Into the Abyss: Understanding Demonic Origins and Spiritual Battles

Are you prepared to pull back the curtain on the intriguing subject of demonic origins and spiritual warfare? Let's journey together into the realm of the unseen and the misunderstood, where we'll explore ancient texts and controversial theories. We'll navigate through biblical accounts of fallen angels, the enigmatic Nephilim, and the disturbing mythology of half-gods. But let's be clear - our quest is not purely academic. It's about strengthening our faith, and rooting our hearts deeper into the gospel.

Unsettling as it may be, we'll ponder over the Nephilim and their wandering spirits, speculated to wreak havoc on earth. We'll dissect biblical warnings about deceptive spirits and doctrines of demons conspiring against God’s work. From Satan's mimicry of divine hierarchy to his sway over his demonic subordinates, we'll leave no stone unturned. We'll even delve into the controversial belief that the intermingling of fallen angels and humans gave birth to destructive spirits. As we venture deeper, we'll contemplate the spiritual dimensions of mental health and the pressing need for deliverance ministry within our churches.

In the final act of our exploration, we'll underscore the power of faith communities in deliverance and the essential role of wisdom in combating demonic influences. Let's unpack the basics of deliverance together, and see how this understanding can fortify our faith. We'll peruse the biblical text, discovering how a deeper comprehension of these spiritual realities can change our perspectives of the world. So, brace yourselves for a spiritual adventure, unafraid and unashamed, holding fast to the truth that all praise and honor belong to Jesus.

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:08

Alright, welcome to the show. This is FireDove and I'm Logan, your host and today's episode. We are going to help lay some of the foundations for discussions on our very specific topic right now. One of the listeners had actually asked for this and I think that was a good direction for us to go in this kind of help bring an awareness to what we are talking about in depth, because, I mean, for so long, so many churches have never taught any of this. This is not a new revelation. This is not a new teaching. It's just been ignored when it comes to the American and Canadian type of Western church. If you go to other parts of the world and you talk about spiritual warfare, it's just a matter of fact of living. However, in the experience of most American churches, even Jellicle churches, southern Baptist churches being the largest denomination it's likely that you're not going to hear this type of teaching. And it's important because it's about one third of the gospel, what we're commanded to do, so let's get into it. So the whole topic of demons as a whole, right, don't feel like absolutely everything in the world is a demon. There are plenty of other things to blame. Living in a fallen, sinful world, the flesh, personal pride, desires, all those things like those are serious contributors when it comes to what is to blame for bad things happening in the world, and God allows those things to happen. And so, while we talk about demons, don't think for a minute that I think that absolutely everything is demonic in this world and we need to live in a little hole in the ground. And no, absolutely not. We should, you know, walk in the spirit, be aware of what's around us, and then we should proclaim the gospel. The gospel is the number one thing. That comes first at all times. The gospel is more important than deliverance, because salvation and knowing that your name is written in the book of life in heaven and that you're adopted into the kingdom of God through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that is the number one thing. So, before I get into any of this, before I get blamed for just focusing too much on demons, just realize that this is a specialized podcast that talks about spiritual warfare and ways to help strengthen the body of Christ, no matter what denomination or background you have, and I just want to help bring some clarity to the scripture and how I've experienced God work in my own life. Okay, according to the Bible. The origins of the demons are not explicitly outlined really anywhere in great detail, at no point in the Bible it says demons come from here. It does have different passages and different insights that give proof to their existence, but not necessarily their origin, and so there's a couple different thought processes that people have when it comes to demons where they come from. And so, for starters, in this episode what I'd really like to do is just find an opportunity to kind of talk about those and kind of outline, you know, the 30,000 foot view of looking down on the topic.

Speaker 0: 2:57

You have what are typically called fallen angels and many Christians believe that demons are fallen angels. In the book of Revelation it talks about it. It mentions there's a war in heaven with Satan and that Satan was once called Lucifer. But Satan is a title, it means the accuser, it's a legal term, there's a lot of legal terms in scripture and he took one third of the angels with him and they rebelled against God and they were cast out of heaven. You see that in Revelation 12, 7 through 9. These fallen angels are commonly referred to as demons. Now they roam around and actively oppose God's work and since they cannot hurt God directly hurting his people is the only way that they can find a means to do that, and God allows that. He uses everything for good. Right, think about how that could be a possibility. They're also known as the Watchers fallen angels or Watchers If you start getting into some books that are not directly in the Bible, and we can talk about the book of Jasher, giants and Enoch in future episodes. However, the term Watchers is also an appropriate name to use for fallen angels.

