efore we
can consider how Satan works in the lives of people, and particularly believers, we need
to take a look at his kingdom and how it is set up. I am not going to do a detailed study
at this point, as that will be reserved for a proper study on its own. But I want to give
you a breakdown here of the basic principles involved, so that you will understand what I
am talking about later.
I will be giving just the main principles here and I will not go into a lot of detail
or provide a lot of Scriptural proofs, although what I teach will be fully backed by
Scripture. Having operated in the spiritual realm over a long period of time, I have come
to understand many of these things better by personal experience and personal
confrontation with demonic forces. I will share some of these, although they cannot be the
basis for an authoritative teaching on the subject.
Levels of Wickedness
In Ephesians 6:12 Paul tells us a bit about how Satan’s
kingdom is set up.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high [places].
I want you to notice here that he speaks of four different categories of evil powers.
He calls these principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, and spiritual wickedness in
high places. What he is actually giving us here is the divisions or different classes of
demons.
High Level Wickedness
The last class refers to demonic forces that are in high places, or what is elsewhere
referred to as the powers of the air. These are the highest level of Satan’s realm
and do not operate directly in the earth. They are the princes of Satan, who hold high
positions and control from the realm of darkness what takes place on the earth. These are
demonic princes of darkness who have been allocated different realms of operation.
Daniel came into confrontation with these forces when he was praying and interceding.
Daniel 10: 13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood
me twenty one days: but, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I
remained there with the kings of Persia.
An angel appeared to Daniel and told him that he had to do battle with a spiritual
power that he called the Prince of the Kingdom of Persia. Since Persia was the kingdom
Daniel was in, it meant that this demonic prince had been made responsible for that
kingdom. He was in charge of whatever took place in the kingdom.
The whole world system is being controlled this way, with demonic princes having
control over entire countries and cities. And they control from the realm of darkness what
takes place in the air. At the head of these is a group of key leaders that control the
entire kingdom of darkness, Lucifer being the head of all.
The Council of Wickedness
Satan has set up his leadership in an attempt to copy the way God works, and he has
created a governing council that is an attempt to mimic the Trinity. He sits at the head
as a copy to God the Father, and he has under him two leading generals who mimic the Son
of God and the Holy Spirit. His chief of staff that leads the demonic forces is a
character that is named in Revelation as the leader of the bottomless pit. His name is
Apollyon.
This is the one who tries to copy the Holy Spirit. Just as God does everything by the
agency his Spirit, so Lucifer carries out his attack and influences in the world, through
this one who leads his demons and gives the orders for them to carry out their work in the
earth. Lucifer himself is the master of deception and takes the role of leading the
religious system of the world. He is seeking worship and therefore is directly involved in
the Satanic churches that worship him.
Apollyon is involved in producing every evil thing from physical illness, to mental and
spiritual problems in the lives of people. And the third character that represents the Son
of God is a kind of spiritual Pharaoh. Just as Pharaoh was the leader of Egypt, which is a
type of the world in the Scriptures, so this prince of darkness controls the world system,
including all political and economic resources in the world. He is what the Bible calls
the god of this world, or the spirit of Antichrist.
These three then make up a demonic Council of Wickedness that controls the entire
world. Under them the entire world is controlled by Satan by a rigid system of domination
and force. Satan’s kingdom is not one of harmony. It is one of conflict and strife.
They hate each other and vie with each other for positions of power. They have to be kept
in control like an army with strict discipline. You can see why the world has become the
same under their control.
Wickedness on the Earth
The other three levels of evil mentioned by Paul in Ephesians refer to the demonic
powers that operate on the earth and in the lives of the people of the world. These again
are three levels of authority. The highest of these levels is what he calls Rulers of the
darkness of this world. Then under them come the power demons and finally at the lowest
level are the principalities.
Ruler Demons
These could be likened to the commissioned officers in the kingdom of darkness. They
are in control of the activities that take place in the earth. These are the demons that
take possession of people and they are involved in every occult activity. This is the kind
of demon that will take control of a person and force them to do things that are out of
control. They will sometimes even take control of a person’s vocal chords and speak
directly out of the person’s lips, using the person’s body as a vehicle.
