Dungeons and Dragons, a Gateway to Evil?

“But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when fully grown, gives birth to death. Do not be deceived, my beloved.” James 1:14-16

In a recent conversation I was asked about what influence Dungeons and Dragons had on my fall from Christianity to Satanism. Now for a lot of people this is simply an absurd question, but there are many people that remember the Satanic scare and the blame of Dungeons and Dragons in some murders and such. These things have taken hold in the mind of some Christians to the point that they can see D&D as a gateway drug to Occultism and Satanism.

For me, this was not the case. Yes I grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons and reading fantasy novels of swords and sorcery, but I don’t think that these things had that much impact in my life choices to follow the road to the Occult. There were a lot of reasons and influences in my fall from grace, if you will.

I was raised and taken to church by my mother up until I was five. We lived in Eastern Kentucky at that time and we moved to Tennessee at that time. When we moved my mother did not find a church so we stopped going to church until I was asked if I wanted to go to a Youth Group at a church when I was in 5^th grade. Mrs. Harris I thank you for that. Women English teachers have been some of the most influential people in my life.

I started going and by the time I was 11 I had been saved and baptized, but even by this time I had seen things that I didn’t talk about because people thought I was a weird enough kid as it were. I didn’t think that telling people that I have seen people walking around bridges and I knew they weren’t really there would not help my case for being normal, whatever that really means. When I was baptized things were not exactly as I had expected them to be.

I was attacked spiritually with waking visions, audible voices and typical schizophrenic activities. Of course when an 11 year old kid tried to explain this to my preacher, he thought I was telling stories or acting out for attention. Whatever the reason, I was not believed. If my preacher would not believe this spiritual thing that I was going through there is no way that my mom and friends would believe me.

So I felt isolated and alone and tried to deal with it on my own and eventually gave up. I thought at that time it was a Baptist thing. So I started researching on my own and learning what I could, but I was not going to church anymore. I was angry at God the situation and everything else about what I had gone through.  Eventually I just let go and gave up.

I would come back to it every few years but at that time I was seeking a higher understanding and enlightenment. I was changing and had a reputation for being an angry boy who would get into fights. I didn’t have too many friends and ended up reading more about Dungeons and Dragons than playing it.

My searches and studies had taken me to looking at the older religions. I was trying to find a truth among what people believed as long ago as I could find. I would look for themes and understanding and I found a few “truths” about the power that human beings have. A few of these are validated even in Christian thought. The biggest was that humans have dominion over spirits.

Humans have power of spirits. So spirits are real, and I can make them do what I want. I knew that spirits were real; I had seen them and felt them. By this time I was focused more on the power of the mind and not really concerned with fantasy stories. Then someone told me another truth that I knew but was looking for validation for. Magic is real.

This was not the sorcery magic from Fantasy novels. It was more akin to force of will and the ability to affect the world through your will. So I tested it, and it worked. I didn’t realize at that time I was already prey to demons and other energies that were leading me down the road to Satanism. The only thing that Role Playing games did for me was put me in touch with my wife.

I had studied magic and occult for a while and got involved with a few guys that practiced the darker arts, which showed me how to spot demons for the first time. Well these demons were just tormented spirits mostly, but I was still naïve. It would be years before I would be calling myself a Satanist.

What role did these games have in my fall? Not much of anything really, in fact that was the first thing to completely go when I converted to Satanism. The sinful man knows only toil. There is no rest for the wicked. All those saying are very true. I worked, lived and breathed sin. Rolling dice on Friday night and eating Cheetos did not condemn me. My actions and belief condemned me.

Video games did not corrupt my spirit. Rejection, judgment and condemnation corrupted what was supposed to be love. Isolation allowed me and the demons to do all the harm in the world to me. An abusive first marriage didn’t help things, and a lack of having time to play games and have fun certainly didn’t help. I had no release and was so obsessed with what I had become that I was blind to how stupid it all really was.

1^st Corinthians chapter 10 holds a truth I learned on that path as well. The deities that pagans worship are demons. I found that truth when I was a Satanist and it was an essential passage to help draw me back to Christ. That truth was very much needed for me at that point.

