Do Christians Need To Fear False Teachers Or Demons
Demons and false teachers are potent enemies of Gods people, but they never need to fear them. Demons and false teachers serve the purposes of God and are restrained by the mighty hand of the Lord. The Lord is never responsible for evil but does use the actions of the enemies of God to accomplish the will of God.
All that to say, when tempted to be fearful or discouraged regarding evil, dear Christian, remind yourself of the sovereignty of the Lord over evil. Wherever you are and whatever you have going on, serve the Lord faithfully and resist Satan in the strength and grace of the Lord Jesus.
What is critical to our understanding of this subject is to get the idea that Satan and his angels are not going about unconstrained. The Lord controls all the cosmos but permits Satan to assign demons to activities and to put people to the test. Demons may tempt, accuse, and deceive, or dominate and captivate people who practice sin. They can even inflict disease, ruining bodies, and souls . Even so, demons cannot possess a person who is under the Lords protection.
The goal of demons is to separate as many people from God forever, taking them to hell. The strategy of Satan and his demonic horde is to influence the mind to reject Jesus and live in sin. Even in the Lords churches, demons attempt to draw people away from biblical truth .
Who Were The Nephilim
Some passages are just plain tough to understand . This is the second in a two-part Tough Texts series.
Who were the Nephilim in Genesis 6:1-4
This text is confusing in part because the Nephilim are mentioned but not really described here. In Numbers 13, however, theyre described as some sort of large people, like giants. To add to the confusion, this language about the sons of God procreating with the daughters of men surrounds the mention of the Nephilim. So, is there a connection? Are these verses cobbled together but not related? We also obviously have to figure out who the sons of God and daughters of men are. Here are a few possible interpretations.
The first view is that the Nephilim are offspring of the sons of God and daughters of men. The idea is that the sons of God refers to angels or fallen angels and daughters of men refers to human women . So the Nephilim, then, are superhuman offspring of angels and humans. This would explain their size and the reverence people have for them. Proponents of this view will also point to Jude 6-7 . Some people will also couple this with 1 Peter 3:19, where it may indicate that Jesus proclaimed judgment on the angels who committed this crime between his death and resurrection. So, the sons of God are fallen angels who had sex with human women, creating the Nephilim, and were chained up for crossing the boundaries God had given them to roam the Earth before Jesus comes back to destroy them for good.
What Are All The Names Of Angels In The Bible
Out of the hundreds of angelic references, only four have names that are shared, with one whose name is implied. We see that sometimes, the Angel of the LORD, is God, Himself Yahweh showing Himself in the Old Testament.
- Amy SwansonChristianity.com Contributing Writer
- 202028 Oct
Who are the angels of the Bible and what are their names? There is quite a bit we know about angels as they are referenced roughly 300 times from Genesis to Revelation, in various ways.
We see them called angels of God , sons of God , sons of the mighty , heavenly host , holy ones , holy watchers , rulers , and heavenly beings . Yet very few are ever called by name.
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Azazel And His Followers
Two angels acted very differently when they heard of the humans. God directed the angels to love the humans even more than they loved him. For the angel Lucifer, also known as Satan, this was impossible. For another angel, Azazel, this was like a dream come true. Azazel and a group of angel followers went down to Earth and fell in love with the human women and then decided to have sexual relations with them.
The women later gave birth to half-human, half-angel beings called Nephilim, which later caused God many problems. Needless to say, God was not happy with Azazel and his followers and their bastard children. In fact, the spirits of the Nephilim refer to demons in some peoples beliefs. This group of angels became the Fallen Angels.
Bible Verses About Fallen Angels
How you have fallen from heaven,O star of the morning, son of the dawn!You have been cut down to the earth,You who have weakened the nations!But you said in your heart,I will ascend to heaven I will raise my throne above the stars of God,And I will sit on the mount of assemblyIn the recesses of the north.I will ascend above the heights of the clouds I will make myself like the Most High.Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol,To the recesses of the pit.
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Here Is A Simple Action Plan For Gods Children As They Deal With Demons
Refuse to give Satan an advantage by being aware of his tactics. 2 Corinthians 2:11 teaches that Satan gains an advantage when Gods people choose prideful retribution over restoration.
Recognize the difference between messages from faithful angels and fallen angels. 1 John 4:2-3 explains how we may recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.
Reject the temptation to be preoccupied with demons. Know what the Bible says about demons and walk in that truth. Immersing yourself in their world is just as dangerous as ignorance.