This is the class of demon that Jesus cast out of people when He walked the earth. It
is the kind of demon that spoke to Jesus and told him that its name was Legion. Only one
of these demons takes possession of a person at a time, but when it does, it brings with
it many other demons from the two lower levels, so that there are actually many demons
inhabiting the person at the same time. Thus the legion demon told Jesus that ‘we are
many.’
Let’s look at the passage in question and see how this works. You will find it in
Mark chapter 5
6 But when he saw Jesus at a distance, he ran and worshipped him,
7 And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with you, Jesus, [you] Son of
the most high God? I adjure you by God, that you do not torment me.
8 For he said to him, Come out of the man, [you] unclean spirit.
Now notice that it is speaking here of only one demon spirit. And this demon has taken
control of the man and is speaking to Jesus using the man’s vocal chords.
9 And he asked him, What [is] your name? And he answered, saying,
My name [is] Legion: for we are many.
10 And he begged him much that he would not send them away out of the country.
Notice that Jesus is still speaking to one demon. This demon is the spokesman, but
indicates that there are more with him.
11 Now there was there near to the mountains a great herd of
swine feeding.
12 And all the devils begged him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into
them.
Here it is no longer one demon speaking to Jesus, but all of them. Now if there were a
lot of demons here, like a whole army of them, how could they possibly all have spoken to
Jesus using the vocal chords of the man. Clearly Jesus spoke to these and heard them
speaking to him, directly in the Spirit. This is what takes place when the gift of
discerning of spirits is in operation. You recognize and can actually communicate with
these spiritual forces directly in the Spirit.
13 And immediately Jesus gave them permission. And the unclean
spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep
place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.
Well judging by the number if pigs they had, we can safely assume that there were at
least two thousand demons in this person. And you will notice that Jesus did not have to
cast them out one at a time. All He had to cast out was the ruler demon that He spoke to
at the beginning. And when the ruler left, the others went with it.
Power Demons
These are bit like the sergeants and non-commissioned officers in the army. They have a
bit of power and authority and command the lowest level of demon, but they do not possess
people like the ruler demon. They are the demons that are at work in bringing severe
problems such as sickness and disease to people and any particularly strong attack other
than possession.
Principality Demons
These could be likened to the privates in the army. They do all the dirty work, but
don’t call the shots. They just do what they are told. And together with the powers
they are actively involved in attacking people physically, spiritually, mentally and in
every way possible. They influence people against each other in strife. They motivate sin
and conflict and every evil thing that is in the world.
There are many things that can be considered in studying the kingdom of darkness, but I
am not going to go into any more detail here now. It is good to know how the enemy
operates, but it is even more important to know how to overcome. I will mention more
aspects to how Satan works as we continue, but first I want to get to some of the methods
he uses to affect the lives of people. And then I want to deal with the position of the
believer in Christ and how we can overcome in Jesus.
There is an increase in demonic activity in the times we live in, and we are seeing a
lot of demonic activity appearing in the Church that was not obvious before. Because of
this many deliverance ministries have arisen to deal with these things, and people are
becoming more aware of the need to know how to handle it. But like everything else in the
church, there have come many with different ideas on how to approach this and the
bookshops have become flooded with books on demons and deliverance.
People are at times become more conscious of demons and what Satan is doing than what
God is doing. More time is being given to dealing with demons than ministering the truth
to people. The Scriptures are clear that it is the truth that sets people free.
John 8: 31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him, If
you continue in my word, [then] you are really My disciples;
32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
But the truth has often become obscured by false teaching.
Many have formulated their teachings and approach to dealing with demons based on their
personal experience and a limited knowledge of both the Scriptures and the gifts of the
Spirit. Some have even ‘learned’ from the demons themselves and people that have
been demon possessed. As a result a ‘standard’ deliverance teaching has arisen
that does not do full justice to the Finished Work of Calvary and fails to set people
truly free to serve the Lord in victory.
Demons and Unbelievers
I want to look at this subject first so that it can become clear
that demon possession in an unbeliever is not the same as in a believer. Most deliverance
teachings have missed this vital fact and have prescribed the same method of deliverance
for believers and unbelievers. This is where things start to go wrong.
