The Reality of Demons: Insights from C.S. Lewis

Written by Pastor Larry Enriquez

ccfontario

I heard someone say that there are more emoji’s than there are feelings in his body… The following passage however, can indeed evoke a wide range of feelings depending on what mood you are in before you read it, what time of day it is, or perhaps what you have just eaten. It’s sad, it’s funny, and it’s scary.

“Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.” 14 Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. 15 One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?” 16 Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.” Acts 19:13-16

Here’s my commentary, WOW!

In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis offers us one side of a conversation between two demons as they correspond by sending letters back and forth. We only read the words of Screwtape, a veteran and distinguished human tempter. He writes to his nephew Wormwood, who is a novice in the trade of temptation, attempting to mentor him as Wormwood seeks to capture his first human soul for the purpose of eternal torment. I take from Clives insights that the Devil is smart, and as that goes, knows that any apparent manifestation of demons would upset the modern pagan man, us, or them.

Thus, probably the biggest mistake the enemy could make in the age of secularism and unbelief is to plainly reveal the spirit world. So accept for the exception of sensationalized Hollywood movies you rarely ever hear about demonization, just death, mayhem, and mental illness. By the way, C.S. Lewis is, “C” for Clive and “S” for Staples.So this passage ought to shake us to the reality of our enemy who wages war against you and your loves ones. Wake up! to the schemes of the evil one. He is a real and present danger.

Clive Lewis uncovers, or rather exposes the subtle nature of temptation and manipulation, which the enemy routinely employs against the Christian… “Indeed the the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” Clive Staples Lewis.

Why this shout out? Halloween is this month, and from my wife trickled down to my 9 grandchildren, dress up is a blast. But let us not be fooled for even a moment, as one Christian so rightly titled his book Satan is alive and well on planet earth. Be on guard in these last days, and know this, “…but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” May this season of Fall, our Autumn, find you warm, safe and secure, armed and ready with the Gospel of peace that fills your hearts and minds. “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence.

The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.“

-Pastor Larry