Resist Satan. Ive already highlighted James 4:7. 1 Peter 5:8-9 illuminates the same truth: Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith.
Run from every connection with the occult. A lot of people, including some of Gods people, wander off course with this. Do you recall those two sins so closely associated with demons from which we are told to flee? Any occult activity lays the groundwork for idolatry and immorality. Some examples are:
- Ouija boards
- Dungeons and Dragons or any similar entertainment
- Music with occult lyrics
- Psychic or other paranormal encounters
The Screwtape Letters
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Traces Of Theadamic Template
Besidesthe references to the Enochic template, the passage from chapter 18also reveals also the authors familiarity with the Adamicmythology of evil and the peculiar details of its demonologicalsettings. Moreover, it appears that the interaction between the twoparadigmatic templates in 2 Enoch can be seen not merely as anattempt at mechanical mixture of the elements of both trends butrather the progressive movement toward their organic union when themutual interaction is able to generate a qualitatively differenttradition which is not equal anymore to their initial parts. Thus onecan see here the consistent effort to fuse two mythologicalstreams into a new coherent ideology an enormously difficultcreative task carried out masterfully by the authors of the Slavonicapocalypse. One of the crucial signs of such qualitative transitioncan be seen in the literary destiny of the main protological andeschatological opponent of the Adamic tradition Satan,52who is now invited into the new unfamiliar entourage of the rivalmythological trend, where he is being fashioned as the leader of therebellious Watchers.
Theseare the Grigori, who turned aside from the Lord, 200 myriads,together with their princeSatanail. .
Theseare those who turned away from the Lord, who did not obey the Lordscommandments, but of their own will plotted together and turned awaywith theirprince.
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Fallen Angels: Names Bible Stories History Origin And Lists
List of the 20 leaders of the Fallen Angels
In the history of religions there is a theme that tends to arouse the curiosity of almost everyone: the Fallen Angels, better known as demons although this name would not be technically correct.
Where do they come from? Who were they? What are the most important? These and other questions are what we will try to answer.
The Fall Of The Angels
Series:
- Copyright Year:
Biographical Note
Christoph AuffarthLoren T. Stuckenbruck
Christoph Auffarth & Loren T. StuckenbruckRonald HendelMatthias AlbaniLoren T. StuckenbruckHermann LichtenbergerGerard P. LuttikhuizenUmm al-KitbBärbel Beinhauer-KöhlerBernd-Ulrich HergemöllerChristoph AuffarthProf. Dr. Burkhard GladigowEilert HermsChristoph Auffarth
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What Can Satan Do To Christians
Christians are those who are in Christ and who are held secure by the power of God . Satan and his demonic horde may do their worst, but Gods people are to stand fast during trials , considering it pure joy to experience trials .
Though the world, the flesh, and the devil ) and the demonic horde stand opposed to God, the Church will yet triumph because of Christ alone. So, Christians do not need to fear demons or false teachers but preach the Word .
Every unsaved person is under the demonic hold of Satan and subject to his rule and influence. The child of God is no longer under the sway of the evil one because they have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of the Lord Jesus . Christians make disciples of the world by calling people to faith in the Lord Jesus .
The Church will stand forever because of the finished and sufficient work of Christ who sustains the people of God. And one day, at the end of days, the Lord Jesus will throw Satan and his demonic horde into the pit of hell where they will suffer unending, unrelenting conscious punishment .
Though it seems as if the enemies of God triumph now, the reverse is true. The Kingdom of God advances, the kingdom of this world is thrown down, and Christ is still triumphing. The victory of Christ is sure because of the Lord Jesus.
What Do Demons Do
Jumping back to Johns description of the dragon in Revelation 12 who threw a third of the stars of heaven to earth, we recall that these stars are fallen angels who chose to submit to Satans rule rather than Gods. Prior to their fall, the fallen angels would have shared all the common characteristics of Gods faithful angels however, upon joining Satans rebel army, demons perverted their created purpose. They knew God as their Creator, but they defied His authority. They were given boundaries, but they did not keep their proper domain. They were ordained to be Gods messengers, but they chose to obstruct His message instead. Equipped with our investigation of faithful angels, let us seek to understand the dark world of demons and their efforts to intervene in the affairs of mankind.
Within the world of demons, there are two categories. Ill refer to them as fallen and imprisoned and fallen and free.