If you read the Gospels and the accounts of Jesus casting out demons, you can learn a
lot about how demons work and how they are dealt with. But you have to keep one important
fact in mind. Until Jesus died, rose again and sent the Holy Spirit, there was no such
thing as a born again believer in the earth. In other words every case that Jesus dealt
with was in unbelievers. They may have been people who believed in God and even worshipped
God in the Jewish synagogue, but they were not born again.
So if you want to understand how to deal with demons in believers, you are going to
have to look beyond the teachings of the Gospels. The way Jesus dealt with demons is the
way we can deal with demons in unbelievers. They need to be identified and cast out. And
when the believer recognizes his or her authority in Christ, it is easy to do just as
Jesus did. And when you command the evil power to come out, it will have to obey.
But you have to be very careful about how you follow things through when you decide to
cast demons out of an unbeliever. You need to realize that the person may have been set
free of demons, but they are still under Satan’s control. Paul speaking to Timothy
says
2 Timothy 2: 26 And [that] they may recover themselves out of the
snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
He is referring here to unbelievers and he says that they are taken captive by the
devil at his will. Jesus in another place accused the Pharisees of being of their father
the devil. Until a person is born again and becomes a child of God, they are powerless
against the devil. So casting demons out of them is really a waste of time unless this is
followed immediately by them accepting the Lord as their savior and being born again.
Jesus spoke about people like this in Luke 11 and indicated that it could lead to the
person ending up in a worse condition.
24 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walks through
dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, I will return to my house from where
I came out.
25 And when he comes, he finds [it] swept and garnished.
26 Then he goes, and takes [to himself] seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and
they enter in, and dwell there: and the last [state] of that man is worse than the first.
What Jesus was saying here, is that when an evil spirit is caused to leave an
unbeliever, it is imperative that the Holy Spirit comes in and takes the place of the
demonic spirit that was there before. This happens when a person accepts Jesus and is born
again. If they do not accept Christ the chances are that a worse demonic power is going to
come and control them, and then their situation is going to be far worse than before.
So the warning here to those who deal in deliverance, is that when demons are expelled
from an unbeliever, you must immediately lead that person to the Lord. By the same token,
it should go without saying that when you lead a person to the Lord and there are demonic
powers present in their life, you should first remove these things before leading them to
the Lord. And this is where we come to our next situation, which is where demons are in a
believer.
Demons and Believers
As I said above, the cases of demon possession we read of in the
Gospels all were in unbelievers. But as we come to the Acts of the Apostles, which was a
continuation of Church history after the Church came into being at the day of Pentecost,
we find a different picture. You will find very little in the Acts or in the rest of the
New Testament concerning demonic possession in believers. And you will not find one case
anywhere of demons being cast out of a believer.
In fact there is only one clearly recorded case (perhaps two) of where a believer may
have been possessed by demons. The second possible case, which I am not going to deal with
here was that of Ananias and Sapphira where Peter asked them why Satan had ‘filled
their hearts.’ But I question whether this was a demon possession so much as a person
being totally deceived. But of course the one clearly recorded case is that of Simon the
Sorcerer. Let’s look at it in Acts 8.
9 But there was a certain man, called Simon, which previously in
the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that he was
some great one:
10 To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the
great power of God.
11 And to him they had regard, because for a long time he had bewitched them with
sorceries.
This man had been practicing witchcraft and the power of the occult. I am not going to
go into this in detail, because this is not a study on the occult. But all the signs were
there in this man’s life.
12 But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning
the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.
13 Then Simon himself believed also: and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip,
and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done.
Many people believe that Simon did not really become a Christian, but that he only
pretended to do so. But this passage was written long after these events, and I am sure
that Luke who wrote this book would have been careful to point this out to us, by telling
us that he only pretended to believe. One would also think that Philip would have
recognised his false profession and stopped him from accompanying him afterwards.
17 Then laid they [their] hands on them, and they received the
Holy Ghost.
18 And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was
given, he offered them money,
19 Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the
Holy Ghost.
Simon had not let go of his occult ideas. The reason he had got into the occult in the
first place was so that he could have power over people and control them. When he became a
believer he held onto this idea. He had not let go of the demonic powers that had
influenced him before.
20 But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because
thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.
21 Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight
of God.
22 Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine
heart may be forgiven thee.
