“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 8:38-39
Alarmed at the appallingly high patient mortality rate at the Austrian hospital where he worked, Ignaz Semmelweis, an inquisitive physician during the 1840s, urged doctors to wash their hands before delivering babies and performing surgery, a practice few physicians or medical assistants followed at that time.
Incredibly, even though Semmelweiss’ order that hospital personnel wash with a chlorine lime solution resulted in a tenfold decrease in mortality – from 20 percent down to two percent – the reaction of the larger medical community was overwhelmingly negative.
Most doctors not only ignored, but openly scorned and mocked Semmelweis, continuing to ply their trade without washing and thereby condemning countless patients to death – including many young mothers and newborns from puerperal fever.
After all, reasoned the proud doctors, how could something essentially invisible – indeed, something one could scarcely prove even existed – possibly be so dangerous as to wreak havoc on an otherwise healthy human being?
So abusive were the day’s medical professionals toward Semmelweis and his claims that their mockery and public ridicule eventually drove him mad. He was committed to an insane asylum where he died in 1865, at the young age of 47.
It was only when famed microbiologist Louis Pasteur – having basically confirmed the unproven “germ theory of disease” through his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization – took up Semmelweis’ crusade and insisted doctors sanitize their hands and equipment prior to contact with patients that the practice started to catch on more broadly.
Yet even then, there was resistance.
The idea that something invisible yet profoundly malevolent could somehow get inside people, cause them great harm and ruin their lives elicited ridicule from the “experts” of that time.
Today, even more than in Semmelweis’ and Pasteur’s era, we live in an age of tremendous knowledge, innovation and almost magical technology, but also staggering blindness with regard to certain fundamental life-and-death realities.
One of those key realities to which secular science is oblivious – just as it is oblivious to the existence of the Creator of the Universe – is the reality and nature of evil and the various ways it infects human beings, and too often comes to dominate their lives.
Indeed, today’s mechanistic scientific and medical establishment is every bit as uncomprehending of the unseen spiritual forces plaguing the human race as Victorian-era doctors were with regard to the dangers of microscopic germs whose very existence they scorned.
This ignorance reveals itself in the often absurd ways we try to explain human evil.
Much of the predatory or self-destructive behavior we encounter in the human race is neatly categorized by our “experts” into one silo or another – perpetrators are “criminals,” or they are “mentally ill,” or they’re suffering from the “disease of addiction,” or they’ve been “radicalized” into an ideology of “violent extremism” (Obama’s meaningless euphemism for Islam) and so on.
But these and other categories are inadequate and often self-contradictory. For example, currently in the U.S., and particularly in Europe, Islamic terrorists who carry out mass murder rampages are often immediately labeled “mentally ill” by authorities. So, are they criminals, brainwashed jihad zombies or mentally ill?
Under our legal system, a perpetrator who has given himself over so deeply to dark forces that he no longer even recognizes that the crime he commits is morally wrong may be found “not guilty by reason of insanity” – by which logic all jihadists would be both “insane” and “not guilty,” and by logical extension, “innocent.” (Many penal experts today claim a significant percentage of all convicts populating U.S. prisons are actually “mentally ill.”)
The confusion over what truly ails us is endless. As I document in “The Snapping of the American Mind,” tens of millions of troubled Americans, plagued by anger, anxiety, guilt and depression are treated with drugs. Meanwhile, tens of millions of other Americans are taking drugs illegally (or abusing alcohol) to deal with the exact same problems, pains and anxieties. Some of them go to prison as criminals for essentially self-medicating.
Clearly something fundamental is missing from our understanding of human evil and how to deal with it.
Born beautiful
We are confronted daily with the reality of people possessed by evil. The most obvious example is ISIS, which delights in committing atrocities that shock the world. Recent news headlines include: “ISIS to Yazidi Girls: ‘Once We Rape You, You Will Be Muslim,’” “Parents Shown Video of Daughters Raped, Tortured – Given Body Parts in Bags,” “2-Year-Old Boy Killed, ‘Ground Into Meat and Fed to His Mother,’” “Yazidi Victim of ISIS Genocide: ‘They Beheaded Children With Axes.’”
Yet, an ISIS barbarian who rapes, tortures and beheads innocent people was not born that way – he was born like all human beings, a beautiful and innocent child. Something malevolent took control of his mind somewhere along the way and he is now, quite literally, a slave of evil.
But what about us non-terrorists – you know, regular, decent, conscientious human beings doing our best, but struggling with our own dark thoughts and feelings? Clearly, we too are born beautiful and innocent. But just as we inherit genetic traits from our parents and grandparents through our DNA, we also inherit a proclivity toward selfishness, anger, doubt, lust, envy, greed, dishonesty and faithlessness. In other words, we’re all born with a strong tendency to harken to, and follow, the dark side of our nature, a condition Christians call being “born in sin.”
