Demonism Possession and Demon Influence. Acts 16:16-20
Why is it that this was such a major issue in the Gospel period as well as in the period of Acts. There are a number of people who were presented to Christ—a number of stories, only about eight or nine distinct episodes that we are told about—and we are also told in some general statements that people brought the sick and the lame and the blind and the demon possessed to be healed. That word "healed" was generally a broad word and it covered the "casting out of a demon," a technical phrase that should always be used. Not exorcism because exorcism is a word only used of the pagans who were using forms of magical incantation or ritual to free somebody from demon possession. Exorcism was never used in any context related to Jesus or the apostles in casting out a demon.
The issue in demon possession is one of fear. We fear losing control. As we get older there are a lot of things we lose control over. We live through life in a lot of circumstances around us that cause us to be fearful because we are not in control of many circumstances. And to have a being that we are totally unfamiliar with somehow enter into our body and take over has to be one of the most scary, frightful things anyone could encounter. And yet what we see is that Jesus is in complete control. He has authority over even the most evil forces of Satan, and He can deliver us. If Jesus Christ can deliver the unbeliever from these most horrible circumstances then there is no other circumstance that we are going to face as believers that we should be fearful of. Because this demonstrates the power and authority Jesus Christ has over some of the most extreme types of things that can happen to human beings, and therefore the kinds of things we face on a day-by-day basis pale in significance. So it is an a fortiori argument: If Jesus can have control over the demons and over Satan, and can cast out demons, then Jesus has the power to deal with any lesser issue in our lives.
Behind much of pagan religions and pagan idols is a demon. There is an association there. The views, theology of the idol and the false religion, is the theology of the demon. Demonic thinking is equivalent to human viewpoint thinking or religious thinking that is contrary to the Bible. This idea that for something to be demonic it has to be overtly associated with the occult or witchcraft or something like that is extremely superficial. Anything that is expressing a human viewpoint utopian mentality is expressing a demonic or satanic viewpoint. It is just packaging it in a very attractive package and it doesn't have to be something like The Exorcist for it to be demonic. In fact, the liberation theology of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright preached from the pulpit when Barack Obama attended that church in Chicago was some of the most perverse forms of demonic philosophy and thought that could come out of any pulpit. All liberation theology is because it is grounded in Marxism. It is a Marxist distortion and counterfeit of Christian theology. It is at the very root of replacement theology as well as it is expressed in Palestinian theology.
When God and His control of history is rejected, then idolatrous humans seek other avenues for control of their chaotic life, and they turn in one form or another to that which is demonic. All forms of divination somehow connect to a demonic worldview, a demonic concept where somehow man can control his destiny and find out about the future totally apart from God.
Another form of divination that is exposed in the Bible is necromancy—getting in touch with the spirits of the dead in order to find out what is going on in the other world, find out the future, and find out things that are unknown to us either through divine revelation or through rationalism or experience. This is described in Isaiah 8:19 NASB "When they say to you, 'Consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter,' should not a people consult their God? {Should they} {consult} the dead on behalf of the living?"
Another verse which tells us about the operation of these spiritists, the mediums and witches, is Isaiah 29:4 NASB "Then you will be brought low; From the earth you will speak, And from the dust {where} you are prostrate Your words {will come.} Your voice will also be like that of a spirit from the ground, And your speech will whisper from the dust." Both of these passages are in context where Israel is being condemned by the prophet Isaiah because they have become so involved in demonism, witchcraft and mysticism that they have completely become spiritually blind and darkened. Speaking out of the ground was the role of the demon. The medium would call upon the dead person and (like a ventriloquist) a voice would come up out of the ground. This was called an Ob demon, translated into the Greek as engastrimuthos.
This brings us to one of the key episodes in the Old Testament with King Saul and the witch of Endor. Saul's devotion to God was rather short-lived. It wasn't long before Saul got involved in a lot of carnality and disobedience to God. He refused to completely destroy and annihilate the Amalekites and so the prophet Samuel came to him and said that his sin was like the sin of rebellion and like the sin of witchcraft, and because of that God was going to take the kingdom from him and give it to somebody else. In the very next chapter Samuel anointed David to be the next king of Israel. But being anointed as king doesn't mean being installed as the king. So there is a period of about ten or fifteen years between the anointing of David and the death of Saul, during which time Saul is constantly attacking David.
