Demonizing Religion Part I–Basic Concepts.

A supplement to Chapter 8 of “The Spirit Universe” by Pastor Jerry Jochem.

Introduction
Please note that most of the terms that I use in this post are defined in my book, and many of the concepts I present here are fully developed and supported by Scripture in my book as well.  I am not going to redefine these terms or elaborate on the basic concepts, so I strongly suggest that you get the book to answer any questions you may have from this post.

A Matter of Kingdoms
The geography of the spiritual universe is basically very simple. There is heaven and anywhere else is hell. Given this elementary dichotomy, it is also apparent that spirits of heaven or from heaven belong to the Kingdom of God, while all others, regardless of claims otherwise, belong to the Kingdom of Darkness. The Word symbolizes these two kingdoms metaphorically; that is, the Kingdom of Light belongs to God and is ruled by God, while the Kingdom of Darkness belongs to Satan and is ruled by Satan.  A most  compelling understanding about these two kingdoms is that the Kingdom of Light is governed by the qualities of the nature of God such as love, mercy, compassion and Holiness, while the Kingdom of Darkness is governed by the qualities of Satan, which include deception, murder, destruction and a profane rejection of anything Godly.  We most commonly understand and identify the qualities of the Kingdom of Darkness as being “evil," a term somewhat underused in today’s culture.

All of humanity is walking a path which automatically leads to the Kingdom of Darkness.  Because of their inherent separation from God, good people need to do nothing to end up in hell serving and suffering under the dominion of Satan.  God offered us a new path,  and that path begins with the  acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal savior. Making the choice for Christ leads us into heaven and out of the grasp of Satan.

False Religion
Many human beings do not believe or accept  that they need a relationship with Christ to escape Satan, but one clear fact of the spiritual universe is that every demon knows that humanity needs Christ, and so they are determined to stop people from receiving the gift  of salvation through Christ. In short, demonic spirits know that they must keep you from making a commitment to Christ, and if they simply stop you then you become their prey and victim. One way they can achieve this goal is by creating religions to distract you from salvation and to make you submit to their evil intent and actions.  Since they attempt to counterfeit the purposes and nature of the Kingdom of Light, I would like to label this form of religion as “false religion.”
I would like to introduce two more concepts in Part 1 of this post.

The Transforming power of Evil.
The first concept is that evil has the ability to transform good into the likeness of itself.  Evil thoughts, beliefs, and practices mutate good until it ceases to be good.  In this sense, evil can be both transmitted and self-generating.  It is a primary objective of the darkness to create as much evil in the hearts of man as possible.  It is through this process that man can become demonized.

Type AL spirits
The second concept is that there exists a special type of spirit whose entire purpose is to create false religions and by doing so, plant the seeds of the Kingdom of Darkness world-wide. I have called this type of Demon a Type Angel of Light (Type AL) as described in 2 Corinthians 11:14 (ICB) ¹⁴This does not surprise us. Even Satan changes himself to look like an angel of light.
These demonic spirits seek out and communicate deceptive, lying, and evil doctrines or teachings to those who are hypersensitive to the spiritual universe, and they target the  most base characteristics of those who listen to them.  The doctrine they promote has the  purpose of opening believers to demoniacal influences if not actual possession.  It is through these doctrines that the process of human demonization begins.

An Example:
In my next post, I am going to illustrate these concepts by using Islam as an example.  I have no hatred of Islam or Muslims, but Islam has proven itself to be the most demonizing religion of all time, and it is a textbook  example as to how the Kingdom of Darkness is promoted among men.

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