What got me on that road? Being isolated, judged, condemned, hated, outcast, different, and too smart for my own good without the wisdom to see how foolish I was. There is a whole list, but movies, video games and Dungeons and Dragons are not things on the list. Could it for someone? Yeah, but more times than not it is a collection of things.

I fully believe that it is not one thing that drives people from Christ and into any other direction they go. It is a collection of influences that draw us down into the darkness. For without the light of God we live in darkness. I am always nervous talking about my fall. I used Christian writing to learn more about demons many times. I know that temptation and curiosity can lead to further studies into the dark, and it’s dangerous.

In several movies, philosophies and stories there is a message that has led to the warning that I give now. Nietzsche I think says it best, “And if you gaze for long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” Don’t go there… just don’t. Not for the sake of understanding. Don’t open those doors, leave them alone because each one you open lets something know who you are and gives you more you have to fight.

Spiritual Warfare is hard enough without a Smite Evil spell in our back pocket. No matter how long you play D&D you will not be able to throw fireballs. No matter how many times you read Harry Potter you will not produce the patronus charm. And if you think these things are evil, but approve of Narnia because the author was a great Christian Scholar I feel you may want to reconsider the prior. Stories, games and movies do not make people evil.

If you do not know love, you will replace it with hate. A bully will create more evil than every book that has been written. A bully can be more dangerous than the “Satanic Bible” by Anton LeVey. The story that the Satanic Bible preaches is one that we hear every day. We are in control of our lives and can do what we wish. We are an army of one.

We hold the true power, and thus our own little gods. But let me tell you friends, there is only one God, and his son died for us all. He came to tell us to love God and love others. You can try to drive the car all you want, but if you want to get where you’re going, you might want to give dad the wheel.

“D&D was a training ground for our imagination.” Vin Diesel

Packing: How do you trust God?

“Don’t take along gold, silver or copper for your money-belt. Don’t take a traveling bag for the road, or an extra shirt, sandals, or walking stick, for the worker is worthy of his food.” Matthew 10:9-10

When preparing for a trip it seems like we have so much we take with us. We have to make sure we have enough clothes, shoes, more clothes for activities and well shoes for that too. We have to make sure we have some way to communicate and pass the time in the lull, not to mention enough money to get what we need and a few things we want.

But, what else do we take with us? Expectations, worries and concerns. There are so many stories in the bible about trips and journeys and most of us will not take a trip as big or impressive as half of those in the bible. What did most people in the bible take with them? Most of these people took the clothes on their backs and very little else.

We can start by looking all the way back to Exodus, yeah they took all their belongings because they were moving to a new place not knowing where they were going, but they didn’t take with them enough food for the journey. Quite frankly, they had no clue how much food they would need to take. What did God do for them? He rained food for them to feed them.

Now one thing that has held constant is that most of us still take worry and concern with us. Even as we step out and knowing that we are traveling to do something that God wishes us to do, there is still concern.  We trust God, but still our flesh keeps us from trusting completely. What then? Why do we all fall so short from what God wishes for us?

Most of these trips, especially the spiritual ones, are made to help us draw closer to God. We are told not to worry so many times in the bible, but we are never told not to question. In fact we are told to question everything to test it to see if it is Godly or if it is something to cast aside. 

With Spiritual journeys we typically carry with us a lot more than physical journeys. We carry not only worry, but doubt and then there is the luggage from our past. We carry with us every time we have fallen, every time we have struggled to stand. Is this a bad thing? It depends on your perspective. If you focus on it as a doubt and a list of all the times you have failed or you have been failed, then it’s a bad things. If you carry it with you as a reminder of how many times you have fallen on your face and eventually gotten back on your feet, or how many times God has been there, then that is a positive reassurance for you.

There is a lot that goes on in every day life that packs on a lot of negative energy, emotion and habit. So to combat all of this what do we do? How do we prepare for the world and what it has for us? Well if we look at the lessons that we are given from God’s word, then we have what we need. We have instructions. When you rise, put God in your heart with a prayer.

