Demons in the New Testament   Chapter 3               

 We have studied the Gospels to find out the part demons played in the life of Jesus; we have looked at demons in the Old Testament; and now I want us to see what the rest of the of the New Testament says on the subject. 

In this lesson I will examine most of the New Testament references to demons, taking them as they appear. We will begin with Acts of the Apostles. After the shocking deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, awe filled all the people of Jerusalem. 

Acts 5:12-13: “The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade.  No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people.  Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.  As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and all of them were healed.” 

As in Jesus’ ministry, which the apostles continued, little distinction is made between the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits. Sometimes the torment took the form of physical ailments, and “all of them were healed.” 

Acts 8:6-8:  “When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. 7 With shrieks, unclean spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed.” 

Like another one of the seven, Stephen (Acts 6:5), Philip began preaching the Gospel with power. Outstanding miracles attended his preaching. Many people, including me, have witnessed demons crying out or shrieking as they left their victims. 

On Paul’s first missionary journey, while he was still called Saul, he and  Barnabas came to Cyprus they began preaching in every city: 

Acts 13:6-12: “They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos. There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God.  But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, ‘You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord?  Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind, and for a time you will be unable to see the light of the sun.’ Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand. When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord.” 

Though there is no mention of demons in this account, demons are involved in false prophecy and in sorcery. Saul calls him “a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right”—a rather fitting description of the man and the demons who inspired him. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Saul, filled with Holy Spirit, put a curse on the sorcerer. 

On Paul’s second missionary journey, he, Silas, Timothy, and Luke, encouraged by Paul’s dream, crossed from Asia Minor to Philippi: 

Acts 16:16-18: “Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future [‘a spirit of Python’]. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune telling. This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, ‘These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.’  She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned round and said to the spirit, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!’ At that moment the spirit left her.” 

This slave girl had a ‘spirit of Python.’ Python referred to the Greek god Apollo, the god of prophecy. He was worshipped and consulted at the Oracle of Delphi, near Mt. Parnassus in Greece. A priestess of Apollo, called Pythia, would go into a kind of trance and speak on behalf of the ‘god’; the Delphic Oracle was celebrated in ancient Greece for centuries. People from all over the ancient world would bring their questions to Delphi to receive answers from the oracle. The woman had the same kind of oracular demon as the priestess at Delphi. This is still more proof that the gods of the pagans were demons. 

There’s no reason to doubt that the girl had real powers of foreknowledge. She demonstrated some supernatural knowledge, derived from the demon, of the identity of Paul and his team: “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” This should be a sober warning to everyone that such powers may come from Satan as well as from God. It isn’t clear why Paul endured her for ‘many days’; perhaps he was not immediately aware of the origin of her pronouncements. At length he ‘became troubled’ and commanded the spirit to come out of her. 

This brings us to an extraordinary time in Paul’s ministry. God worked many miracles through Paul, but never so many as during his stay in Ephesus.

Acts 19:10-20: “This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.  God did extraordinary miracles through Paul,  so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.  Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed [those having evil spirits]. They would say, ‘In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.’  Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day the evil spirit answered them, ‘Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?’ Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding. When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honour.  Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds.  A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. [A drachma was a silver coin worth about a day’s wages] In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.” 

The people of Ephesus knew that their spells and incantations, their sorceries and magic arts, were performed with the aid of demons. When they heard the story of the sons of Sceva, they repented of their occult practices and opened their hearts to the Gospel. 

1Tim. 4:1-2: “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.” 

Since I will deal in more detail later with ‘doctrines of demons,’ I will just say this: I believe that not just pagan religions, but all the cults, the New Age Movement, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and some things taught by so-called Christian ministers are ‘things taught by demons.” 

Rev. 9:20-21: “The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshipping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood — idols that cannot see or hear or walk.  Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.” 

Rev. 16:13-15: “Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14 They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty.” 

Satan and his angels and demons exert power, through false prophets, false teachers, and false miracle-workers to perform “miraculous signs” and to deceive many.

Rev. 18:1-2: “After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. With a mighty voice he shouted: “Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird.” 

Like heathen Babylon of old, the apocalyptic Babylon the Great will be a “haunt for every unclean spirit.” 

In the next study we will finish this series on demons. We will tie things together by focusing on the final destiny of demons, on their part in the deceptions of the last days, and what you should do about the knowledge you have gained in these studies.  Amen.

 Chapter 4,  Demons in the Old Testament