Spiritual Forces of Darkness

"If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."--Genesis 4:7

Take a look at the faces of Adam Lanza (left) and James Holmes. (right) Those are the faces of men who are demon possessed.

I've had experience with men like these. Having worked in the deliverance ministry field, I've become accustomed to that glare; unblinking and wide open eyes, mocking you and daring you to do something about it. What is deliverance? It's more popularly known as exorcism in the Roman Catholic Church and it involves casting out demonic spirits that have taken up residence inside people such as Lanza and Holmes who have exposed themselves to the spiritual forces of darkness.

But demon possession isn't something that you'll be reading about concerning Lanza, the crazed shooter who massacred 20 children and six adults before committing suicide on Dec. 14 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, located in Newtown, Ct. Nor will demon possession be offered as a valid reason why Holmes shot up a movie theater in North Aurora, Co. on July 20, when he killed 13 people and wounded many others.

Rather, the usual blarney will be offered by psychiatrists and psychologists who will attach the same time-worn labels to Lanza such as paranoid schizophrenia, psychopath, psychotic, neurotic, delusional etc. Mental illness has become the modern chic pseudo-medical excuse to explain the behavior of people such as Lanza and Holmes who commit catastrophic acts against other people.

It's an easy way to ignore the very serious problem of evil and its consequences. If the violent behavior of people such as Lanza and Holmes can somehow be explained away by chemical imbalances inside the brain, or by dysfunctional families that ignored, deprived or abused these people when they were young, then they become the victims instead of the villains.

However, demon possession is a very real problem in our modern world, just as it was a very real problem in the ancient world. Jesus Christ cast out many demons during his ministry in Israel. And these spirits were often responsible for the extremely odd and violent behavior that we see today in people such as Lanza and Holmes. For example, during His travels, Christ encountered a violent man who lived in some tombs in a remote region called the Gerasenes, which was located near Galilee. The man was so violent that he couldn't be restrained by chains. And certainly, no one wanted to go near him for fear of death. When the man saw Christ, he fell to his knees in mortal fear because the demons inside the man knew who Christ was. Christ cast the evil spirits out and the man regained his sanity. (Luke 8:26-38)

But demon possession is considered by many today--even many Christians--to be vain and outdated superstition; embraced only by those who are either too dumb or too naive to understand the complexities of human behavior. Though somehow it was recognized as a real problem by the ancient world--including Christ who often spoke to these evil spirits before he cast them out--demon possession is no longer even considered by those who attempt to analyze what motivated Adam Lanza and James Holmes to behave the way they did.

If Lanza and Holmes were indeed demon possessed, then how did that occur? It occurred because they exposed themselves to the demonic, either through drugs, the occult, Satanism or eastern religions. Not everyone who gets involved with those things becomes possessed. But many do and they don't even know it.  And not everyone who commits violent crimes is demon possessed.

But some are. How do we know? Look at their eyes. And remember the eyes of Jared Lee Loughner, the shooter who murdered six people at a Tuscon, Arizona shopping mall on January 8, 2011. The eyes do indeed tell the story.