Start the day with a conversation with God to prepare you for the day. Second spend a few minutes while you are getting some coffee in your system to read a few passages from the bible, even if it is one or two chapters. While you are on your commute, talk with God about whatever is on your heart. These are all things that you can do.

Just like exercise for the body daily is great for keeping your body in shape. Do a few bible curls to strengthen the soul. A few mind games or puzzles for the mind. That is one thing from eastern philosophy that is spot on, true strength lies with not only the body, but the mind and soul as well. The mind and body must expand to the spirit or soul or it is not complete.

We humans are three parts of one whole, and from that an extension of the one true God. We are body, mind and soul. Father, Son and the Holy Spirit; three parts of the same whole. So strengthen that which is your weakest you cannot focus on the weakest part, but the other two will help you strengthen the weakest part. A knee is not just two bones meeting; there is muscle and ligament with that muscle. If you have a weak ligament you have to work on the muscle to help it out.  

So when we are gathering together things for a journey, you have the physical needs as well as the mental and spiritual ones. Careful how you pack your bags though, if you pack in too much you leave no room for the chance encounters that can be life changing, and no room for new things to be added to your life.

God uses all journeys in a multitude of ways. It is only after we have gone through them do we come close to getting what God intended for us. Sometimes it is many years down the road before we have developed the wisdom to understand what we have gone through and why. So I leave you with a question to answer for yourself.

What have you gone through in your life that you still cannot understand why you did it or had to go through it? Pray and open your mind to see if there was a lesson that you learned through it. Was there a higher purpose for it?

“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.” Bruce Lee

Fear: Sin's Greatest Tool

There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love. 1 John 4:18

One of my favorite movies of all time has a quote about the topic that we are looking at, “Fear will keep the local systems in line.”  This was spoken in Star Wars: A New Hope by Grand Moff Tarkin. Within the empire he was most likely the third most powerful man. This statement is one that has been quoted most commonly as “Fear will keep them in line.”

These words are words of control. How are they going to keep control with Fear. Why does this work? Charles Stanley says it this way:

“Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation.”

Fear has been with us longer than nearly any other emotion that we have today. We look back to when Adam and Eve first sinned; they hid themselves because they were scared. As we have gone along humanity has learned how to use this as a tool for oppression and tyranny. If people are afraid then they need someone stronger than them to protect them.

Fear comes from many places, ignorance being one of the strongest of these places. Today we are crippled as a society in fear. We can look at the news and become terrified at how horrible our world has become. People live in gated communities to help them feel safe. People are so afraid of people that we will not extend a helping hand.

We are too afraid to answer the pleas of a woman that is escaping her rapist. We are too afraid to answer the door to a dying man and furthermore call the police and state that someone is trying to break in and hurt you. We do not answer to help anymore. We do not answer the calls of people in panic. Forget the parable of the Good Samaritan; we are so much worse than that now.  We are afraid that the man lying in the ditch is going to hurt us.

Do any of us remember what FDR was talking about when he said the quote, “The only thing wehave to fear is fear itself.”? It was 1933 we were at the end of the Great Depression. Unemployment was at 33% and things were looking very grim for the United States.  Fear is what was keeping us from coming out of it, or so FDR stated.

Fear is crippling to the spirit. It is only as strong as we allow it to be though.  Perfect love casts out fear. All through the Psalms we hear about how we have nothing to fear, well except God’s wrath if we anger him. The news has made their mark on the modern culture by scaring us into accepting what ever laws will protect us.

There is a long history of media being used by the leaders of countries to convey propaganda. It’s been happening for as long as media has been in existence. Fear has led to man-kinds greatest follies in my opinion. The Holy Inquisition, slaughters around the world. We fear our neighbors so we make war with them. You can see these themes in movies, books and in history. Well we were scared so we attacked or ran.

So I would like to focus on a couple of non-political things with this message and you can take it where you wish from there. In Charlotte there was a man who had ahorrible car accident, he was lucky to survive it. He goes to the nearest house that he could see pleading for help. The people in the house called the police and told the police that there was someone trying to break into their house. Police arrive on scene and the nearly dead man runs to them for help. The police officer panics and shoots the guy 10 out of 12 times.

