What Are Demons? Part 1

[00:00:00] Cody: Hi, thank you for tuning in to the Logic of God podcast. I'm Cody. 


[00:00:16] Gina: I'm Gina. 


[00:00:17] Cody: And I'm Ben. If you're returning, thank you for coming back and if you are a new guest, welcome. 


[00:00:30] Ben: We have talked a little bit about demons as well as angels, but we haven't gone much in depth into the subject of demons. For a very good reason, honestly, because while it's one thing to talk about angels and God's messengers and their purpose, It's tough to talk about demons without also setting a few ground rules, and we may have to re emphasize these a few times So I do apologize for everyone listening if we repeat ourselves here, but it's important to To stress some points 


[00:00:59] Gina: definitely I made a list which I've already read, but I can read again if you want 


[00:01:04] Ben: Please do 


[00:01:05] Gina: Ephesians 5 11 says take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness But instead expose them Matthew 6 13 says and lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil 2nd Corinthians 11 14 and 15 says and no wonder for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. 


[00:01:31] Their end will be what their actions deserve. Second Peter 2. 4 says, For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell, and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness, to be kept until the judgment. Leviticus 19. 31 Do not turn to mediums or necromancers, do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them. 


[00:01:53] I am the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 18, 9 through 12. When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer Or a medium, or a necromancer, or one who inquires of the dead. 


[00:02:22] For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. First John 4. 1 says, Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. And Revelation 21 8 says, but as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. 


[00:02:51] So if that doesn't make you not want to study demons, I don't know. 


[00:02:56] Ben: Inlaid throughout scripture is a very strong warning. If you mess with any of this, You are rejecting God. And if you reject God, in this particular way, you're rejecting him for eternity. Not that witchcraft or sorcery or anything like that is a sin that is unforgivable. 


[00:03:17] But the closer you get to this side of things, the more You push away from the material world and try to accept the spiritual, the harder and harder it is to turn back. And once you fully accept the world that demons occupy, you accept them, and they are evil. They have fully rejected God, and there is no redemption for them. 


[00:03:36] So, please be very careful if you're gonna look into the subject. Do it with a humble heart, in fear and trembling to the Lord. And remember, That this isn't fantasy. These aren't fake. They're not things that you can just point and laugh at. 


[00:03:53] Gina: Satan masquerades as an angel of light. People think, oh, it's light. 


[00:03:57] I'm not doing anything dark. I'm not worshiping the devil. I'm just seeking wisdom and higher knowledge and power. I want to see, you know, mystical things like just because it looks light doesn't mean that it is light and it doesn't make it any different than doing dark things according to scripture. 


[00:04:14] Ben: And if you are pursuing knowledge of either angels or demons because you would like to something spiritual, the reason you might be doing that is because you're not getting it from God. If God is not giving something to you as an experience, there is a reason for it. Don't try to get around Him by pursuing angels or by pursuing demons. 


[00:04:39] And by that I'm not talking about pursuing them directly, but trying to find people who are possessed. Trying to find people who are oppressed. Seeking that out. It will find you in one way or another if you are supposed to find it. It is better for God to lead you to it and you to be the right person in that circumstance. 


[00:04:57] And we're going to talk a little bit about some of this tonight not to entice you or make you feel like this is all 


[00:05:04] Gina: Fascinating. 


[00:05:04] Ben: Yeah, it's not fantastical. It's real and it's not something that's part of a murder mystery novel It's not something part of a J. R. Tolkien story. It's real stuff. 


[00:05:15] Gina: It's the stuff that will ruin your life Literally eat you alive. 


[00:05:19] Ben: It will. We all have had experiences with it in one way or another, which we will eventually get to. But to start with, we need to get away from personal experience and the subjective. And start with what the Bible tells us. Because if the Bible tells us something, it's for a very good reason. What exactly does the Bible teach us about demons? 


[00:05:37] Gina: Scripture has described demons in a couple of ways, and I want to start by saying I don't think that we all necessarily have the same, like, agreement on what demons are. I think Cody has a different view, and I think you and I are more aligned, Ben. So, I want to lead with that because Cody may say something totally different than what I'm about to say or might disagree, but I welcome that because I think scripture only says so much and we do have to come to our own conclusions about some things, but ultimately we know the warnings. 