Notice that Peter did not tell Simon that he needed to be born again. He told him that
his heart was not right before God. He had the wrong motivation.
23 For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and
[in] the bond of iniquity.
Peter discerned that Simon was in demonic bondage to a spirit of bitterness. He was
quite clearly bound by a demon. But what is even more important to notice here is that
Peter did not try to cast the demon out. He told Simon to repent of his sin.
24 Then answered Simon, and said, Pray ye to the Lord for me,
that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me.
Simon’s response was the typical cop out that people are still using when they are
bound by demons. He tries to make out that he is a victim and asks for prayer. He does not
repent of his sin and get rid of this bondage in his life.
So what is the bottom line here then? It is that a believer is never considered to be a
victim of a demon. When a person is born again they receive the indwelling Spirit of God,
who gives them the power to live the way they are supposed to. They are free from their
sin and can now start to walk in the Spirit, as we saw in our study on the Solution to
Problems. But they can hold onto their sin, and so give a demonic force the right to still
control their lives.
This applies particularly to occult sins, which are the key area of entry of demons
that take possession. When a believer has been involved in the occult in any way prior to
becoming a Christian, they often do not let go of or deal with the demonic power that was
in their lives. As a result they enter into the spiritual life with a conflict of forces
within. The demon that was there all along remains, but now with the entrance of the Holy
Spirit into the person’s life, there comes a conflict.
The Role of the Flesh
Going back to our picture of the Tree of the Flesh that we saw in the study on the
Cause of Problems, we have a situation where a tree exists that the birds of the air can
come and land on and make nests in. In the Scriptures the birds of the air are a picture
of the powers of the air, or demonic powers. Thus the existence of the flesh and its
various branches provide entry points for demonic powers to operate in a person’s
life.
Usually these birds simply come to land on the branches. They come to motivate and
encourage tendencies that are already there. So if you have a weakness of the flesh to sin
in a particular area, that is the area the demons will try to work on you, to make you sin
more. They will encourage and try to magnify every weakness in the flesh. You can try to
drive the birds away, but while the branches are there, they will come back again.
Thus the basic approach of deliverance ministry, that seeks to drive demons out of a
believer, is a hopeless waste of time. They will simply return at the first opportunity.
You cannot solve problems by driving out demons. You have to deal with the flesh that is
giving the demons an opportunity. Jesus did not walk in the flesh. As a result Satan had
no place in him to attack. You can see this in Jesus’ statement in John 14:30
After this I will not talk much with you: for the prince of
this world is coming, and has nothing in me.
The Purpose for Temptation
Satan could only attack Jesus from the outside, by bringing temptations to Him. And you
will always have to face that attack. But you need to realize that the purpose of all
temptations is to expose and discover which areas of the flesh are available. The word
that is translated ‘temptation’ in the New Testament can actually be translated
as ‘test.’ Satan brings a test to you when he tempts you.
The powers of darkness are not all knowing like God. They do not know what your
strengths and weaknesses are. They can implant influences and thoughts into your mind, but
they cannot read your mind to find out what you thought as a result of their influence.
They can only watch you to see how you respond. They check to see whether you pass the
test or not. If you respond favorably to their temptation, then they have found your weak
point and will zero in on it.
One of the biggest deceptions that you can face is to think that if you submit to
temptation just this once, you will be able to handle it better next time. The truth of
the matter is that the moment you yield to a temptation, you show the enemy that you are
weak in that area. Now he knows exactly where to attack you and the temptation will grow
even stronger than before. It will be far more difficult to overcome the temptation next
time.
James also tells us a bit about how temptation links with the flesh in James 1:14-15
14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own
desires, and enticed.
15 Then when lust has conceived, it bears sin: and sin, when it is finished, bears death.
It is your own desires and sin that give the enemy an open door in your life. You
cannot blame the demon for making you sin. If you do not yield to temptation in the flesh,
then you can overcome sin in the flesh. All the demon does is encourage what was already
there. If you already have a root of bitterness, then it is easy for a demon to stir up
hatred and anger in you. If you already have a problem with lust, then it is easy for a
demon to motivate you to sexual sin. If you already are filled with a desire for things
and pleasure, then it is easy for a demon to lead you into worldliness and greed.