Second, a rape victim escapes a car where she had been raped for a while. She runs nearly naked to a house to get help. As she pleads to the couple inside to help her saying that she had just been raped, they call 911 refusing to let her in because of fear. A representative of the police department had this to say, “unfortunately fear dictates the response anymore not knowing if you’re being set up for other criminal activity.”

The man in the first story lost his life. The woman in the second story was saved. But in both instances we were too afraid to help someone. Now let us look to God and ask if this is what he intended for us. It is not. We were supposed to be freed from the chains brought upon us by sin. Fear was introduced first with sin and with freedom of sin also comes freedom of fear.

So what else does Fear prevent us from doing? Jesus gave us two commandments which were rewrites of the original 10. Love God with all that we have and Love others as we love ourselves. If we are afraid of our neighbors we cannot love them, thus we cannot uphold the Lord’s commandments. Fear is keeping us right were Satan wants us. We are crippled in fear. Fear is an embodiment of darkness. Love is am amplification of light.

Darkness cannot exist where there is light. Fear cannot exists in a heart of pure love. We are still imperfect beings in bodies of sin, so we must tell our bodies no and stand against fear. We cannot become the people God wants us to be so long as we allow fear to dominate our lives, minds and cultures. We cannot destroy terror by weapons. Only through love will we conquer fear and terror. War is not the answer, it never has been. We cannot stand as one nation under god so long as we fight those that are different from us.

God is for Jew and Gentile alike. The love of God is for us all and we are given command to go into the world and spread the good news, not the bad news. Go into the world and love these neighbors near or far as you would love yourself. Today, if you do nothing else, say something positive or help someone just because. Love someone even if you have to start with yourself. Only then can you start shaking off fear.

If you are Christian, talk to someone that is not of your faith. Ask a Muslim to tell you of their faith ask them why they chose to walk that life. Who knows this may open a door for God to use to build a bridge in your life. If nothing else it will help you affirm your belief in God and show love to someone else who might need it. Or even more it may start changing a perception that Christians are war mongering hate machines. Funny, how many Christians would be taken back if they knew that’s what others see us as.

The thing that you fear the most, learn something about it. Do not let the voice of hell shape your worldview by creating misconceptions of what people really are. Just get up and get out… shake off the bondage of fear. So many of us are crippled and just as Jesus told many crippled and dead, “Get Up, Stand.” That’s all you have to do, stand and take a few steps for God. For all that God has done for you, how can you deny him the one thing. Spread his message and love someone. It’s not as hard as you think.

“Every adventure begins with the first step.” JRR Tolkien, the Hobbit.

Power of Words

It’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man. Mat 15:11

The power that our tongue has is one that is hard to understand. How such a small part of our body as a whole has so much power that it is a constant warning throughout the entire bible. This is something that I did not understand until after I began going through counseling and preparing for Deliverance Ministry.

The topic of Deliverance Ministry is a touchy one for a lot of people, but it is one of the reasons I’m doing as well as I am doing right now. During my life wandering spiritually I spoke many things that harmed me and my soul. There are things that I allowed for the sake of understanding, knowledge or power that wounded me deeply.

I profess with my word that these things were wrong and I know that now, but when you are wandering in the dark it’s hard to tell friend from foe. My first steps were in tests. If this flame will change color then there is truth to these words. I wanted to see a response, and I received one. Well if that worked what else will work?

Down the slope I went until I began to allow spirits, demons, into my being. I swore oaths turning myself over as a vessel for the evil ones to use. With these words I allowed them to do with me what they would. It was depravity after another as I carved out sections of who I am and who I was becoming to allow them to do with me what they will.

For my seeking I did receive knowledge and wisdom through my folly. However, by knowing the names of demons, they also learn yours. As you go deeper and deeper into the abyss you see things that you cannot unsee. You learn things that you cannot forget. And you do things that you cannot undo. I had become a man filled with Hate, Lust, Anger, Destruction and filled with dreams of a truly violent death and being happy with it.