[00:06:10] Scripture describes demons in a couple of ways. It calls them devils, demons, spirits, and also fallen angels. In the Hebrew word translated devils in Leviticus, 17. 7 and Deuteronomy 32. 17 refers to a hairy, shaggy goat beast, but sometimes the word devil doesn't mean the goat beast. So it's, it can be confusing when you're reading scripture to determine what kind of evil thing it's talking about. 


[00:06:40] Because, like, in Psalm 106, 37, it can just mean a malignant spirit or demon, and that's taking it back to the Hebrew words, which I'm not even going to attempt. 


[00:06:50] Ben: So that's a lot of different descriptors and words that can potentially mean the same thing. 


[00:06:56] Gina: Yeah. 


[00:06:56] Ben: What exactly is a demon? 


[00:06:58] Gina: I would say a demon is a fallen angel. 


[00:07:01] I don't think Cody agrees, though. 


[00:07:03] Cody: I do not. 


[00:07:04] Gina: Why? What do you believe? 


[00:07:06] Cody: Demons as far as possession. It doesn't add up to me because in scripture, what I see and how I see it is they're usually described as angels still, even if they're in the fallen state or evil spirits, so to speak, but demons is usually not referring to those same things. 


[00:07:26] And as far as possession goes, you don't see angels, good angels possessing other people, but then all of a sudden in the fallen state that they can possess. People, doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. 


[00:07:41] Gina: Do you have any thoughts? 


[00:07:43] Ben: As far as possession, that actually makes a lot of sense to me, mostly because it is the ultimate violation of God's will to enforce your will on that of a human. 


[00:07:54] And also it's something that can't be done just literally at any time for any reason. It seems to be that someone has to be willing and accept it. So in the same way that the Spirit of God can carry someone along to the point where they can write infallible scripture, in that same way, The spirit of evil can take over someone and completely destroy their life. 


[00:08:15] Gina: But the spirit of evil is not anywhere near as powerful as the spirit of God. 


[00:08:19] Cody: Correct. I'd see that more as oppression versus possession. I 


[00:08:24] Ben: don't see much of a distinction between the two, but we'll get to that. 


[00:08:28] Gina: Okay. 


[00:08:28] Ben: So, what would you consider then? The things possessing people to be 


[00:08:34] Cody: so in Jewish tradition and is some early church fathers. 


[00:08:39] It's believed to be The disembodied spirits of the Nephilim. I tend to lean that way I'm not gonna die in any one of these camps or for it, but Logically breaking it down for me. That makes sense Because you have, did we cover Nephilim already up to this point? 


[00:08:57] Ben: So we covered it when we were talking about angels, but it's best to just jump back in here and redefine in case someone is lost. 


[00:09:04] Cody: So Nephilim, Genesis 6, 4, the sons of God saw the sons of man, women, beautiful, came and made babies and their offspring was Nephilim. That's 


[00:09:16] Gina: a theory. 


[00:09:17] Cody: That's 


[00:09:18] Ben: in the Bible. So, yeah, the, this kind of goes back to the discussion that we were having before about the divine counsel, which hopefully Cody can go into more. 


[00:09:26] He mentioned it briefly, but I think it's worth going into the, the theory of the divine counsel. But essentially there is a phrase, sons of God, that is used in the Bible. In reference to seemingly angels because like we said in the angels episode The term angel just means messenger and is not a reference to a heavenly race of some kind We use it as that today and even in the New Testament It seems like that's what they are using it for as well. 


[00:09:53] But at the time of the Old Testament That's not the way they were referring to things Angel literally just meant messenger. And at times, it seems like Christ himself shows up as the messenger. Which is why you can have an instance where there are three angels that go before Abraham, but Abraham talks directly to God face to face. 


