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For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 6:12
Reflect
When I was a teenager, I remember some of my friends talking about a scary movie they had seen. One of them actually had the book the movie was based on, and all of them said it was one of the most terrifying things they had ever seen.
The Amityville Horror was released in 1979 and was based on a book published in 1977. It tells the story of the Lutz family, who moved into the house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, N.Y., just about a year after six people were murdered there. The Lutz family is real and so were the killings. In fact, it was on this day in 1975 that Ronald DeFeo Jr. went on trial for killing his parents and four siblings. He was ultiimately convicted and lived the rest of his life in prison.
But what people remember most is what happened in that house after the Lutzes moved into it. The family reported strange goings-on, including unexplainable voices, odd red stains on the carpet, physical transformations and levitations. Audiences ate it up, in part because the public had — and still has — a fascination with the supernatural. The Lutzes swear it all happened, so it has to be true, right?
Whether or not any of the claims about the house at Ocean Avenue are true, the truth about a spiritual world that we cannot see is definitely true. But while so many people spend their time consulting mediums and psychics and looking for answers from ghosts and spirits of the dead, they’re missing a spiritual truth that is not elusive.
Paul assured us that the world that we see is not where our real battle takes place.
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12)
The ghost-hunters are right — there are spirits out there who seek to influence us and to keep us terrified and moving in the wrong direction. But they’re not the ghosts of our loved ones or of people who walk the Earth until they accomplish some special task. Our common enemy — Satan — keeps us misdirected and looking in the wrong places for spiritual guidance.
As long as we’re focused on ghosts and things that go bump in the night, we’re not focused on our spiritual deficiency and on the need for a Savior. It’s entertaining to watch movies and real books about spiritual fantasies. Ghostbusters is fun and The Amityville Horror and The Exorcist keep us on the edge of our seats. But they’re not reality and they’re certainly not as terrifying as it gets in the real world. Living life without Christ — that’s the real horror.
Reflection copyright © 2021 Doug DeBolt.