I am very glad that things happened when they did. God is good. He warned me to turn away, but I would not listen. Who knows how many demons where walking around in my flesh at any point in time. Was I hearing voices? No… just thoughts. Was I schizophrenic? No… Possession is much different from that. When you open yourself up to the demonic host, you get what they want… not what you want.

All of this was done with words. I swore oaths. Dedicated myself to thoughts and uttered blasphemies. Many of them I can still bring to mind even now. I have not spoken those words in over 5 years, but I still hear them. I denounced my salvation, my right and privilege as a child of God. But even with that, God did not give up on me.

I was the wayward son, lost in the depths of the ocean. He was waiting on me to make my choice and to say the words that he told me to say. All I had to do was ask for forgiveness.

As a fool’s tongue leads to strife and folly (Proverbs 18), only with wisdom gained from folly did I see how much of a fool I had become. I had to be put in a situation where there was nothing to distract me from the truth. I needed my Grey Door.

Upon my release from my Grey Door, my journey was only still beginning. I was a new child of God once more, but my tongue had still opened doors that were not yet closed. I had not done this alone either, and because it was with a union of souls with my wife. We had to be separated for God to begin working on us.

We began receiving counseling. We had a church that supported us as we were a challenge to the leadership of the church. Thank God for Providence Road Church of Christ (http://prcoc.org). We were going to Celebrate Recovery on top of the therapy. Our counselor quickly realized that we were outside her area of expertise and had found someone in the area that works on people with Occult pasts.

Clay Barnes met with us. He was the one that shined the light of the true power of words. In the first session I found myself renouncing oaths with the same verbiage that I used when speaking them. They had to be the same in order to close the doors that were opened. He too felt that we needed something rare. He suggested Deliverance Ministry.

We went into it and again had to be separated. The spirits within myself and my wife could not be removed is we were together. We went through six one-hour long sessions before we were turned back over to Clay. It was a very long process and we came a long way. Still It’s been three years since we finished with that and only now am I speaking about the power of words.

Still now, still so young in Christ with everything that I have seen and gone through. James knew what he was talking about:

“So too, though the tongue is a small part of the body, it boasts great things. Consider how large a forest a small fire ignites. And the tongue is a fire. The tongue, a world of unrighteousness, is places among the parts of our bodies. It pollutes the whole body, sets the course of life on fire, and is set on fire by hell” James 3:5-6

So what’s next? It is time for the truth to spew forth from my mouth. With that said. Mind your tongue; do not let it become wild and untamed. My journey is not one I wish any of you to follow. I was Christian, then nothing. I then became Wiccan then a practitioner of Witchcraft. From there I became a Satanist. I became a leader for the enemy. Then I became nothing once more, which was better than what I was, and then once more a Child of God. I came back home and the Father was waiting for me.

If I can blaspheme his name, renounce his gifts, spit on his image, walk with those that would stand against him and make friends among the demons of hell and he forgives me…. I know he would forgive you.

Change of Season

24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life[f] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.Matthew 16:24-27

As summer gives way to fall, we enter a change of season. The term change of season is something that we can overlook fairly easily, but what does a change of season in one’s life truly mean? I have been talking and praying about a lot of things in my life. Upon writing this I have been a Christian for 5 years, and God has done so much for me during this time.

Has this five years been easy? No, but they could have been much harder. Something has begun stirring within me over the past few weeks and it goes back to my trip to visit my parents and the place I called home for years. It was a good reminder for me to see where I came from once more and see just how far God has taken me. Much more than that; it was pointing to me just how far that I still need to go.

We each carry with us stories about our faith, our lives and who we are. These stories are parts of who we are today and who we have come to be in Christ. However, they do not define us. They speak to who we were and the journey that we have traveled. It is how all of these come together and what we allow God to do with them that truly begin to define us.