Speaker 0: 4:02

Another way to look at this is the Nephilim and their offspring. So in the book of Genesis it introduces the term Nephilim, which refers to a group of beings mentioned before the Great Flood, which you see in Genesis 6, 1 through 4. So their exact nature or origin of the Nephilim is debated. Some interpretations of it bring this idea to light that they have relations with human women, and it suggests that the spirits that are, these hybrid, half-human, half-fallen angel, have nowhere to go. There's no atonement for them, there's no sacrifice for them, because they're not human, and it also gives great rationale for the reason. If they were overtaking the earth and killing all the people, kind of think of like demigod type stuff, think of like Hercules or Perseus or these types of things you see in Greek mythology or Roman mythology, those sort of things. When you start to look at those and there are similar stories of those sort of half gods in Egyptian, babylonian, all those types of cultures. They have accounts of this type of thing, and so it's important to realize like there is partial truth in some of this mythology and what we have to do is we have to take what is clear in scripture and then we need to make sure that we move forward with using the lens of scripture and not just forcing things upon the text, because we aren't going to know everything in this.

Speaker 0: 5:26

I'm reading the Christian Standard Bible and in chapter 6 of Genesis, the first few verses kind of go over what we're talking about in greater detail from this idea. It says when mankind began to multiply on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw the daughters of mankind. So if you take a moment there, the sons of God, they can't be human because it says the daughters of mankind right after that. So there's a distinction between these two. They saw the daughters of mankind were beautiful and they took any they chose as wives for themselves. So something not human took wives for themselves and the Lord said my spirit will not remain with mankind forever because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 years. So that's where God puts a limit on the longevity and vitality of a human being, not being able to go older than 120 years. And simply we're not seeing that now, are we? It says the Nephilim were on the earth both in those days and afterward, and afterward means after the flood is what's referring to when the sons of God came to the daughters of mankind were bore children to them. They were powerful men of old, the famous men. So that seems like a pretty good explanation, if you ask me right there. That's a logical conclusion.

Speaker 0: 6:44

And with any of this in this topic, if this is something that's really foreign to you, always consider, just pray about it. Ask God, ask the Holy Spirit, your counselor, your comforter, ask him specifically to reveal the truth to you, and he'll be faithful to that. And he'll do it through different ways. And I know that's kind of a hard thing to think about. But you have under the second idea of the Nephilim offspring and their spirits having nowhere to go, for them to be wandering around the earth to cause destruction and cause harm towards God. That makes a lot of sense, and there's a few other things that you can talk about too. So we have deceptive spirits.

Speaker 0: 7:20

In different parts of the Bible, including the New Testament, it mentions demons that are deceptive spirits. An example of that would be 1 Timothy 4, 1. It warns about deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons when Paul is writing to Timothy. That would lead people astray from the faith or the truth. These verses imply that demons have a malevolent nature and are actively seeking to mislead and oppose the work of God, and that's important to know, because their goal is to either keep you from being saved or it's to completely take you off the path and make you fall away from the faith or have have doubt in different things, so to have doctrines of demons. And those are things that we certainly see today still very alive in the church.

Speaker 0: 8:04

And you know, you see new age coming into the church and I've seen in my experience, I would say, an interesting thing where you have a lot of people stepping out of witchcraft and stepping out of new age and stepping out of new thought. Or I haven't met anyone in Scientology personally, but Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons and these people that come to the truth of who Jesus is and, because of their backgrounds, many of them have a much more supernatural awareness than the average churchgoer has in a very traditional conservative congregation. And I'm seeing God move in powerful ways as he restores his church. He is taking people that have a supernatural awareness and moving them into places where they can at least speak on the topic in a number of forums and that's causing an awakening. You're seeing deliverance ministry renew and it's part of revival, I believe.

Speaker 0: 8:55

I think that a large issue with mental health and our culture at large there is. There is a spiritual aspect to it. There are chemical imbalances, there are isolation, social media, all those things. It's a perfect storm, but there is an element of spiritual doctrines, of demons and deceiving spirits that are leading and causing more havoc towards the mental health of our people, and we're seeing them act out in super violent, terrible ways and we need to acknowledge that there might be something more going on. Something else that we could consider is Satan's influence.

