Whenever we stumble into sin, what do we do? Let’s be honest here. Depending on the situation we may keep on continuing on with the sin, hide from the sin and pretend it didn’t happen, pray to God for repentance or blame it on the devil. Let’s stop here, how do you feel after reading the previous sentence?

Continuing on with the sin means running away from God and being carried away by earthly desires. Best case scenario from hiding from the sin may be to stop sinning but that does not mean much unless you repent.  Of course repenting your sins in front of God is the right thing to do, but what about demons and evil spirits?

The Bible does teach about people unable to control themselves and demons consequently being cast out from their bodies by Jesus Himself in the gospels or in Jesus’ name in Acts. This does not mean that exorcisms only happen in the Bible as I believe it can happen even in the present day. However, before we get all worked up about demons, let’s take a look at who they actually are first.

Wayne Grudam’s Systematic Theology defines demons as follows:

Demons are evil angels who sinned against God and who now continually work evil in the world.

It is written in Scripture that these fallen angels will consequently be casted into hell (2 Peter 2:4). “Satan” is the name of the head of the demons. It is written in Scripture that Satan is the origin of all sins (1 John 3:8). However, should we be afraid of Satan?

Let’s take a look at the qualities of our God. He is omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent (in all places at the same time), omniscient (He knows everything), and omnibenevolent (He only does things that are all good). However, Satan has none of these qualities. Satan’s abilities are limited and Satan even needs to get God’s permission before doing anything (Job 1:6-12). Satan is weak and thinks that he can destroy all the good works of God but the opposite happens and he will be thrown into hell when the time comes (more to be discusses in a later post).

Therefore, Satan and his demons are limited. There are not enough demons and evil spirits to go and haunt every one of God’s creations as they are finite beings. This doesn’t mean we should not pray against them as it is biblical to do so in the Lord’s Prayer but we should not blame every single trouble we have in our lives on evil spirits and demons and we should not think that every sinful act that happens is because something or someone is possessed.  If the blame on demons and evil spirits is abused, it just sounds irresponsible as this is transferring the blame to other things and claiming yourself to be innocent. Yes, Satan is the root of sin but our flesh sins. It is not a struggle against flesh (Ephesians 6:12) but a process of submitting to God’s will of living a Holy life.

Therefore, next time you fall into some sort of sin or your friend is having struggles, rather than just focussing on casting out a devil, if it seems to be some sort of a fleshly struggle, take time to repent in prayer and ask God for wisdom so that you may live a life pleasing to God.