Even then it’s not a true image of who and what we are and who and what we are to become. Only God knows the path that we are to walk and still with that, we have the choice to go forward or stay where we stand. Each crossroad that we come to can potentially become a change of season within our hearts and souls. Each person that we come in contact with is another chance for us, or them, to do God’s work. The trouble that many of us have is seeing the path in which we are to walk, or even hear that we have something to do.

God speaks to us in many different ways; sometimes it is bold and loud and cannot be ignored. Other times it is a mere whisper. How do we know? How can we tell what is our own mind and what is the voice of God? For that sometimes we have to go back to our roots. Sometimes the only way forward is to look to the past.

Looking to the path that I have traveled; to reading the words that God has blessed me with before; has helped me focus on the journey. I look to my parents. I look to my challenges in life. I look to the times that I failed. I looked to the times I thought I had succeeded. I have looked and realized that some of my failures where not truly failures, but they were things that God put in my path to help build me to be the man He needed me to be. The same goes for successes, influences, people, places, experiences and even when I became a Satanist.

All of this has purpose, all of these things built upon the prior to help shape me as a person. As I bear the cross that is my sins of the past, those sins that I have been forgiven of, but I am still held against them. The world is of Sin and will hold onto sin as long as it can. I have something the world does not have however; I have the Grace given to me by God. I also have a rare experience that many do not have, and with that it gives me a rare responsibility.

It is not an unusual thing that we are given an interesting path and story to help do the things that God wants us to do. God will use these things to lead others to him. With this also comes a truth. We all must face the demons we know to bring light to those in the darkness. We all must take up our cross and follow God. It is a command that was given to us by Jesus to become his disciples. I have a great group of Christians around me to provide me encouragement and guidance. One of these men was a man that reached out to me when I was locked away in Jail and was trying to relearn who Christ was. One of the biggest things he speaks about is dying to yourself.

You must die to yourself to become more like Jesus. You deny what the flesh desires to look at things more like Christ. It is great advice. But with this comes another truth. When you die to yourself, you must not forget who you are either. Your identity in Christ is very important, because it is who God has made you to be. Sometimes it is harder to find out why God has made you go through things like he has and even harder to accept it. Harder still, seeing the path that you must walk to do what God wants you to do.

Sometimes all we can do is Pray and delve into God’s word. Through this attunement we can see and hear God’s voice and plan a bit better. All of this comes together to build the world around us. What has God blessed you with? What skills have you been given? How can you use these gifts to do what God wishes you to do? I leave with a quote that holds more than a little truth for me, and if one truly thinks about it, it probably does for you as well.

“The path to paradise begins in hell.” ~Dante Alighieri

Pefect Love drives out Fear

After a truly rough night, as part of a rough month, I will have to apologize in advance that this message is going to be one that is going to leave a bit of a sour taste in all mouths that partake. When one contemplates, what are they asking? Quite simple one is asking how or why typically, however many times one is asking questions that cannot be answered by normal means.

There are many dark things in this world, and in this I will be looking at a couple of the darker things that exist. My first topic is doubt and my second topic of the day is a revelation to many of you about what demons truly are. This will not be for the faint of heart or those that do not wish to know anything about what hell is really like.

We human have what is called “Free Will” and I assure you that sometimes that is a very bad thing. It allows us to do whatever we want and of course face the consequences for those actions afterwards. In our society it is used as a teaching tool; a measuring stick; a point of disconcert; a point of hope and destruction. We have the “Free Will” to follow whatever religion we want or do not want, as well as many other choices in life.

This “Free Will” takes us down many roads in life; we each walk our own road. It does not matter how much it looks like someone else’s road, it is your own. As such we walk this road with comings and goings of different people and things as our roads intersect or run together for a while. What happens as we grow through experiencing life is we begin to pile up learned lessons.

We learn how people can be mean; how WE can be mean. We learn how people can be good and how we ourselves can be good. We learn what we like and what we do not. We learn from mistakes that our “Free Will” granted us to make. This is life. How different would we be if one of our earlier choices had been different? As each choice leads us to another, cascading, how different would we be?