[00:10:11] And he talks about, okay, if you find ten righteous souls, will you spare the city of Sodom? Yes, if I find ten righteous souls, I will spare the city. That's one of the reasons why there's some confusion about what an angel is. In modern times, angel, it would be argued, is a son of God. As in, a direct creation, a spiritual creation of God that is not physical. 


[00:10:33] And they could look like different things, we're not entirely certain. There are a few different physical descriptors, which again, we went into in the angels episode. We won't go into now. As far as what the Nephilim are, there is the reference of the angels. A few different ones. We, I, we recently stumbled across another one in Job. 


[00:10:48] But the phrase, sons of God, seems to be used in Job. Depending on the translation of the Bible that you use, in Genesis, in Deuteronomy, and in Job. But there aren't that many references to the sons of God. And usually it's made in such a way with a kind of off handed kind of reference. So yeah, it's the sons of God. 


[00:11:09] They lived on the earth at the time. What are they on about? It seems like There was a kind of cultural understanding at the time these works were written and they already knew what, what was being talked about. In these instances, I'm with you, Cody, in that you can go to Jewish tradition and some external Jewish sources to try to figure out what it was their cultural understanding of these terms would be. 


[00:11:32] But It's still tough because it's not explicitly said in the Bible. I think, before we go anywhere here, it's enough to say that there is evil in this world, and whether it's all fallen angels, or it's fallen angels and the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim, it's all evil, don't mess with it, it all falls under the same umbrella of Just don't. 


[00:11:49] It's better to stay away. It's better to stay away, and through the power of Christ, you can fight it, and we'll get to that eventually, but sorry, going back to the Nephilim, yeah, and the sons of God, it all really is built around the translation of the words there in Genesis and Deuteronomy and Job to the sons of God, and the context that those phrases are put in Genesis and Deuteronomy and in Job. 


[00:12:14] It changes a lot of things. It's one of the reasons why, if you read different translations of the Bible, it's translated slightly differently. Sometimes it says, sons of Israel, or children of Israel, or something like that. And I've heard a lot of di I'm sure you've heard it too, Cody, and I don't know about you, Gina, but I've heard a lot of different interpretations, a lot of fights. 


[00:12:32] These specific mentions of the sons of God saying it's not angels, it's just the forefathers of Israel. I'm not a fan of that translation, but it could be right, but sorry, I jumped in there for a bit. We were talking about the Nephilim 


[00:12:48] Cody: and what the Nephilim were. Okay, so we covered what Nephilim are. So, it's Generally speaking, they're the offspring of the fallen angels. 


[00:12:58] That's pretty much in most church tradition, and current academics pretty much agrees with that. There's some that are in the forefathers, or the Sethian line, but I don't think that's a common interpretation of that. But So, you have the Nephilim and the offspring, and they're partly divine, so they have this characteristic introduced to them that makes them giants, so that's where you get the giants from that Israel later had to take out, and Goliath was part of that, and all of that, and with this divine, or angelic, portion 50%, there's something that doesn't necessarily decompose like the rest of humans do. 


[00:13:45] Gina: We're made in the image of God, but angels are not said to be made in the image of God. We're not the same spiritual beings. 


[00:13:53] Ben: And while So, that position of there being unclean spirits, that you could also call demons, that are essentially the souls of the Nephilim, there are also some wider implications there too. 


[00:14:08] For instance, where does the soul come from? Does God give us our souls? There is a biblical argument to be made that God is the one who creates the eternal soul. Would that mean that God made the eternal souls of the Nephilim, but automatically made them evil? 


[00:14:24] Cody: I think that would depend on how much involvement you think God has in making every souls. 


[00:14:29] Did he make humans with the ability to recreate what he originally created? So he's not as active as a role in the current soul making, so to speak. 


[00:14:43] Ben: It's tough. Unfortunately, we're getting into really dicey territory where we really don't have any answers. It's pure conjecture at this point. I think it's enough to say that Thank you for bringing it up, Cody, because it is something that is a part of Jewish tradition, and it's not as if there's zero reasoning behind it. 


[00:15:03] And I do think that in the New Testament, the Bible does make a distinction between Where it talks about demons, but also impure spirits. And there are a lot of people who've claimed that impure spirits in the New Testament literally is just another way of saying sickness. That it's not literally spirit. 


