He wrote of this self-proclaimed monumental experience (late ’60s), “I
heard the voice of God. In an instant, in a very ordinary place at an
unexceptional time, I yearned for some connection with a higher
power. This was a singular, momentous epiphany—a call to the
heart. Why did God favor this particular place in America? Because it
was so new? Because it was so sunny? Suddenly it became clear that I
longed for a transcendent connection with the universe itself and with its
maker. This was the moment I had longed for. My mind was being set alight
by the psychedelic times, but revelation came to me in the quietude and
seductive order of Middle America.”
Townshend
admitted once in an interview, “When I am on the stage I am not in control of
myself at all. I don’t even know who I am. I am not this rational person where
I can sit down and talk to you. If you walked on stage with a microphone in the
middle of a concert I’ll probably come close to killing you.”
*****
*****
John Lennon, who
readily confessed he “made a deal with the devil” and referred to himself as a “hollow
temple in which the spirits inhabit me,” once explained, “When the real music
comes to me it has nothing to do with me ’cause I’m just a channel. It’s given
to me and I transcribe it like a channel.”
Keith
Richards of the Rolling Stones once told The
Los Angeles Times that his song, Demon, was biographical and that he himself was possessed by four or five demons. In Demon, Richards declares,
“It’s such a mess. Demon in me, demon in me. It’s living’ in me, the demon in
me.”
Jim
Morrison of The Doors believed he was
a sort of shaman for spirits to use him for his music, according to the book,
Break on: The Life and Death of Jim
Morrison. Morrison’s producer, Paul Rothschild, said the most pivotal part
of the singer’s life was in Venice Beach “when this spirit entered him, an
intense visitation of energy.”
The Door’s photographer, Frank
Lisciandro, was quoted in the book stating, “Jim drank to quiet the ceaseless
clamor of the demons, ghosts and spirits. He drank because there were demons
and voices and spirits shouting inside of his head and he found that one of the
ways to quell them was with alcohol.”
Angus
Young, lead guitarist for AC-DC, nicknamed the “guitar demon,” admitted to Hit
Parader magazine once “that something takes control of the band during their
concerts: it’s like I’m on automatic pilot. By the time we’re halfway through
the first number someone else is steering me. I’m just along for the ride. I
become possessed when I get on stage.”
"Elvis Presley is
believed to have been demonic possessed," according to a website. "He openly admitted that he was used by
a hierarchy of spirit beings. People who knew him personally said he had occult
powers.
"Prince admitted
he has 2 other people living inside him [really evil spirits] and that he
changed his name to Formerly Known as Prince because he didn’t know what the
spirits wanted to call him."
Ozzy Osbourne told Hit
Parader in 1984, “I really wish I knew why I’ve done some of the things
I’ve done over the years. Sometimes I think that I’m possessed by some outside
spirit. A few years ago, I was convinced of that – I thought I truly was
possessed by the devil. I remember sitting through ‘The Exorcist’ a dozen
times, saying to myself, ‘Yeah, I can relate to that.’ ”
*****
Satan, the devil with the big
"D," has armies of devils with a little "d", or demons.
They are disembodied spirits with intelligence, emotions and personalities that
possess unsaved individuals.
"Demonic
activity in the spirit world is all about us in a different realm than we live
in," says Richard Jordan of Shorewood Bible Church, Rolling Meadows, Ill.
(www.graceimpact.org). "There are all kind of things going through this
room right now where my hand is. I can feel the air, but there are pictures
going through the air and there are voices going through the air. The
television will pick up pictures and the radio voices.
"There
are physical waves going through the air in the physical realm but we don't
have a receiver by our perception. There's no way to know they are there
without the right receiver.
“Right next to the four dimensions
we live in—the three dimensions of space and then the phenomenal dimension of
time—is another dimension of the spirit world. In fact there are several
dimensions to that world, just like there are four dimensions in our
experience.
“From
this spirit world there's a rank and file of various creatures who, while they
don't function in the physical dimension of the physical creation, are literal
and active.
"When
you think about dimensions, at least in my mind, I think about them as right
next to me; it's just there's a portal. You learn all these words off the
movies, you know. You watch Stargate and there's this portal
from one dimension to the next and all that stuff is more true than those
writing the books or movies sometimes realize. It's not like the spirit world
is way out yonder somewhere and were over here. It's not isolated like that.