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Why Did These Angels Fall
Here there are two aspects depending on the source. On the one hand, we find the biblical ones like Lucifer but on the other we find the Book of Enoch, where we see that 200 angels fell in total, with Semyazza as the main leader , although not the only one, since there were 20 leaders in total. These are known as the Watchers .
Archangel Michael drives out the rebellious angels. Illustration by Gustave Doré.
Also called Grigori , they were sent by God to Earth to watch over humanity, they fell in love with the daughters of men, and, after making a pact between them, they and fathered children with them, knowing what their destiny would be.
His sons were the Nephilim mentioned in the bible, giant demigods, sons of angels and humans.
But it has not only been out of lust, even in the case of the Grigori or Watchers, many fell for teaching men the art of war and the creation of weapons , among other knowledge that created the imbalance among the first men. For this, it must be taken into account that each Grigori is associated with a different type of wisdom .
Fallen Angels And The Rise Of The Giants
The fallen angels fall from Heaven onto the earth . We know that after Satans fall, he turns up in the Garden of Eden where he leads Adam and Eve to rebel against God by eating the forbidden fruit , but thats not all. After Adam and Eve rebel against their Maker, we read of Cains murder of his brother, Abel, all due to jealousy, a sign that, since man no longer respected his God, he could no longer respect fellow men who were made in the image of God as he. At the end of Genesis 4, Lamech gains two wives and then claims that he has more protection than Cain because he has killed a man and a boy. Genesis 5 is the graveyard chapter, where we read of Adams genealogy. By Genesis 6, though, the created order is now being undermined. Instead of humans and humans having sexual relations, the fallen angels have now decided to go in and be sexually active with human women:
Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.
3 And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.4 There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
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What Does The Bible Teach Us About Satan
Satan is mentioned more frequently than all other evil angels combined. Twenty-nine times Satan is referred to in the Gospels, and of those 29, Jesus spoke of him 25 times.
- Satan is the prince of the demons , who rules the evil spirits that inhabit the cosmos.
- Satan is the ruler of this world exercising authority in the ordered system of all things opposed to the knowledge and plans of God.
- Satan is the prince of the power of the air , which includes all the unsaved and all the fallen angels.
- Satan is the god of this world , meaning those in the world who reject the Creator and serve their master, Satan.
Scripture refers to Satan 52 times. He is described as Satan or adversary or opposer. Thirty-five times Scripture refers to Satan as the Devil accuser or slanderer. Here are some of the mentions in the Bible that describe Satan:
- That ancient serpent
Such descriptions of Satan help readers understand the influence he cleverly wields to the end of evil and destruction as he rules as the leader of lesser spirits under his control.
The Nephilim And The Great Flood
It is speculated by Christian scholars that the Nephilim were one of the main causes for the great flood in Noahs era. Promptly after the reference of Nephilim, Genesis 6:5-7 states, The LORD saw how great mans wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earthmen and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the airfor I am grieved that I have made them. God then flooded the whole earth, killing everyone and everything other than Noah, his family, and the animals on the ark. All else died, even the Nephilim.
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How Many Angels Make Up One
How many angels is one-third of the angelic host? The word for a third in the Greek text of Revelation 12 is , with tri referring to three. A third of the stars of heaven or angels, refers to 33.333% of the angelic hosts. The next question in the minds of many is, how many angels actually rebelled against God and followed Satan? Thats a question to which we may never have a definitive answer, but we can figure it out by examining what Scripture tells us about just how many angels were dealing with here.
Weve met a few angels in Scripture such as Gabriel, Michael, the two angels that come down to Sodom, the angels that come down to roll the stone away at Jesus resurrection, and so on. We read of many angels in heaven in Genesis 28 when we read of Gods promise to bless Jacob and fulfill the promise the Lord God made to his grandfather, Abraham:
Jacobs dream, in the place he calls Bethel , is where he sees the angels climbing up and down the ladder of Heaven. We know from Jacobs dream that there are many, many angels. This is a good starting ground to answer the question of how many angels exist approximately, and how many would one-third comprise.
Matthew 26:53 puts us closer to an approximate number, though it still leaves us with more questions. Lets read what Jesus says:
6,826 x 12 = 81,912 soldiers
So, with this in mind, lets try to factor in the one-third of the rebellious angels:
81,912 = x 1/3x
81,912 = 2/3X
81,912 x 3/2 = x
122,868 = x