[00:15:22] Gina: So, it's hard because you run into that. You run into it in Jesus stories where he's healing people who are You know, possessed by something, but then they're actually just sick, or we can't really tell, it's ambiguous, and, you know, some church denominations take those stories and turn other people's mental and emotional and habitual, I don't know, issues into, you know, It can, it can be really confusing for like the new Christian or the average Christian who doesn't take their study very deep. 


[00:15:53] Ben: And there's also the question of the divine counsel, like I mentioned before, and Cody, you mentioned last time. Cody, could you explain that concept? 


[00:16:01] Cody: The divine counsel comes from Deuteronomy 32, is the origin from a lot of the people who are talking about it right now, and Yeah, so, it all comes, Deuteronomy is the main point, 32, the entire Tire chapter there, but focusing in on 32, eight, when the most high gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. 


[00:16:31] So the idea behind that is the different nations he divided up. We know that God took Israel as his portion, but. The rest of the nations of mankind that were divided up were given to the sons of God. And it is believed in this worldview that is the heavenly host or different angels that he commissioned to also lead these other nations. 


[00:16:57] Gina: I'm curious if you guys could pull up 1 Kings 22, 19. And just explain it. It's talking about the heavenly hosts, including all angels. I'm just curious if that includes fallen angels and does the Divine Counsel include fallen angels? 


[00:17:17] Cody: Basically, you have this courtroom setting of God's throne room. And it's depicted as being filled with other spiritual beings. 


[00:17:28] And it's, you have that courtroom setting with God during the decision to sway Ahab. You have that in Psalm 80, 89, that's on the outline, but yeah. Psalm 89, God has taken his place in the divine council. In the midst of the gods, he holds judgment. How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? 


[00:17:52] give justice to the weak and the fatherless. So you have mentioned a divine council there, but all through scripture, you have the divine council or like a courtroom setting. It's the same when, when Job, when Satan or the Satan appears, there's this courtroom setting. And you have that a lot in scripture. 


[00:18:16] Ben: Now, as far as the heavenly hosts here, This is actually the story I've been referencing a lot. This is in 1 Kings chapter 22. The story where the King of Israel and the King of Judah are going to be going to war. And the King of Judah is like, Is there not a prophet of the Lord that we can inquire of? 


[00:18:34] And the king of Israel is, there's one, but he never says anything good about me. Gee, I wonder why, dude. But, yeah, all of the king, all of the, um, prophets of Israel at the time were telling the king of Israel and king of Judah that they should go to war and they would succeed. They finally come to Micaiah, which is the actual true prophet of the Lord at the time, and they ask him. 


[00:18:58] And he says, you're going to lose at first. He doesn't. It's an interesting story. We should, it's worth actually going fully through here. So 1 Kings chapter 22, verses 13, and I'll just keep going until we get to the end of the story, starting at verse 13. And the messenger who went to summon Micaiah said to him, behold, the words of the prophet with one accord are favorable to the king. 


[00:19:23] Let your word be like the word of one of them and speak favorably. But Micaiah said, As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak. And when he had come to the king, the king said to him, Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth Gilead to battle, or shall we refrain? And he answered, Go and triumph. The Lord will give it into the hand of the king. 


[00:19:45] But the king said to him, How many times shall I make you swear that you speak the truth to me, nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord? And he said, I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains. And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil? 


[00:20:11] And Micaiah said, Therefore, hear the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right and on his left. And the Lord said, Who will entice Ahab, that he may also go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead? And one said one thing, and another said another. 


[00:20:30] Then a spirit came forward and stood before him, the Lord, saying, I will entice him. And the Lord said to him, By what means? And he said, I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of his prophets. And he said, you are to entice him and you shall succeed. Go and do so now. Therefore, behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all of these, your prophets. 


[00:20:52] The Lord has declared disaster to you. Now in that particular scene in heaven, it's like Cody said, it's a bit like a courtroom. I would say in that particular instance, all of the heavenly hosts are all of the spirits, good and bad, all angels, good and bad, fallen and not fallen. The reason I say that is because one of them proposes putting a lying spirit in the mouths of all of the prophets, who I would say are false prophets. 