This is the end of that period. Saul has now been in profound carnality and rebellion against God for a long time. By this time Samuel had died. Whenever things became really bad and desperate and Saul was having these panic attacks, couldn't rest at night and was being oppressed by demons, Saul could always go to Samuel. Like a lot of people who when things get really bad they will go to Bible class for a few weeks, and then when things straighten out they go back to living their life on the basis of their sin nature. They don't stick with it. That is how Saul was.
1 Samuel 28:3 NASB "Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had lamented him and buried him in Ramah, his own city. And Saul had removed from the land those who were mediums and spiritists." According to the Mosaic Law being a medium, a witch, a spiritist was a death penalty offence. But Saul was a bleeding heart liberal who didn't want to have the death penalty, so he just expelled them from the land. There were a few that were covert and stayed in the land, one of which was the witch of Endor. Saul had hit rock bottom as he was facing this battle with the Philistines.
"Oh the road to En-dor is the oldest road
And the craziest road of all!
Straight it runs to the Witch's abode,
As it did in the days of Saul,
And nothing has changed of the sorrow in store
For such as go down on the road to En-dor!"
Rudyard Kipling
We need to pay attention to the vocabulary of demon possession and demon influence. This is very important. The word possess, as we have seen, has the connotation of ownership, and that is not the meaning of the Greek term at all. The words that we have is the phrase en pneumati akatharto (akatharsis is the word for unclean, and pneuma is the word for spirit)"with an unclean spirit." A person who is said to be demon possessed (daimonizomai) is described as having or is with an unclean spirit.
The way to understand a vague word like daimonizomai is to look at the other words used in the context that are more precise. If a word is vague then those other terms define it for the reader. Today people come along and say this word daimonizomai, a present passive indicative, simply means, if you break it down etymologically, to be acted upon by a demon. Well somebody could be acted upon by a demon in a very mild way. If you are living in the devil's world you are being acted upon by a demon. That affects everybody through the world system. Or sometimes being acted upon by a demon could be something of an extreme thing like we have portrayed in Scripture. It is amazing how many people are buying into this very bad exegetical approach today. The reality is the word daimonizomai is only used of these certain extreme kinds of activity of demons. It is never used of the milder forms.
Some of the other words that are used to describe that. Somebody who is "with an unclean spirit", Mark 5:8-13. These are from the same passage describing the Gadarene demoniac. An "unclean spirit" –daimonizomai, literally being acted upon by a demon. But the same man in Luke 8:27, describing the same event, "had an unclean spirit"—echon daimonia. That verb echon, meaning to have, is the same word used of the slave girl is Acts 16.
Whenever Jesus, the disciples, or Paul in Acts cast out a demon the words in the context are these three: a) exerchomai. The root word erchomai means to come or to go. The prefix ex means out of. So it means to go out of or to come out of; b) eiserchomai. The preposition eis means to go somewhere, into something. So that means to enter into; c) ekballo. ballo is the word to cast or throw. But when it is ekballo, ek means out of, and so it is pulling something out or casting it out. That is what is used of a demon.
These are the terms that are used as synonyms for daimonizomai, a general term which could just mean being acted upon by a demon. But what the words around it describe are someone who has a demon in them, who has entered into them, and in order to relieve them of their state of daimonizomai the demon has to be cast out of them. Then we are told the demon goes out of this man and goes into the herd of pigs. So demon possession doesn't mean being owned by a demon, it means to be controlled internally by a demon.
Wasn't Saul demon possessed? Absolutely not. 1 Samuel 16:23 NASB "So it came about whenever the {evil} spirit from God came to Saul, David would take the harp and play {it} with his hand; and Saul would be refreshed and be well, and the evil spirit would depart from him." Satan and the demons can't do anything unless God gives them permission. We learn that from Job chapters one and two. So whatever happens in terms of satanic or demonic involvement in human history, it is under God's permissive will. He allows that to happen for His purposes because God is omniscient and knows what will happen. God has allowed this divine discipline upon Saul for his sin of rebellion and He has allowed this demon to oppress Saul. But the word used here is "upon" Saul, it is not in him. It is external, not internal. 1 Samuel 19:9 NASB "Now there was an evil spirit from the LORD on [upon] Saul as he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand, and David was playing {the harp} with {his} hand." Whereas the language we see in the New Testament is language related to something internal, something going in somebody that has to be taken out of them.