Speaker 0: 9:30

Satan is often referred to as like the leader or the chief of demons and he's like the top general right. He's in charge of evil entities, demonic entities, and so in the Gospel, jesus encounters lots of different people, possessed at different times, and he casts them out. He does that in Mark 5, 1 through 20. And Satan you know he's called the ruler of darkness, father of lies, king of the air exists. You know he has an influence of demons, that he has a hierarchy, and so he always takes whatever God does. Satan can't create anything. So what does he do? He mimics it, and so maybe you're familiar with the term as above, so below, and you see a picture of like a tree, and then the root system is mirrored to have the same way as like the branches and the way that they stretch out. Or you might see a mirror image of like a castle or something in the occult and in the you know, the darker religions up there. That's a very well known term. As above, so below. And what does that mean? Well, as above, so below means that there is a very specific mirroring of hierarchy. So you know God is at the top of righteousness and what is good and alive, and so Satan is associated with death and he's at the top and he has a hierarchy and there is a ranking of his spirits and he dispatches them to different territory. Spirits are very territorial, and so they have very specific roles and they have very specific orders on how they need to oppose God really. So consider looking at something like that and further looking into that.

Speaker 0: 11:05

I'm not going to go too deep into that. Those are, you know, some different thoughts on when it comes to where do demons come from. That we can at least extract from scripture. If you were to ask me personally, I would go with the second option being Nephilim and their spirits, offspring of human women and fallen angels. And it makes total sense, because there's other parts and passages in scripture that talk specifically about certain spirits being locked in darkness, and I think that a lot of the fallen angels would fall into that category, the really destructive ones. I mean, satan's still allowed to operate regardless, and so we have to acknowledge that.

Speaker 0: 11:41

And so, you know, the Bible does not provide an exhaustive explanation of where demons come from. But these passages that I kind of just mentioned, just to give you an idea of where to start maybe, is going to show that there are fallen angels, there are some sort of intermingling between humans and between fallen angels, and there are deceptive spirits, and an influence of Satan is a factor in the walk of every Christian meaning to be aware of it. I mean, god gives us the spirit to truly give us discernment, and that's important. And so there is a theology behind understanding this. But let's be real as people, we fail so much every single day and fallen descent and temptations and things, that the Bible is focused on the important topic first. It focuses on Jesus. It focuses on the Father, it focuses on the Holy Spirit. It shows us the patterns that humanity continues to go through over and over again.

Speaker 0: 12:40

And what do we do with that? We take that and we realize that in this podcast. Yes, we're talking about spiritual warfare, but we need to keep our eyes fixed on Christ at all times, just like Peter walking on the water. What happens? He takes his eyes off of Jesus and that's when he falls. And so, for each of us, we need to have a deep, meaningful relationship with Jesus, christ as our Savior, and look to him for the guidance.

Speaker 0: 13:04

The Bible could have gone into more detail, but truly it doesn't need to. We see our Christ, our Savior, interact with them, expel them, command us to do so, and, aside from that, we need to just make sure that the gospel is always coming first at all times. And so that kind of gets me into the next thing, which is so we can look at scripture, we can look at how different people are demonized or possessed or oppressed or any of those things, and it's important to know that. Remember, if you've listened to other episodes on here, that a Christian cannot be possessed. They are not owned by a spirit, but they can be influenced by a spirit, and so I wanted to take a moment to do that, because that really is the elephant in the room. The whole point of this entire episode probably comes down to the elephant in the room being.

Speaker 0: 13:55

Can a Christian experience demonic oppression? And I'm going to tell you yes. And the reason I'm going to tell you yes is because I see it clearly in the Word of God and I consistently experience, as I'm doing, deliverance as a vessel of the Holy Spirit working through me. I see Christians have demons come out of them and it's very clear that somebody else is driving the bus at some point, because you'll be talking to someone and it's not the same person anymore and their eyes and their face and their words, their voice change and their mannerisms drastically change. There's no way to, I'm not capable of faking something like that, and it's just the power of Jesus and the blood of the in his perfect sacrifice being declared over and over and Having very pointed prayers, and how powerful that is when it comes to setting Christians free from oppression.