[00:21:17] They're not actual legitimate prophets of the Lord. And the reason that I say that is because earlier in this, King Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah asks, is there not an actual prophet of the Lord? Okay. If there were tons of prophets, what would be the point of asking that? There was only one legitimate prophet of Yahweh left. 


[00:21:34] The rest of them were false prophets. Hence, a lying spirit was sent to all of these false prophets and they prophesied falsely. What's always been interesting to me about this story, though, is that God still tells Ahab the truth. He still goes and he dies. 


[00:21:49] Gina: What I find very interesting is that this is evidence of even fallen angels still being under the command of God. 


[00:21:59] Not that God commands them to be evil. But that there is a purpose for God in having the authority over them, but also giving them the authority that he has given them, which is mysterious to us. 


[00:22:12] Ben: In a sense, but I don't see it too different from the authority he's given to us as humans. For instance, we're capable of doing unimaginably horrible things to one another, in many ways worse than what the demons can do to us from what we see in the Bible. 


[00:22:27] From what we see that they can possess us, but it doesn't seem like they can do it whenever they want. It It seems like in many instances they have to have some occasion to do it, some reason. And what's more, if you rebuke them in the name of the Lord, or if you fast and pray and rebuke them in the name of the Lord, it seems like they have to leave. 


[00:22:47] Now, there are some instances recorded in the Bible where there are people who are going around doing this who aren't necessarily Christian and being successful, but they come to one specific man who's possessed and they say, I rebuke in the name of the Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus Christ, who Paul teaches, I rebuke you come out. 


[00:23:05] And the demon replies, I know Christ and Paul, I know about, but who are you? And he beats them up and he sends them off naked and bleeding. Jesus says, specifically, that there are demons that can only be cast out through fasting and prayer. It seems like most of them you can just cast out by invoking the power of God. 


[00:23:26] Not through your own power, but through God's power, and they have to leave. So in many ways, while it seems like they're more terrifying and more horrible and more powerful than we are, in many ways they're infinitely more limited. Because the horrible things we can do, God, more often than not, it seems, lets us do them. 


[00:23:43] Because we have choice, we have free will, and granted it seems like demons do to an extent too, but because they're not bound to physical rules, they're bound to spiritual rules that are different from ours. So, God's authority is still exerted over evil, just like God's authority is still exerted over us. 


[00:24:02] This is why, at the end of all things, He is the sole authority that will judge us, and He will either cast us down into the abyss or bring us into His courts in heaven. Until that time, evil serves a purpose, and we've talked about this a few times. If you give someone free will, they have to choose something. 


[00:24:19] What choice do you really have if evil doesn't exist? You don't have a choice. As long as God wants us to be able to choose, we have to be able to choose evil, because evil is the absence of God. You choose to accept God or reject him. And it seems that choice has been extended both to us as humans and to the angels as to become devils, essentially, because that's the real distinction between them. 


[00:24:43] There's angels who accept their purpose, and demons who reject it and take themselves to be their own god. You're absolutely right, Gia. This story does indicate that no matter what, God's authority reigns supreme, and this parallels the story of Job, where the devil comes into God's presence, into his court, And they're talking about Job. 


[00:25:02] And the devil has to be given permission to mess with Job's life. He can't just do it. He's limited by spiritual law. So, no matter what, they still have limitations on what they can do. But it does seem like they still are capable of rebelling in some way. The full scope of all of this, what they can do, what their rebellion means, we don't fully know. 


[00:25:20] We do know that they rebel. 


[00:25:22] Gina: Any other thoughts? 


[00:25:24] Cody: I don't know if I want to comment on the Satan and Job or not yet. You want to hold on to that? Yeah, probably. Keep that bullet chambered? 


[00:25:32] Gina: We have that under 


[00:25:34] Ben: Yeah, Satan itself. 


[00:25:36] Gina: Yeah. Which is a whole topic unto itself. Yes, 


[00:25:39] Ben: yes it is. Or rather, yes he is. 


