Wake Up, Look Up

Hello everyone, and thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch, and in today's episode, we're asking the question, is there a demon next door? This is prompted by an article in the Atlantic by Stephanie McCrummon called the Demon Next Door. It profiles a church called the well in Marysville, Tennessee, whose leaders believe that God has called them to wage strategic spiritual warfare against the demonic strongholds in their region. And they actually believe that they are able to identify these strongholds and locate them in the community with actual people and institutions that they then oppose. Like, recently, they decided a local bookstore was a regional center of demonic influence. They organized prayer camp campaigns against it, appealed to government officials to get rid of it, publicly framed the business as spiritually dangerous. As a result, the bookstore owner ultimately feared for her safety, underwent active shooter training, and armed herself after what she deemed escalating tensions and demonstrations against her business. this worldview is becoming somewhat popular on certain quarters of the Christian world. Not just the idea that. That there's spiritual warfare, but that we need to identify where that warfare is happening and wage it ourselves. So maybe you'll encounter this. Maybe you've come from this kind of background. maybe you're a little worried that this is something you're going to be called to do. So let me help with this. first of all, let me say the Bible does teach that there is spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6, as part of a passage on putting on the armor of God, on armor that you only need because we're at war. Paul writes this. He says, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil. So there are spiritual forces that are evil. Of course, you see this in the Gospels as Jesus will encounter demons. Of course. There are two problems with this, though. One is that Paul literally said, our struggle is not against flesh and blood. What he meant is, I'm not waging a campaign against the Roman Empire, against the, mythology and the false gods of the Greek culture. I'm preaching the Gospel understanding. I'm, preaching against a dark enemy, Satan, and his demons, who don't want it to move forward. What churches like this are doing is they're saying we have spiritual forces behind the flesh and blood that were fighting. But that was Paul's whole point. Paul wasn't protesting outside of bookstores. Paul wasn't organizing campaigns to shut down local businesses. He understood. He was preaching the gospel of light in a, dark world and should expect spiritual opposition in one way or the other. In the Gospels, when Jesus encounters demons, it is obvious that he's encountering demons because the demons will actually speak back to him. Jesus doesn't walk by a bookstore, point to it, and say to the disciples, demons are behind that. And the disciples look at the bookstore and say, really? I don't see any demons. He goes, oh, no, they're back there. He deals with a man, for example, in the Gadarean demonic, who has been cutting himself, who's had to be chained down and restrained. A man who, in Jesus walks into his presence, actually says, we are legion, for we are many. In other words, we. When you encounter demonic activity, you know it. You're not the only one who knows it. You're not the only one who sees it. It is obvious and evident. You don't have to wonder about it. I'm not suggesting that demons and Satan aren't behind some things that we can't see. Ephesians, two says that he's the prince of the power of the air. Satan bakes all kinds of lies and rebellion into the culture and at large. But that's not the same thing as saying that business is run by a demon. That business is run by a demon. She's led by a demon. That overemphasis on the demon of fear, the demon of shame is simply not biblical. You don't see that language anywhere in the Bible. Not to mention that Jesus said in Matthew 5:44, to love your enemies and to pray for those who. Who persecute you. I gotta ask you, does this bookstore owner feel loved? You see, churches like this will say, well, we don't have to love demons and demons run that bookstore. But actually, they don't. That bookstore is run by a human being made in the image of God. And I don't know what kind of books they're selling. And maybe it is a place full of sin and debauchery and evil. but the way we deal with that is that we preach the gospel of repentance, and we love the bookstore owner in the hopes that she will see God's glory and grace not just through the preaching, but through our actual activity of love. See, it's a lot easier to protest. It's a lot easier to yell nasty things online and to try to get the government to shut people down. It makes us feel better if we're crusaders against dark forces. It's much harder to love your enemies. But that's what Jesus told us to do. Are demons real? Absolutely. Is Satan active in our world? Absolutely. Is there a demon living next door to you that you should speak out against? Probably not. So be careful with this theology, because in the end, what it actually does is accomplish the work of Satan, offending people, hating people, and turning them against the gospel that would save them. Hey, thanks for checking out Wake Up, Look Up. 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