It struck me as interesting that our culture seems to have a fascination with the demonic. These topics of satan and his demons are being used for entertainment. Yes -- entertainment with the intention to terrify -- but entertainment none the less. Are we making light of this? Are we trying to ease the blow?
I never really knew much about demons. They seemed distant -- a far away tactic used to terrify. I didn't even have any real concept of their actual existence until I did my junior English paper in high school in Madeleine L'Engle and read the remaining books in her A Wrinkle in Time series. In the book Many Waters, by far my absolute favorite of the series, Meg and Charles Wallace's brothers go back in time to the period where Noah is commanded to build the ark. They are discovered in the desert by Japheth and taken to live with Noah's family. The horror of the world at that time starts to unfold and it is brought to light that Nephilim (the opposite of Seraphim) roamed the earth marrying and reproducing with the women of the day. I hadn't ever heard of this at all and went home and did my research. The book specifically draws from Genesis 6:4-5
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
No one had ever pointed that passage out to me before, nor explained what implications that this had. I remember including in my paper that I knew L'Engle, a born-again and renowned Christian author, had actually known what she was talking about because I looked it up.
That book introduced me to demons on earth but it wasn't for almost 4 years that I had anything else to do with them.
Sophomore year of college was a very trying year. I think there was a feeling of that that year in general on the CCU campus -- our bubble had been infiltrated. One of my roommates dyed her hair, and subsequently her body, blue and then had a nervous breakdown. I remember one night we sat up talking, we had our bibles out and were just talking about ways the devil could easily have a hold on us. I was sitting on the coffee table and saw something briefly go whizzing past me in my mind's eye -- but as if it were in the room, if that makes sense... I didn't really say anything because it was such a strange isolated experience. Until my roommate mentioned that she had seen it too. She began to describe it -- exactly what I had seen, and then began to talk about how she had been followed by demons for a while. Slowly we began to uncover, see, and confront her demons as they came forward. It sounds weird. I don't tell the story often because of that. But even as I type it out I can feel the presence of God that was with us that night. It was very real. And absolutely not entertaining in any way shape or form.
It pains me to think that people can take a look at a situation like that and make it into something entertaining. That they can make it into something different than the battle between Heaven and Hell that it is.
I think part of the reason that Hollywood can make it entertaining is because everyone just assumes that they'll go to Heaven. There isn't any reason to not go, as long as you're a good person. As a result the fear of Hell is something that can be played with -- things can never be as bad as in the movies to make you have to go there! Maybe they're designed to make you want to live better? To try to avoid Hell at any cost?
I don't get it...
1 comment:
I agree. Why would you want to be a tool of the devil, when you can be a child of the king.
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