[00:25:41] Gina: You'll notice that every time I wrote his name it is lowercase. 


[00:25:45] Ben: Yes, I've done that as well. I've been intentional about doing that. 


[00:25:47] Gina: He's stinky. 


[00:25:49] Cody: He's stanky. But there is a difference between a proper noun and a title being capitalized. He 


[00:25:55] Ben: doesn't deserve it. Either 


[00:25:56] Gina: way, he's lowercase for me. So, in Deuteronomy 32, 17, it seems to me like the pagan deities are described as evil spirits, and I'm curious how you think that fits into the divine counsel. 


[00:26:12] Cody: That fits in a lot, the idea is a lot of these angels, just the common belief that Satan got prideful and fell, it's believed that a lot of these deities from other cultures are actually angels that were supposed to point to God, but took the worship on themselves and called for the sacrifice of children, or whatever it might be, and that would be Like another fall type event or how more angels fell than just, Oh, Satan is prideful. 


[00:26:45] I'm going to follow him because I'm prideful too. 


[00:26:50] Ben: Yeah. It's, uh, again, this is another one of those areas where there is a lot of debate in the church. Part of that debate comes from a translation in Revelation, where it talks about how a third of the stars in the sky were wiped out. And the devil basically took a third of heaven that rebelled against God, and then they were knocked to the earth. 


[00:27:13] And a lot of Christians take that, and they assume that happened. During the time of Genesis, but that's not the time period that that specific event in Revelation is taking place. Contextually, we know that's the case because immediately after that is when there is a woman who has the the 12 stars above her head and the Sun and the Moon that is representative of Israel and she is about to give birth. 


[00:27:40] And so there's a dragon that comes after her. Contextually, this rebellion in heaven happens as a result of the birth of Christ. So, the question is, why would a third of heaven be angry at Christ being born? And we touched on this last time. So, I don't know that there's any need to go too deep into this. 


[00:27:59] Just to reiterate the point, it seems like it does make a lot of sense that essentially God created the angels to be helpers on earth, basically, to watch over God's creation. And then, once there was the fall of man and after the flood, if you believe in all of that, which I do, then at that point God, Essentially distributed his angels over the entire earth so that his creation is watching his creation. 


[00:28:25] They're all fulfilling, you know, purposes that he made them for. But he separated Israel out, and that was his chosen nation. And honestly, that's another thing that had always confused me when I was younger. Why did God just choose Israel? Why didn't he choose the entire world and watch over the whole world? 


[00:28:42] And instead of just letting all of humanity fall apart and turn evil, it felt like he just abandoned the world for no reason and chose Israel. But if you look at it from the perspective of the Divine Council, assuming it's right, then what you get is the image of the, of God saying, to all of his creation, I will let you govern yourself. 


[00:29:03] And in the end, ultimately proving the need for God to step in and reign himself, rather than letting all of his creation govern itself. But, because he loves his creation and because he knew of the eventual need for his own sacrifice, he set aside this tiny section of the world and called it his. But he let the rest of the world reign itself. 


[00:29:25] And slowly, one by one, the angels that he set to watch over the rest of the world turned corrupt. For whatever reason, we're not given exact reasons in the Bible, and this may not even be the right translation anyway. But, I will admit, it definitely makes sense to me, and it does explain why the Egyptian gods seem to be able to do things on behalf of the priests of the Egyptian gods. 


[00:29:48] Now, where we get into some rocky territory, where some reasonable rebuttals to this would come from, The Israelites themselves make some golden calves. Were those demons? Presumably not. 


[00:30:03] Gina: I would say they were, I think the calves came from some, something, some idea outside of whatever it is that God wanted them to be doing. 


[00:30:11] Wouldn't it have come from another? 


[00:30:14] Ben: You could make the claim that it was, they were pulling from some other culture and those calves were a representation of some other deity. However, if you look at certain, If you look at the prophet Jeremiah and just do a word search for gods, every single reference that he makes to gods is the fact that the gods of the world don't exist, that they're just the creations of people. 