Eventually we come to a point in our lives where many of us accept life for what it seems to be. We make the choice of “Well this is my lot in life. I know the role I must play.” You accept “Fate” as it were and start using your free will to choose what would be acceptable in the current situation. For many people this ends up being somewhat of a good thing. It keeps them safe, free from harm. However, for others, life just isn’t that simple.

What if you accept your role in life and it is not the role that “Fate” had determined for you. How many times do we hear the results of such situations? It can come from a sudden change in one’s life, to an unfaithful or abusive spouse. It can come from a plummeting stock market to a natural disaster. What if Life changes on you when things were supposed to happen just as they happened for your mother or father or grandparent? With all this uncertainty in life you can easily see how Doubt can breed.

Even without that it is easy to just ask the question, “Did I do the right thing?” With free will we also are faced with a very real problem. We have to make decisions for ourselves and if we make a decision and something bad happen as a result, our upbringing tells us we made the wrong one. So we make a choice, and we wait to see if it’s going to be good or bad. In the mean time we question, “Was that the right decision?”

Now some will say that doubt is an extension of fear. I can agree with that. We are afraid that we have made the wrong decision so we worry and dwell on it. So if doubt is a form of fear, then does not perfect faith drive out fear? So if we do have that faith, do we run the risk of not learning from our mistakes? Welcome to the realm of doubt.

Doubt is a very dangerous thing, which is why we are as prone to it as a race of people. We doubt ourselves, our fellow man, our government, our society, and even our God(s) if one were so inclined. So as we come to our next decision in life, still doubting our last one, we find this next decision harder than the last. The spiral continues, sometimes we come out okay; sometimes not. That in itself does not help with doubt.

We can always look back on our lives at the “Big” decisions that we made, most of us have some really bad choices that we have made in life. It’s easy to see that those were BAD ideas looking back. So why did we make them in the first place? Chances are that emotions were blocking out logic, but what if emotion had nothing to do with it when you made the bad choice? Well we will just chock that one up to a learning experience and move along, besides you can always blame it on an emotion.

How many of us begin such things, lying to yourself to make you feel better about your bad choice. How many unfaithful men and women blame it on the person they are supposed to be faithful to? The answer is most of them. Why do we do this? Simple to make us feel better. We do not like the idea that we did something wrong; it does not make us feel good.

Humans like to feel good, thus why sex addiction is the number one addiction in the world.  That is a big reason for drugs and alcohol addiction as well. Just look at the choices that people make in life. Why would anyone in their right mind think jumping off of a cliff with only a sheer piece of cloth and a few nylon strings could be a good idea? No, it’s a fun idea. It stimulates us, fear causes a flood to our brain that makes us feel good. So extreme sports, to sex, to drugs, to God, humans are addicted to feeling good, we want to feel good.

This desire leads us to great things as well as bad things. Love, for instance, is one of the greatest emotions that we humans were blessed with. No other thing feels quite as good as pure, deep love. Jesus brings us the message of love. There is no question why Paul compares the love of Christ and the love of God as a marital affair with humans. That type of love, love that you share with that special someone, is irreplaceable.  That is why we doubt when bad things happen in our lives.

As a Christian, it makes me doubt God. As a man, it makes me doubt my society, government and myself.  Very few people who commit suicide are quite like Hunter S. Thompson, who killed himself on what he considered to be one of the most beautiful and best days of his life. Most people do that out of doubt, or deeper Fear. They doubt or fear that people love them. They doubt they are good enough to live. Or they fear that life is just not worth living.

Now that we are in this dark place, let’s go a little further shall we? I know that many Christians see demons as manifestations of doubt, fear, anger, and lust. I know that many people believe that is all a demon is. It’s part of your psyche that has manifested itself as mental illness or depression. If that were true the world would be a much better place.

If that is your belief then please stick around for the rest of the show. I tell you here and now that demons are not just figments of your psyche. They are NOT just depression, worry and concern. No, no. These are all byproducts of their work. Hateful little buggers they are. Now, I step into a space that I am nervous to go back into. However my doubts and fears in my life are not that I will succumb to these as much as just fade to a bad memory. I walk this dark path because my “Free Will” took me straight to the fires of hell.