These things run along.
“The
Bible uses words and terms common to man to describe things operating in the
spirit world that are the same as in our dimension, only they're not made of
the same material.
“In
II Kings 6, for example, it's revealed there are horses and chariots in the
spirit world, they're just not horses as we know them. The concept is they're
real and they'd be something we'd recognize as a horse, they're just in a
different dimension.
“While
angels are spirit creatures who inhabit and are clothed with a celestial body,
demons are disembodied spirits. They are sort of like the foot soldiers in Satan's
armies.
*****
Bible
scholar Charles F. Baker, in his 1978 book, Understanding
the Gospels, reasons, "There (are) disembodied spirits who
constantly seek embodiment of some kind. Some think they are the fallen sons of
God in Gen. 6:4. They are characterized as being unclean. They are not like
Satan who appears as an angel of light and a minister of righteousness (II Cor.
11:14). They are degraded and cause those they possess to engage in all kinds
of filth and insane behavior."
Luke
8 presents the oft-heard account of the "Maniac at Gadara," in which
Jesus Christ heals a man so completely riddled with unclean, disembodied
spirits, or demons, he's called "Legion."
"And
Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many
devils were entered into him," reads Luke 8:30.
"This
story not only shows the power of Christ over the Satanic world and the fact
that these spirit beings recognized and confessed who Jesus really was, but it
reveals a great deal about demons," writes Baker. "There can be
degrees of demon possession. In some cases there was only one demon, in another
the one went and found seven others worse than himself and entered into the
man, and in this case there must have been a thousand, for their name was
Legion.
"This
may explain the super-human strength of the man that enabled him to break the
fetters and chains with which the authorities tried to bind him."
*****
Jordan
reasons that only one of the spirits could actually be possessing of the man's
personality, meaning the others were residing in his body, vying for control.
In
the account, the demons, realizing their imminent expulsion from the man, ask
Christ to send them into a swine from a nearby herd that was feeding on a
mountain. Swine, at this time, was associated with the system of Baal worship,
and the idolatry of Baal worship, that had captured the nation Israel and held
them in Satanic captivity.
"Then
went the devils out of the man, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran
violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked," writes Luke,
beginning in verse 8:33. "When they that fed them saw what was done, they
fled, and went and told it in the city and in the country.
"Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid."
While
you would imagine the people witnessing or hearing about this miracle would
gratefully want Jesus Christ to stick around, the passage reveals their
superstitious fear prompted them to ask Jesus to depart, which He did,
instructing the healed "maniac" to tell others of his deliverance.
This actually represents one of three times in the Gospels where Jesus Christ
was, in essence, run out of town.
"The
general idea is these folks didn't want what Christ had to offer them because
He comes and destroys what they're doing and their condition," says
Jordan. "He came across the Sea of Galilee into their territory, right
into the middle of the Satanic stronghold in the land of Palestine—the place
where Satan had first gotten a beachhead in the nation Israel—and the
importance of the land involved here is obvious in the context.
"Notice
when the devils, or demons, were cast out of the man they said, 'Don't cast us
out of the land.' They didn't care to be cast out of the man, they just didn't
want to be cast out of the land of Palestine because they knew their job at the
time was to be a part of the Satanic army holding the land for their master,
the Devil.
“A
not-to-be missed phrase in this same Gospel account, also written about in Mark
5: 1-20 and Matthew 8:28-34, is how Luke says the cured man was sitting ‘in his
right mind.’
"That's
why the Apostle Paul, in II Timothy 2, talks about 'in meekness instructing
those who oppose themselves that they may recover themselves out of the snare
of the devil.’ Verses 25-26 read, [25] In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if
God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
[26] And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
[26] And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
“You see in this Dispensation of
Grace we live in today, rather than somebody coming and casting the Devil out
of you, it's your responsibility to recover yourself.
"That's one of those great
verses that demonstrates the difference from where we are today in God's
program than with the nation Israel in prophecy. Even the dealing with Satan
and his hordes is different."
No comments:
Post a Comment