Introduction
Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” 29 For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) (Luke 8:26–29)
It is evident that for the last several decades our world has become a place of increasing demonic activity
3 Articles/ Examples
These are ominous signs that the world is increasing in darkness, even from the time of Jesus. The reality is the deception of man that began in the garden in Genesis 3 is increasing today. Satan, the current ruler of this world, is not necessarily becoming more powerful, but man is become more deceived and more focused on the things of the demonic. Here is a harsh truth: Satan is not to blame, we are!
For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:21–23)
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, (1 Timothy 4:1–2)
What we will see as the time of Christ’s return draws near is the increasing influence of the power of the Antichrist. For many centuries, people have been fixated in finding out or trying to figure out who the antichrist will be. In the early church they saw it as possibly as one of the Roman emperors, and the names Nero and Domitian were bandied about. Martin Luther saw it as the papacy of the Roman church, or the Pope. In WWII, people were sure it was Hitler, and many other prevalent leaders in our time.
What is important for us to know as believers is not ‘who’ is the antichrist, but that the antichrist emerges from a demonic spirit that is already at work today:
Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. (1 John 2:18)
The first warning that John gives us is that it is the "last hour." This is the only place in the New Testament that the term "last hour" appears. What exactly did John mean? According to John, the last hour is the intensifying of Satan’s fight through evil against God and his people. As we see the events of human history unfold, we can see that we are living in that last hour, and we must be watching and waiting for Christ’s return.
Today with the war in Israel, COVID, the racial violence, and the economic turmoil, antisemitism, and a myriad of other events, the world is ready for someone, anyone who will come and bring some sort of order and peace out of the mess, which is prime material for Satan and the Antichrist to work with.
While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. (1 Thessalonians 5:3)
By his cunning he shall make deceit prosper under his hand, and in his own mind he shall become great. Without warning he shall destroy many. And he shall even rise up against the Prince of princes, and he shall be broken—but by no human hand. (Daniel 8:25)
In his place shall arise a contemptible person to whom royal majesty has not been given. He shall come in without warning and obtain the kingdom by flatteries. (Daniel 11:21)
Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, (2 Thessalonians 2:3)
This is exactly how the prophet Daniel describes the coming Antichrist, and how he will make a covenant with many for a 7-year period, but then renege on this agreement half way through.
My point is not to try to elaborate on the antichrist, but rather the condition of the world, which will become increasingly fixated on the doctrine of demons because of the spirit of the antichrist at work, whose primary purpose is to deceive the saints and the world to follow after his false doctrines.
1. Those that worship and serve demonic forces
Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. (Luke 8:26)
In this passage we read why Jesus crossed the lake and why the Devil wanted Him stopped so bad. In the area of the Gadarenes there was a man with a need.
Picture the scene with me that day as Jesus and the disciples arrived. As Jesus and the disciples arrive, they see before them a very small beach with cliffs immediately beyond the beach. In the cliffs, there are caves and tombs for burial. The shadows from those cliffs stretch out across the beach, reaching almost to the water’s edge.
Suddenly, even as the disciples pull the boat onto the shore, a man comes running from the edge of the cliffs toward Jesus.
When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” (Luke 8:27–28)
No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. (1 Corinthians 10:20)
Vance Havner said “We do not need culture, but we do need Calvary.” Joseph Clark said “the cross is God’s plus sign to a needy world. The cross is the only ladder high enough to touch heaven’s threshold. The cross is the focal point of John 3:16; without Christ and His cross, we are lost.”
“All unannounced and mostly undetected there have come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different. The likenesses are superficial but the differences are fundamental. From the new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life and from the new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique, a new type of meeting and a new kind of preaching.”
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More and more people are agreeing with the devil and reasoning that the only way to win the world to Christ is to make Christ more acceptable to the world. The only way we can get the world to come to church is to make the church like the world. If we want others to resemble Christ we need to make Christ resemble them instead of telling them they must die to self as part of the sanctification process. I’d rather pastor a struggling church preaching the truth than to pastor the wealthiest church preaching flatteries. I’d rather pastor the smallest church in Oklahoma telling the truth than pastor the largest church in the state telling lies.
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. (Matthew 6:24)
2. Those who have a numbed conscience
When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. (Luke 8:27)
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. (Genesis 3:7)
Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, (2 Thessalonians 2:11)
God will sometimes withdraw his grace from sinners like these and hand them over to Satan to be deceived. How does Satan deceive us? Satan will try to make the most harmful things seem the most harmless. He will take those things that corrupt our minds, and make them humorous. Satan tries to pass of what appeals to the flesh, knowing its corruption, as something that is a necessity. As if to say “As a Christian, you should do this or that.” It’s like the coach of a rival team giving advice to the opposing coach on what he should do to win the game. Its never the devil’s interest to promote the gospel or to advise Christians how they should live for Christ, and yet that doesn’t stop many Christians from taking his advice.
But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. (2 Corinthians 11:3–4)
Friends, you live under the constant deception of the enemy because you have chosen to harden your heart against the voice of the Holy Spirit and listen to demonic influences.n these churches the greatest commandment is no longer to “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength” but to love yourself with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” We have numbed our consciences to satisfy the god of self
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. (Romans 1:18–19)
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Romans 1:24–25)
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, (Romans 1:28–30)
The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, 21 nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. (Revelation 9:20–21)
3. Those who have inverted reality
“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)
The demonic became more and more Isolated from people. When someone is unwilling to live in reality and the community of believers, there is a likely a demonic influence in their life. One way we do this is pushing others away.
The Holy Bible is a mirror that reflects who Jesus is to us, and causes us to love him and provokes us to trust him and challenges us to serve him. But when that same Bible mirror reflects a blemish in ourselves, when it reveals some flaw in our lives, far from repenting, it affords this generation of the offended, a good reason to leave the church and many will not come back, just as it was prophesied that they wouldn’t. The truth can be offensive, the reality of hell and the great white throne judgment of God is not pleasant to hear.
A morbid association with pain and death. Most demonic influence will result in self-harm behaviors. Drug & alcohol abuse, cutting and piercings, obsessions with tattoos, homicidal or suicidal tendencies.
You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord. 31 “Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:28, 31)
4. Those who want to remove the power and presence of God from their society.
and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means. 4 And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. 6 And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. 8 And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” 9 And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, 10 he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ 11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word…” (Luke 8:3–37)
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” (John 3:19)
?And I will cast you out of my sight, as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of Ephraim. 16 “As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. (Jeremiah 7:15–16)
We must guard our conscience!
“I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me.” (Psalm 101:3)
“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)
“for he is like one who is inwardly calculating. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.” (Proverbs 23:7)
Two Churches:
Philadelphia: "Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. 11 I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. (Revelation 3:10–11)
Ladicea: ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. (Revelation 3:15–20)
The Answer is in the Word and the Armor:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17)
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. (Ephesians 6:12–15)
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)
Renounce all covenants and practices of evil
Confess Jesus as your one Lord and Savior
Follow after him