[00:30:37] But in those instances, he's specifically referring to idols, to handmade things. And he also does talk about the judgment of the gods of Egypt. Again, this is why we're in rocky territory. The Bible definitely does in both the Old and New Testament. Point to the use of idols and say why are you doing this? 


[00:30:54] These things don't exist. They are the work of your own hands. But at the same time, the Apostle Paul talks about how food sacrificed to idols is sacrificed to demons. It seems to me that you can interpret that one of a few different ways. Either you're attempting to sacrifice food to evil, and thus a representative of evil accepts it. 


[00:31:16] Or, you can interpret it as there is an idol that is a representative of this evil spirit, and so the evil spirit accepts it. Or, you can interpret it as some of these things are actually representative of real things. And some of them are literally just conjured from the fevered mind of humans. I think that's probably the explanation. 


[00:31:37] Some of these gods actually did exist, and were corrupted angels. And some of them were powerless. They were literally just concoctions of stone or gold, and they had no power. But people assumed that they did because they didn't know how any of this worked. 


[00:31:52] Cody: Yeah, or tradition. Mm 


[00:31:53] Ben: hmm. Any number of things. 


[00:31:55] Yep. 


[00:31:56] Gina: Agree. I think it's really, it can be really confusing. I'm not as willing to study, like, demonology or extra biblical information about demons. I tread a little more lightly, and I just blanket it with, I don't need to know. Mm hmm. But there is value in knowing these things because it does point to the need for God. 


[00:32:18] And the point of like free will and needing a savior and stuff. So it helps the story of the Bible from start to finish, make a little bit more sense to me. I don't need it to be true for me to have the relationship with Jesus that I have, but it definitely is. That's 


[00:32:37] Cody: what I say all the time, like I've read Enoch and like, it's, people are tinfoil hat crazy about Enoch. 


[00:32:46] Why is it removed from the Bible? And you got to explain to them that it was never part of the Bible to begin with. It was not, you know, what we have now was not literally written by Enoch, the great grandfather of Noah, I think, or just great grandfather, one of those. It was not. Pinned by him actually there's a lot of issues just right there with it. 


[00:33:09] Is it cool? Does it explain some things that are not? Contradictory to Bible if they're true. Sure, but it's not worth dying for it's not worth going crazy on 


[00:33:22] Gina: But the way that we consume entertainment Excitement, and we talked about it a little bit in one of our recent Catching Foxes podcast episodes, but there's this psychological term that's called hedonic adaptation. 


[00:33:39] And basically it's like you start with a threshold. It's like your baseline emotionally. And then whatever stimulus comes at you every single time will raise your threshold. It escalates. And with study of the demonic or study of extra biblical information, Our brains are so wired to respond, to need more, like to need more stimulus, to need more, like, enjoyment, and more intrigue, and curiosity, and so it becomes obsessive a little bit, and like unhealthy, and It's really important to remember that whatever you're consuming outside of the Bible, you can't necessarily trust. 


[00:34:17] Cody: No, and you test it, just like you test anything else. Whether you believe it or not, it should be filtered through the Bible. If there's contradictions, you need to throw that part out right away. It's not worth keeping. 


[00:34:30] Gina: And reset your threshold for your response and your triggers because if you need more and more, You're like on a path of destruction. 


[00:34:39] You have to reset yourself every single time and say, no, this is what I need. And the baseline is like the five core assumptions. And if you're going outside of that and you say, I need more information or knowledge, like your pursuit becomes. Head knowledge instead of heart knowledge and it really defeats the purpose of your faith to begin with. 


[00:35:00] Cody: Yeah. Yeah, there's no Need for anything outside the bible. Is there value and stuff outside the bible? Yes, but if it becomes oh I need this and adding to The bible or to what you believe is canon I think that's very slippery slope territory. The purpose of getting us to heaven and building the kingdom of God can be found solely in the Bible. 


[00:35:27] Gina: That being said, it is fun to have these conversations. 


