So let’s again look at the possibility as to whether sexual ‘lust’ might be raging hormones amped up on steroids ...or could there be a literal, demonic spirit ...attached to it that drives and compels people to crave and do things they feel powerless to resist and overcome? (This is Part 8 in an ongoing 'series')

Please know that I am not overly preoccupied nor consumed with sniffing out demon spirits ‘behind every bush’ ...or seeing them at work every time someone cusses and honks their car horn in anger at another slow driver. And once again, all I know to do is open the pages of our beloved Bible to see what it might have to say regarding this subject of ‘unclean’ and/or ‘demonic’ spirits.

We are told in 1 John 5:19 that the ‘whole world is under the influence of the wicked one’.

Paul informs us in his letter to the Ephesians that when we were previously ‘dead in sin’, that a ‘spirit worked IN us’ as it influenced or worked in/through our ‘fleshly desires and carnal thoughts’ (2:1-3). He writes later on in that same letter that it is not ‘flesh and blood that we are at war with but with “spiritual forces and authorities and against rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world (heavenlies)” (6:12)

Paul would later write to Timothy in his second letter to him advising him how to deal with those who oppose his message, reminding them they had been ‘taken captive by the devil to do his will’ (2:24-26).

Is it possible these ‘spirits’ had, and continue to have... different characteristics and ‘specialties’ or ‘assignments’? Or what about varying degrees of power and strength? Remember the story Jesus shared in Matt. 12:43-45 how that one ‘unclean spirit’ went out of a man...but then came back, found an opening or entrance and then ‘brought with him seven other spirits ‘more wicked than himself... so that the man was in a worse-off condition in the end than he was in the beginning’. No, really...go read that story again.

And surely you have caught that small detail woven in the telling of a healing that took place in Luke 13...where Jesus called out a ‘daughter of Abraham...who had a ‘spirit of infirmity for 18 long years and was bound by Satan’. (11-16). What do you suppose a ‘spirit of infirmity’ does in people? I find it interesting the wording used by Jesus there as He then tells her she is ‘loosed’ or ‘freed’ from her infirmity. Why not just say ‘healed or cured’? Oh, and while we are in Luke’s gospel, who happened to be a physician himself, notice the verbiage he uses to describe what happened when Peter’s mother-in-law had a fever. He tells us that Jesus “stood over her and rebuked the fever...and ‘it’ left her. And immediately she arose and served them.” (Luke 4:39)

Then, there was the incident where a distressed father brought his tormented son to the disciples who were unable to help the boy. We learn there that he often had ‘seizures, was thrown down to the ground, foamed at the mouth, gnashed his teeth and became rigid’. (Mark 9:17-26). Seems it might be easier to deal with if we applied some convenient medical term to such conditions where no one could actually ‘heal or cure’ someone with these ‘symptoms’, but at least might help ‘manage’ the condition with medication...right? Oh, did you read that part there how this ‘spirit’ (20) would ‘often throw him in to the fire and water to destroy him’?(22). Now early on in the exchange, the father seemed to have already diagnosed his son as having a ‘mute spirit’ (17). Look how Jesus handles the situation in vs. 25- “Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it: “Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you ...come out of him and enter him no more! Then, the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly and came out of him...” (26)

And I didn’t even get to the OT story where God actually sent/used ‘lying spirits’ to carry out His will (1 King 22:19-23; 2 Chron. 18:18-22) ...which then makes 2 Thess. 2:9-12 even more intriguing.

I have to wonder at times...how many folks today, when they read such stuff tell themselves that those early disciples, along with those who recorded the scriptures for all the world to read for centuries afterwards...were simply ‘ignorant’ and ‘superstitious’ and not smart enough to realize what folks back then struggled with ...were ‘medical conditions’...and not really ‘demon spirits’?

That’s probably enough for one day; let’s plan on meeting back here tomorrow and we will continue on...Lord willing.