes Christians will have a subjective sense that someone see is a Christian before they have opportunity to find out that that is in fact the case. And it seems likely that an opposite spiritual perception could also occur from time to time, whereby the believer would sense the presence of demonic influence in a person's life before there were other, more objective indications of that fact.'