[00:35:30] Cody: It helps line up. It's one of those things, and if people didn't ask for this episode and it be so requested by multiple people, we probably wouldn't have been covering it to this extent. Because this isn't a topic I like to teach on or discuss openly because people either don't Take a lot of people off with what you say. 


[00:35:54] Gina: Or you scare them. 


[00:35:55] Cody: Or you scare them. And it's fantastical ideas that in theory sound great and make a lot of sense for other things, but it's not something I would teach from an authoritative position at all. 


[00:36:10] Ben: And we have good reason to be afraid. Not because demons are something to be afraid of, but the Apostle Paul teaches just about when he's talking about the law itself and its purpose. 


[00:36:23] He laments about the fact that he would not know evil if he didn't know the law. Not that he'd be incapable of evil, but once he knew and understood what evil was, he was then suddenly that much more capable. Of committing true evil in full understanding, he could suddenly violate the law completely. 


[00:36:44] Once you know more about both angels and demons because the two are connected, unfortunately, then suddenly you're faced with temptation. You would not have known had you just remain ignorant. Now, I think there is a bare minimum you need to know about both groups here, but I do think that it's okay for us to look at what it is that the Bible teaches. 


[00:37:09] And then say that's enough. And even about some of the ambiguity in the Bible. It's okay. I don't need it clarified. You can listen to the explanations on both sides of the arguments here and go, you know what? Whatever it is, I will find out in heaven. Some of these explanations are more satisfying to me than others, but overall I just won't know until I meet God face to face and he explains it. 


[00:37:32] Cody: Yeah, and it's one of those things that's not gonna eat you up that you don't know either. No. Like it would be cool to know. But, 


[00:37:38] Ben: and if you don't find the discussion edifying, then please don't. Don't feel bad about it. It's okay. 


[00:37:44] Gina: Yeah, like we're about to get into some more specific details and if you're uncomfortable knowing Names of creatures in the Bible. 


[00:37:52] Please don't listen. 


[00:37:53] Ben: Yeah It's just enough to know that evil exists and that God has empowered you to fight it in his name But as for myself with this subject, I was at one time very afraid of it, too But having had discussions with Gina and Cody about it over the past year I found a lot of comfort in The idea of the divine counsel, whether or not it's right, it really does make things feel more complete for me. 


[00:38:20] It makes it feel like the world that Christ came to save was one that was in desperate need of salvation. And if he didn't come, then it would have fallen into complete and total destruction. And I didn't get that feeling for a long time as a Christian. It just felt like a bunch of people being stupid. 


[00:38:38] I In some sense it does, but it felt very grounded, very material, for lack of a better word, like things in the past existed as they do now, just people being mean and doing mean things to one another. And suddenly Christ came in and now we have a savior who saves our eternal soul from our own meanness. 


[00:39:01] But with these additional details, it seems to gain a measure of color. The past isn't the same as what it is now. In some ways, we're not going to understand the world that we left behind when Christ came. And we shouldn't, because it's not a world that was good. It's a world that needed to be saved. 


[00:39:21] Gina: There are some things that align, that are like practices of today, that align with demonic activities of the past. And it's questionable to me. Is this satanic or demonic worship to abort babies or to choose your gender or whatever? There's some different things that, that are still happening now in a more covert or a more acceptable way. 


[00:39:46] What's phrased more acceptable, but it's still the same thing. And it does cause me to stop and think, are we really that different? But looking at it, Through the lens of Christ and knowing what he already has done, it does feel weaker. It does seem like the impact is less, although I think the desire for this mystical knowledge is increasing 


[00:40:09] Ben: and according to the Book of Revelation, eventually these people are going to get exactly what it is they're asking for. 


[00:40:15] Eventually, there's gonna be a sort of resurgence of the evil that was once rejected and conquered by Christ. But I think that's best saved for an analysis of revelation. 


[00:40:27] Gina: Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to our podcast today. If you liked what you heard, please feel free to subscribe and share and leave a positive review. 


[00:40:36] And if you would like to connect with us on social media, you can do so on Instagram and Facebook at the Logic of God. You can also send us an email at Maine dot the Logic of god@gmail.com. Thanks again for listening, we hope you have a great day.