Speaker 0: 14:48

Remember the word possession is never actually in the Bible. The word demonized is about the closest thing. So we use the term oppression and you can be internally oppressed in the flesh, or you can be externally oppressed and a lot of times after you go through deliverance, you'll real, you'll. You'll hear like Thoughts in your head that truly aren't yours and they'll be like oh yeah, you didn't really get set free, you didn't really. That wasn't real. You're still, we're still here, blah, blah, blah, and it's just them slamming on the outside door Trying to get attention and eventually those dumb spirits will will carry on and move on in another way. So just consider that with this discussion.

Speaker 0: 15:24

So let's, let's use the Bible a little bit and look at this topic as we proceed forward. Right, here, I'm gonna all right. So now that we've kind of talked through some of the basics of what demons are, where they come from, as far as what we can Extract from the word, now I'd like to move into another spot where we talk about the case for Christians having demonic oppression. And, as I always say over and over again, christians can be oppressed but not possessed. So, as we kind of examined this topic of demonic oppression, it's really essential to turn to the Bible for guidance and understanding, and the word of God provides us insight and into the spiritual realm that it'll give us really valuable Lessons that believers can take. And so I mean certainly probably the quoted and most clear Portion that we have to start with is in the book of Ephesians, chapter 6, verse 12.

Speaker 0: 16:18

Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of the dark world and against spiritual forces of people in the heavenly realm. Now think about that. It literally tells us that is our struggle right there. If you take the text of what is plainly right there in front of you, there's not really a whole lot to argue about that. If you believe that the Bible is an errant meaning, it's perfect, it doesn't have any heirs and that it is the word of God, god's telling us that very clearly. And the other thing I always like to ask people is why exactly do we need spiritual armor if there's nothing to hurt us. That seems really strange to me.

Speaker 0: 16:56

The verse emphasizes the existence that there are spiritual forces outside of us that a Christian must face, no matter what we would like to admit, and I often compare it to the matrix, because it's it's. It's a completely revolutionary thing. When you have your eyes open to the spiritual realities around you, you start to Understand so much, you start to understand the world in a different way that the goddess designed us to be able to do. It's always pointed at the cross, at Jesus, at all times, that we filter everything through that. But we have to acknowledge that we're not just physically fighting people in this world. We have wars and we have all these different things that go on, or even in our personal life, socially, people that are maybe Difficult to get along with. If you remember that, then maybe there might be a spirit behind that makes it a lot easier to love the person, because there might be a spirit influencing the way that they're angry or irritable or Aggressive or what have you towards you, and so it's a supernatural reality that these entities are Seeking to oppress believers.

Speaker 0: 18:00

If we go into the Gospels a little bit, we look at Luke. Luke 10 17 Says the 72 return with joy and said Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name. That's when Jesus grant, he's granted the authority for his disciples to cast out demons and and hopefully, your disciple of Jesus. Hopefully you have a relationship with Jesus and Remember the word apostle Literally means sent one, and that's the word that's used to describe Jesus in the book of Hebrews and it's also Used to describe anyone that's sent. You know, with a great commission on the go. You have an apostolic calling in that way and people might disagree with me right there, but we're told to share the good news and we are sent into the world to do that, and part of that means that we are going to come Against supernatural things that are trying to keep us from bringing people to an understanding of who Jesus is. Jesus grants authority to his disciples so they can cast out demons. This demonstrates and acknowledges that demonic influence and the power Christians possess through Christ can Combat such oppression. There has to be a reason that to happen.

Speaker 0: 19:05

What about this other very famous first? First, peter 5a be alert and so reminded your enemy. The devil prowls around like a roaring Lion looking for someone to devour. It doesn't say your enemy, the devil used to, or once upon a time, or anything Remotely like that, and I'm not trying to be obnoxious there. What I'm really saying is it is an active, consistent thing that is still happening today. The enemy is still looking to see who we can devour. It comes to kill, still and destroy, and, if you remember, that's exactly what demons are after too. They have orders from their higher ups right to cause that to happen in Everyone's life. I because they don't want to have lives that are devoted and prayerful and seeking God. So even for the Christians, it's important to remember that. So when it says that Peter's words, they emphasize the constant vigilance required in recognizing the presence of the devil as he attempts to oppress believers.