1 Samuel 28:1 NASB "Now it came about in those days that the Philistines gathered their armed camps for war, to fight against Israel. And Achish said to David, 'Know assuredly that you will go out with me in the camp, you and your men.'" Philistia is located far in the south west, down where the Gaza strip is today. For Achish to have penetrated as far north as the northeast side of the Valley of Esdraelon, about seventy to eighty miles inside of Israel's territory, indicates that the Philistines have control of a large amount of the territory, especially in the north in Galilee. They are going to go into battle against Saul and his army and Saul has to figure out what he is going to do. Samuel is dead and God isn't speaking to Saul through Samuel anymore. He decides he needs to get information and so the end justifies the means; he is going to go find out whether there are any witches hiding in the land that he can go and see.
1 Samuel 28:5 NASB "When Saul saw the camp of the Philistines, he was afraid and his heart trembled greatly." What motivates us to sin is usually emotional sins. We are scared, frightened, arrogant or angry. This then is the mental attitude sin that motivates the overt sins.
1 Samuel 28:6 NASB "When Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim or by prophets." The Lord hadn't been talking to him for a long time because he was out of fellowship. (Psalm 66:18 NASB "If I regard wickedness [lit. when we see sin in our heart] in my heart, The Lord will not hear.") [7] Then Saul said to his servants, 'Seek for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.' And his servants said to him, 'Behold, there is a woman who is a medium at En-dor.'" They had to find one because Saul had already run them out years earlier. [8] Then Saul disguised himself by putting on other clothes, and went, he and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night; and he said, 'Conjure up for me, please, and bring up for me whom I shall name to you.'" He doesn't want to be known and identified.
1 Samuel 28:9 NASB "But the woman said to him, 'Behold, you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off those who are mediums and spiritists from the land. Why are you then laying a snare for my life to bring about my death?' [10] Saul vowed to her by the LORD, saying, 'As the LORD lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing.'" See how far down he has gone in his carnality. Now he is going to swear in the name of Yahweh that he is not going to entrap her. When we get into carnality we start using religion for our own purposes.
1 Samuel 28:11 NASB "Then the woman said, 'Whom shall I bring up for you?' And he said, 'Bring up Samuel for me.'" She goes through her normal ritual thing and she probably had some sort of affiliation with an engastrimuthos demon, and all that has ever happened before has been this disembodied voice comes out of the ground. Either she is a fraud and is doing it like a ventriloquist or there is a demon that is in association with her—probably a demon in this particular case. But what happens in this particular case is that Samuel appears to her in his intermediate body. Samuel comes up from Sheol, the Paradise compartment, and as soon as she recognizes him she is scared. She knows that this is the real thing. She has never seen the real thing before.
Samuel sounds a little irritated. Why in the world have you brought me out of Paradise to come back to this nasty earth [paraphrase]? [15] "And Saul answered, 'I am greatly distressed; for the Philistines are waging war against me, and God has departed from me and no longer answers me, either through prophets or by dreams; therefore I have called you, that you may make known to me what I should do.'" He tried to approach God but not on His terms. That is why God is not talking to him. This is like a lot of Christians. They want divine guidance but they don't want to go to the Bible, the don't want to go to Bible class, they don't want to get in fellowship; they just want to send an email to the pastor to get some idea real quick as to what they ought to do. They have refused for weeks and months and years to build doctrine into their soul to give them the framework for decision-making.
1 Samuel 28:16 NASB "Samuel said, 'Why then do you ask me, since the LORD has departed from you and has become your adversary?'" Saul is a believer. He is in rebellion, but in the early years God gave him a new heart, performed several miracles to validate his appointment and the fact that Saul was anointed to be king. This is all over with. Samuel said, [19] "… tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. Indeed the LORD will give over the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines!" They are going to be together. They are not going to be separated. Saul is not going to go to torments while Samuel is in Paradise; they are going to be in the same place. That is why we know that Saul was a believer. But he was a disobedient believer and he has become an enemy of God. This is what happens when believers go into carnality.