Unfortunately, some of us open the door, however inadvertently or ignorantly, to something even darker and, indeed, demonic. Often through trauma, early abuse and cruelty, or through heavy involvement in sex and drugs, or through great anger and rage, or through involvement with the occult – there are many possible avenues – something slips into us that doesn’t belong there, and torments us until we find the cure.
But where can such a cure be found?
Not a circus
The 1973 movie “The Exorcist” is considered by many to be the scariest horror film of all time.
Why would that be? Countless other horror movies have far more blood and guts, terror and death, more fearsome monsters, CG special effects, 3D, and so on.
Based on William Peter Blatty’s 1971 bestseller about an actual 1949 exorcism of a young boy who became demonically possessed after playing with a Ouija board, “The Exorcist” is scary because “the monster” in the movie is real.
In fact, it’s something that resides within human beings.
Even though the story was dramatized somewhat for Hollywood (your head cannot spin 360 degrees like child actress Linda Blair’s!), the film stirs something deep within the viewer, a recognition that there is an uncomfortable degree of truth to what is being portrayed: namely, that demonic entities can and do influence human beings, a vexing reality that cries out for genuine healing from God Himself.
Although many biblical passages describe Jesus Christ boldly but calmly casting out demons – a practice his followers also carried out at his direction – a great deal of today’s “exorcism” scene takes on the appearance of a three-ring circus and freak show. Indeed, most of the exorcism videos posted online and in news stories today, some featuring intensely emotional “exorcists” engaged in dramatic shouting matches with their “possessed” patients, are widely missing the mark.
Here are just a few headlines from stories published on WND in recent months:
- “Screaming teen girls in 5-hour exorcism”
- “Woman killed in failed exorcism attempt”
- “Netflix to air exorcism comedy ‘Crazy Face'”
- “Satanic killings sweep Mexico, call for mass exorcism”
- “Ted Cruz protesters attempt exorcism on him”
- “5 arrested in woman’s ‘exorcism’ death”
- “Woman found dead in hotel after ‘exorcism'”
- “Morgan Freeman’s granddaughter slain in ‘exorcism'”
- “Mass exorcism of kids leaves many screaming”
- “Priest rapes woman on pretext of exorcism”
- “Man ‘speaking in tongues’ forces exorcism on woman”
As with all genuinely valuable things in this world, hundreds of counterfeits show up on the scene to confuse, misdirect and prey upon good people – and to turn them away from discovering the real thing.
Genuine deliverance from demonic oppression and influence is very real, but it is not a bizarre, circus-like event.
It is something entirely different – dignified, honest, sincere, beautiful, cleansing and quietly life-changing.
And that, I’m happy to tell you, is the topic of December’s powerful Christmas issue of Whistleblower magazine, titled “DELIVER US FROM EVIL: Spiritual warfare in today’s America.” I highly recommend you read it – and please check out the very special free offer below.
SPECIAL OFFER: For a limited time, subscribe to Whistleblower, renew or give a gift subscription for one year and you’ll get $10 off the already discounted rate (pay only $39.95 instead of the usual $49.95), plus you’ll receive TWO free gifts:
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First, you’ll get “Spiritual Warfare: Christians, Demonization and Deliverance” by Dr. Karl Payne, which is not only the most popular book on the subject, written by a distinguished pastor and academic (and longtime Seattle Seahawks chaplain), but has received uniformly rave reviews from reader-reviewers, with virtually every Amazon reader awarding the book a glowing five-star review.
Payne’s approach to demonization doesn’t come from book learning. It is based on working with hundreds of people tormented by spiritual oppression. He has developed, working with others with even more experienced in the area, some key techniques that all too few clergy and lay people understand.
“I personally believe that demonic deception is increasing, even within the Christian church, and that the worst of this deception is still to come,” Payne asserts. “If God allows demonic activity to increase until His return, I believe He will also train up and equip a growing number of His children to faithfully and effectively contend with the powers of darkness who oppose His plans and people. Too many North American churches are well on their way to becoming the same spiritually dead museums as Western European churches.”
Joseph Farah, founder of WND and WND Books, which publishes “Spiritual Warfare,” says he frequently gives copies away to people when he hears about cases of spiritual oppression and demonization. “I can’t tell you how many people have told me it has helped them immensely in understanding the reality of spiritual warfare,” Farah says. “And that’s exactly why we believed this book is what is needed in our world at this unique time in history.”
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The story of the rigging of America – of who has done it, how, why, and most importantly, how it can be un-rigged – is a story every American needs to hear and understand.
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