Speaker 0: 20:00

Remember, when it comes to spiritual things, it can come in different ways. You can come in through your eyes, it can come in through your ears and, in more literal terms, what you listen to, what you watch, those are spiritual openings. And as soon as you start to realize that there are so many more spiritual aspects to things that are maybe common in your own home or your house that you need to guard yourself from. As you're singing songs, certain secular songs, you are singing curses over yourself. It's really really scary and sad, but that is an opening in some cases, depending on the influence and really what the words are. But be thoughtful about the words that you listen to. Be thoughtful about the things that you watch with your eyes, because those are the gateway to your soul. It matters a lot.

Speaker 0: 20:46

You know this verse from Peter also. It affirms that Christians can fall victim to demonic oppression if they don't watch. And then finally, in James, chapter 4, verse 7, submit yourself then to God. Is this the devil and he will flee from you. And the verse is it talks about not giving a place to the devil, not giving him a room to stand. And, if you remember, there's this whole thing about how our bodies, as the temple of God, has different rooms, which are different roles and responsibilities you have, and those are the places that demons like to hide and they like to be waiting to cause destruction in our lives. When it says, submit yourself then to God, keeping our eyes on God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Speaker 0: 21:29

Well, how do we resist the devil? We resist the devil by calling a mountain, standing firm in the word. We don't turn our back on it and pretend like it doesn't happen. So there's two sides to this pendulum, right. There's a side where we can pretend like there's literally no supernatural, no spiritual things that can ever happen, even in the Christian's life. Or we can go to the other side of the pendulum and we can say absolutely everything is evil and demonic and we have to get us and we need to hide in our little hole. Neither one of those are healthy. There needs to be a balance between it all, and so maybe consider rereading those verses and how they speak to you. Pray through it, test everything, show yourself approved. It's important. Don't just take it because I'm saying it. Take it to God, pray over it and just know that by examining these passages, we can certainly tell that Christians are not immune to demonic oppression.

Speaker 0: 22:19

The Bible recognizes the reality of spiritual forces of evil and it shows instructions for believers to stand firm. Like I'm saying, exercise your authority as Christ has commanded you to do. Doesn't mean that we go head-hunting. We don't go looking and you make it to a point where you get sensitive enough and then you're like, oh okay, like oh yeah, that person's probably dealing with some oppression. You have to be thoughtful about the way that you approach that and not just run into every room saying that because you sound like a crazy person.

Speaker 0: 22:47

However, there is a time to educate and one of the goals of this podcast on Fire Dove is to educate you and open your eyes to some of the things that maybe you haven't been taught before, simply so that you can be a better spiritual leader in your home, over your family, over your workplace, over the congregation, the church, anyone that any bit of connection to the body of Christ that you have. It's important to understand how to deal with this. And then there's some of us that make ourselves available on different search engines and things so that people can seek us out if they're looking to have prayer or deliverance because of an extremely high level of oppression. And that might be not your calling, but maybe it is, because I'll tell you what once you go through deliverance, it changes your life in such a just an incredible way that you're just like, oh man, I've never seen the name of Jesus physically change lives in real time in front of me like I have during deliverance. And that's just an awesome part of it, because the gospel is just so true.

Speaker 0: 23:49

It's critical that Christians, you have to equip yourself with spiritual armor, you have to have a strong relationship with God and you need to get support and guidance and faith and direction from a community of believers. But and it's okay to be in a church that doesn't do deliverance. However, don't be just so aggressively turned off to it simply because if the only church you have that's anywhere near you and they're preaching the gospel and the good news and everything points to Jesus for the season of life, maybe that's a good point. I'm not saying forsake everything and only go to church online and be a lone wolf, because that's not going to help you either. You need to be under the authority of someone, and that's important.

Speaker 0: 24:28

You need to have wisdom, and that's the only way is through a faith community that you're going to be able to combat. You're going to be able to combat and overcome any form of demonic impression that you might encounter, because it's much, much easier to do deliverance in groups, to be accountable to one another, and I really hope that this helps you understand just some of the basics of delivering. How demons maybe where they came from and continue to build on these concepts and future episodes of different ways that you can start breaking these things down and, as the Lord leads me and develops the way that he has me, speak and teach and be a practitioner for deliverance, then just hopefully it can give you an opportunity for your faith to be just as robust as it ever has been, if not higher. And just all the praise and all honor to Jesus. I'll see you guys soon.