I walked a path that I hope none are following, but I know you are. Demons are real, spiritual manifestations of all the darkness of the world. When Lucifer rose up in heaven, took 1/3^rd of the angels with him. They fell into a dark place, void and lacking form. They still remembered how to shape the void. They made areas of darkness, cold places. They made places of sand with palaces of gold. They made many things in this place. They made demons as these fallen angels were twisted by their failure. They were twisted by their doubt. They were twisted by their anger and hatred.

They are really not so different from humans. That is the scary part. Some demons were made by the fallen angels from energy that they possess. Others, well they were human once. Their souls tormented in the pit below by these angry spirits until humanity is ripped away leaving only your vices. Not all demons want to do physical harm to you. Some just want you to exploit your vices. Some of the most dangerous demons in hell just want to draw you so deep into desires of the flesh that you forget everything else.

So your grandfather, a wicked man not knowing god, did he really go to heaven? Did he go to hell? How long until he becomes a demon if he did? That is their goal. They want you to become JUST like them. Are you beautiful and love to seduce? You pride yourself on how irresistible you are? Good, they know just the job for you. Are you an angry man, hell bent on the laws and rules? You follow them to the letter? Even the Books of Law, and are stern and unforgiving? Great… we know just where to put you.

If you didn’t catch that last one, let me spell it out for you. Those who do not know the love of God are blind to the true face of God and you are going to go straight down. Some of you are great preachers and are doing such a great service to the agents of evil. Lucifer awards you with employee of the year. Westborough Baptist, this means you. Judge not lest ye be judged comes to mind.

Demons are very dangerous things. They will try to convince you that they are good, or that they can give you what you want. They whisper in your ear when you don’t think they are. Many times that you think they are whispering, they’re not, they already planted that seed. They will trade with you, work on you and try to make a place in your soul for themselves. You let them in, guess what, they now live there and can invite whoever they want to their parties.

Helping a guy out, you offer him a room. Next thing you know, there is a crack-whore having sex on your kitchen table in front of your children. Yeah, demons are like that. Sometimes humans can be worse. Some demons actually have in their mind that they are trying to help humans. They want to free us from our bondage of slavery. Their hatred for God has twisted them to believe that God is a very hateful and vengeful being that just wants to destroy us. Really nice guys huh? Place gifts at your feet, give you everything they can to get you to see the light.

I warn you, sometimes that sexy supermodel that you see in your dreams is really a demon feeding your desires. Sometimes when you dream of that cute co-worker they are tempting you to do the wrong thing, and sometimes they are doing it to that cute co-worker as well. Sometimes however, that is just your own desires of the flesh running off with you. Take ownership of your weakness. Satan will do his job. Humans have a proven track record to do the wrong thing all on our own. Sorry, but that is the ugly truth.

You cannot hate Satan for what he is doing. You should expect it from him. He’s doing the only thing he knows how to do. What you should really focus on is yourself. What can you do? Life sucks, you have yourself and all your bad habits, PLUS you have the demons trying to give you more, and you have your own temptations. How could a human walk through life and really be happy? Now there is a million dollar question.

So where is the silver lining? Why have I spent so much time beating your psyche down? I find myself asking the same question sometimes. Does any of this have a purpose? My answer is, “I hope it does.” As for this, I want you to go away thinking about your life and how trapped you may be. I want you to think if you are really happy. If you are, I am happy for you. Life is hard enough when it’s just life. Do not walk into the darkness; there are things there that will break your mind. You cannot unsee what you see. Hell is real, demons are as well, and they will open their arms to you just as fast as God.

It is a slippery slope. One step will lead to ten. Do not open that door just to peek inside, once they see you without the mask of innocence on your face, they will come running. Even death will not bring freedom from them. The only thing that can is God. The only remedy for fear is love. You cannot scare someone into love either. The only peace that I have is with the love that I share with my wife and my Lord. Its dark right now, I know God is there, I just wish he stood but just a little closer. Until then, it is the love of my wife that keeps me going.