1 Samuel 28:17 NASB "The LORD has done accordingly as He spoke through me; for the LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, to David. [18] As you did not obey the LORD and did not execute His fierce wrath on Amalek, so the LORD has done this thing to you this day." How many years before did that happen? Twenty-five. Now Saul is going to receive the divine discipline for disobedience of 25 years earlier. [19] "Moreover the LORD will also give over Israel along with you into the hands of the Philistines, therefore tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. Indeed the LORD will give over the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines! [20] Then Saul immediately fell full length upon the ground and was very afraid because of the words of Samuel; also there was no strength in him, for he had eaten no food all day and all night."
What we learn from this is something about the operation of this kind of fortune-telling spirit. In this case it was a legitimate thing, and the witch at Endor is not unlike this servant girl in Acts 16 who has the puthonos spirit.
Mark 5:2 NASB "When He got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met Him." The first description of this man is that he has an unclean spirit. [3] "and he had his dwelling among the tombs. And no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain." In this particular case the demon gave him a supernatural strength and ability to break the chains.… [6] Seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and bowed down before Him." Who is control of this man? It is the demon. The word "worship [in some versions] means to bow down. So he is not worshipping in a positive sense, because the demon knows who Jesus is, the second person of the Trinity and the sovereign of the universe. The demon had to show his obeisance to the sovereign God. So the demon who is in control is bringing this man to Jesus. It is not a sign that the man is exercising positive volition because the man is not in control. The demon is in control.
The man cries out with a loud voice. The reason for making a point here is, he ran, he worshipped, he cried out with a loud voice. But when you get to what is said it is the demon speaking. So the 'he' here is describing the man but the actions of the man—his speaking, his running, his bowing down—are really the action of the demon controlling him.
Mark 5:7 NASB "and shouting with a loud voice, he said, 'What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God, do not torment me!'" What is he saying? Don't send me into torments. Don't send me into the abyss with all those other demons. Remember the "sons of God" that were sent into the chains of deep darkness until they are judged at the end of the Tribulation period? These demons don't want to go through that. [8] For He had been saying to him, 'Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!'" That is the word exerchomai—come out. [9] "And He was asking him, 'What is your name?' And he said to Him, 'My name is Legion; for we are many.'"
What we see today in 'pop demonology' is, if you are going to cast out a demon you have to know their name because that gives you power over them. That is the pagan way of doing an exorcism. That is not what Jesus is doing here. What Jesus does by asking his name is exposing the fact that there is not one demon; there are several thousand, showing that many demons can control one person.
A legion in the Roman army involved two or three thousand. So there are two or three thousand demons here. They start begging Jesus not to send them out of the country. Mark 5:11 NASB "Now there was a large herd of swine feeding nearby on the mountain." This is a gentile area. They wouldn't have the pigs in Israel because pigs are an unclean animal. So they going to send the unclean spirit into an unclean animal. [12] "{The demons} implored Him, saying, 'Send us into the swine so that we may enter them.'" The word "enter" is the Greek word eiserchomai, they want to go into them.
Mark 5:13 NASB "Jesus gave them permission. And coming out, the unclean spirits entered the swine; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about two thousand {of them;} and they were drowned in the sea." The unclean spirits went out and entered. So the first word is exerchomai (they came out). And then they entered into the swine.
Mark 5:15 NASB "They came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demon-possessed sitting down, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the 'legion'; and they became frightened." The man is described as the one who had been demon possessed [daimonizomai]. So daimonizomai is defined as somebody who had a demon inside them. All of this tells us that these words exerchomai and eiserchomai are so important. Because if they are not the interpretive crux of this passage then we get real problems later on when we talk about Judas Iscariot because it says, "Satan entered in to him." Some people have made the terrible error of saying that just means demon influence or Satan influence. No. If we say that that word mean influence over in John 13 then we are going to destroy our whole demonology and the whole argument for why Christians can't be demon possessed, because we can't define demon possession. This is critical. These are technical words, and they have to mean the same thing in the same context every time or language doesn't really mean anything and we are just perverting the use of language, which is something that most liberals do. Every word of God is authoritative and we need to pay attention to it.
So what we have seen here is this important concept that when one has a demon then that demon is inside controlling the person. So what delivers this woman in Acts 16 is the fact that the demon is cast out by the apostle Paul.