Even Demons Believe, Chapter Two

Table of Contents

2. Even Demons Believe in God

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Most believe in God and the vast majority of the world is religious. Even those who do not believe in God have faith in their belief that there is no God. Those without a specific belief foolishly believe in themselves. Therefore, it is safe to say every man believes in something. Believing comes easy to man, because God has given him this ability. Unfortunately, man has invented many things to believe in. The number of “schemes” man creates in order to satisfy his desires to believe are indeed “many.”

This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes. (Ecclesiastes 7:29)

Christianity is no exception. The Christian church searched out and created many different “schemes” to get to Jesus. Those “schemes” range from just asking Jesus into your heart, speaking in tongues, signing the back of a Bible, saying the Rosary, to being water baptized. Let us return to the path Jesus set down and accept His instructions for belief in God.

“If anyone comes to me …” (Luke 14:26)

“If anyone comes to” Jesus for salvation, he must understand specific things right up front. The cost must be counted before anyone declares himself a Christian. Before a man or woman can claim the saving power of Jesus, they must count the cost demanded for salvation.

To merely believe and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord without matching action creates demonic faith that perverts the following Scripture.

For it is with your heart that you believe and are justifed, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. (Romans 10:10)

After all, don’t the demons meet the requirements preached in most churches? Do not demons believe God exists? Do not demons even confess that Jesus is the Holy One of God? Of course they do. Therefore to quote only Romans 10:10 while ignoring the rest of God’s Word makes one’s faith equal to that of demons.

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. (James 2:19)

You believe in God. Great, even the demons, who will be tortured in hell, believe in God. Your opinion about God means nothing, just as the demons’ beliefs about God do not keep them from being demonic. In fact, the difference between men and demons is that demons at least “shudder.” They know enough to fear God and by the time the majority of people find out that their beliefs are lifeless, they too will “shudder.” Demons feel terrified as to what will happen to them and we should be too, unless we repent. Demons, as well as all who have not repented as God commands, will “shout[ed] at the top” of their “voices” pleading with God not to “torture” them.

He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won’t torture me!” (Mark 5:7)
God has an “appointed time” to literally “torture” those with demonic faith based on selfish motives and sin.“What do you want with us, Son of God?” they shouted. “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?” (Matthew 8:29)

You can hear their voices and almost feel their fear of being tortured by God. We do well to take a hard honest look at what we call faith in God. Most confuse faith in God with their “opinion” about spiritual matters. Others think of faith as simply declaring that they have asked God to come into their life. First, only a “fool delights” in his opinions about God. So the next time you find yourself in a group, school, or Sunday school class where everyone gives their opinions about God, feel free to quote the following Scripture.

A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions. (Proverbs 18:2)

Secondly, most have come to God by simply asking Him into their lives. Their belief is merely opinion expressed with conviction. In other words, they believe they have God because they asked Him to come into their life. This corruption of Romans 10:10 takes away the saltiness of Jesus’ salvation message.

Demons love it when people preach Romans 10:10 to the exclusion of the rest of Scripture, for this is what made them demons. They rejected God’s perfect plan for them in favor of their own opinions, wants, and desires. Satan told Eve this same old lie when he cast doubt on what God said. Satan still performs the same old trick of asking, “Did God really say this is the way to be saved?”
Many people become increasingly demonic in the name of Jesus. They think the sole requirement is to just “believe” in God. Without obedience or “action,” however, a person cannot be saved. Remember, the demons believe in God but have no good action and thus their faith cannot save them.

In short, godly faith equals action, and obedience with the Holy Spirit expresses honest faith. On the other hand, faith without God’s “action” is merely man’s opinions worked out for his own selfish ends.

In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. (James 2:17)

Truths To Ponder, Beliefs To Examine

What opinion do you have about the way of salvation?

What opinion do you have about the way of salvation?

What opinion do you have about the way of salvation?

1. Which Way to Salvation?

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This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls …” (Jeremiah 6:16)

Every church has their method for getting to heaven, so how can a person know the correct path? With all the
different beliefs and opinions about what it means to be a Christian, no wonder so many people feel thoroughly confused. In fact, many have given up the search for God altogether because the task to discover the truth seems too overwhelming. Additionally, many today falsely think that opinion equals belief, and if we think something sincerely enough, God will accept us. To further compound the problem, multitudes of hypocritical “Christians” claim they know God. All of these things and more frustrate those with an honest search for God.

To find the answers, we need to follow Jeremiah’s direction: “Ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is” and then “walk in it.” Through these God-given words we will find “rest for” our “souls.”

In Luke 7:48 Jesus told a woman, “Your sins are forgiven.” God forgave every wrong thing in her actions and thoughts. Those words are the sweetest words a man or woman can ever hear.

God’s forgiveness should set us free and light our hearts aflame with an undying love for Him. In order to hear those words, we must first consider what it means to be a Christian. Otherwise, we place ourselves in danger of being “denounced” by the very God who touches our lives with love and power. As the following Scripture demonstrates, Jesus disowned those whom God had touched in a powerful way because they would not “repent.” With this in mind, let us look at what it really means to be a Christian, how one becomes a Christian, and the requirements to keep from being “denounce[d]” by God. In short, let us see the truth according to Jesus.

Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most ofhis miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. (Matthew 11:20)

When Jesus walked on the earth, He made Christians in a very odd fashion. Jesus won souls, as we shall see, in a manner that may surprise most. This book examines how someone becomes a Christian according to Jesus.

Most individuals, who consider themselves Christians, have responded to God’s love in a way that would not receive Jesus’ approval. As Paul stated in the book of Romans, they did not “submit” to God’s way of salvation and instead “sought to establish their own.”

Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. (Romans 10:3)

Every church and denomination has their methods for saving individuals. Each has “established their own” way of salvation. But God declared long ago that only “one” way leads to heaven.

… one Lord, one faith, one baptism … (Ephesians 4:5)

Each man must make a decision to either submit to God’s righteousness or embrace man’s religious ways. God’s righteousness grows eternally, but the peace and security of man offers only empty hope.

In the church today, we have established many different ways to become a Christian. People can come forward after a sermon, raise their hands, attend classes, speak in tongues, or repeat the words someone tells them to say. The salvation calls, coming forward to accept Jesus, vary from church to church, but which one is of God? Let us go back and look at how Jesus made someone a Christian. We will look at Jesus’ salvation call, and if it does not match up to ours, let us repent and “submit to God’s righteousness.”

Truths To Ponder, Beliefs To Examine

What opinion do you have about the way of salvation?

What opinion do you have about the way of salvation?

What opinion do you have about the way of salvation?

Chapters

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