Several clear Christian thinkers have pointed out for us where demonic influences are to be seen in our modern society, so we cannot be excused if we fail to see what we should see (1). Literature on the one hand illustrates what is going on in a certain period, on the other hand it exercises a great influence upon the thinking of people. For instance: after Goethe's "Die Leiden des junge Werthers" had been published, a consequence of reading that book -many young people committed suicide. Goethe will have to answer for that in eternity. It is not only king Jerobeam of Israel of whom it could be said "that he made Israel sin"; there are a great many others, also in our days. If one wants to see how demonic influences are at work in seemingly "normal" human circumstances the book AMOK written by Stephan Zweig provides a good illustration. One can come under the influence of demonic powers, as was pointed out in previous articles, by dabbling in the black arts, by fornication and adultery, but the same thing can happen by reading the wrong books, by seeing the wrong films, by everything that is able to shape our thinking, our convictions. Most of the films and books nowadays serve the purpose of the evil one. Mental contamination cannot be perceived as easily as bodily contamination, but is therefore the more subtle and dangerous. Here especially the Word of Scripture is applicable: "Keep our heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life" (Proverbs 4 : 23).

For instance: when you read the works by Tennessee Williams (to take him as a representative of a whole school of authors) you live in a world of sin, of despair, it is strongly suggested to you that this is life as it actually is and indeed, this is the way satan wants you to see life and Mr. Williams is only a slave obeying his dark master. One of the modern writers has given away the secret when he wrote: "Without the co-operation of demons no great work of literature comes into existence."

In the works of Nietzsche there is a passage in which he writes about the inspiration which came over him when writing. He was fully aware that what he wrote had its source not in himself, not in his own mind, but came to him out of the unseen world and we know very well that it was not the Holy Spirit Who inspired him.

Nowadays films exert an enormous influence upon the thinking of many. One of the most powerful agents of the dark powers in this field is the Swedish producer Ingmar Bergman. Seven years ago Time magazine wrote about him. The first sentences of that article read: "A demon is haunting the movie world. It looks, as many have remarked, like a brilliantly personable werewolf. The figure is tall, bony and shambling. The green eyes burn with strange intensity in a high narrow skull. The teeth are long and peculiarly pointed. The smile is a, little twisted, evoking for the nightmareprone the grimace of a hanged -man. The demon is in effect an immensely creative spirit which has seized for his habitation the son of a Swedish parson, and for its instrument the motion-picture camera." Revealing are also the following lines: "The contemplative and the jackanapes are two faces of a deeply separated nature. In Bergman's case, moreover, the split is a thing of more than psychological interest. Since he insists that he himself is the principal subject matter of his movies, the split in his character is a key not only to his life but to his work...... But Bergman's sense of inner division is so strong that once (or so he claims) he walked into a room, saw a standing figure, realized with terror that the figure was himself, his Doppelgaenger. Even the two sides of his face seem startlingly unrelated." "A woman, who knew him once said: "His derisive laughter seemed to originate in the darkest corner of hell."

What we badly need is that the Lord grants us the gift of the power of spiritual discernment, that we learn to see sharply what is of God and what is of satan. A Christian simply has to ask himself again and again: "Is this book, this film, this idea inspired by God's Holy Spirit or by the evil one?" In the holy war there is no neutrality, everything is either a stroke for God or for satan. We witness, in the words of Dr. Kenneth Hamilton a full scale revolt against heaven in every field of life. It is deeply tragical that so many Christians, so many ministers, so many theologians simply do not seem to perceive it. Modern existentialist philosophy, born of despair and leading to despair, bears the clear mark "made in hell". The same applies to modern theological literature of the sort that men like Wm. Hamilton, Paul van Buren, Altizer c.s. produce. We have to recognize the enemy in films, in literature, in theology and philosophy, in so many other things to which we ignorantly expose ourselves not knowing what is happening to us. It is time that we awake from sleep. For after Christ has come, it is possible to sin more horribly than it was even possible before that, for now a person can refuse God's grace offered to Him in Christ Jesus and no sin is so serious as that.

In his beautiful book "Our life in Christ" on the final page Prof. Dr. J. K. S. Reid (Aberdeen, Scotland) asks the question, whether it really happens that a person, knowing what he is doing, refuses and rejects God's grace. He writes: "Is the negative choice ever actually made? Men have by the grace of God in Jesus Christ been admitted to a status in which they are in 'Christ, for their liberation from reprobation and their participation in life. Will there at the last be any who "contract out" of this divinely contrived and bestowed status? To this question we have no certain answer. Legend tells us that Henry II of England "on his death-bed deliberately blasphemed God in order to ensure his own damnation. "Since Thou", he is made to say, "hast taken from me the thing I most delight in, Le Mans, I will deprive Thee of 'the thing in me Thou hast most delight in, my soul." Did this ever happen? Perhaps no historian will venture to say that it did and no theologian that it could not.

For this is a possibility, and has all the reality of a possibility, and this makes it different from something which just is not. We may certainly hope that no one will make this possibility actually his own and so embrace the "great refusal". Yet the possibility stands before us men, cancelled out as it is by the sign of the cross. It is constitutive of the grandeur as also of the peril of existence of those whom God in the work of creation made for fellowship with Himself and in the work of salvation has taken to be in Christ."

In the West Indies it has 11 happened that this "possibility indeed became a reality. In Curacao, the Protestant congregation consists for a good part of descendants of the original Dutch settlers. Membership of the Church is for many of them a social status and has often precious little to do with faith in Christ. One day the minister (about whom I wrote several times in preceding articles) a courageous and sharp eyed servant of the Lord visited such a member of his congregation, a millionaire who was leading a most scandalous life. He paid for instance school fees for 80 children who were all his own, but did not have his name. The minister told him plainly and bluntly that if he did not repent and change his way of life that eternal damnation was the only thing he could look forward to. After the minister had spoken, the millionaire eyed him coolly for some time and the] he answered: "Well, parson, maybe you are right. I do not have an, evidence that you are wrong and if you are not, then I will have indeed to pay the penalty for this life I have been living. But I can assure you that in that case even in the flames of hell I will tell my self: 'What a glorious time I had with all those girls'." With such a man satan has fully reached hi goal. Here is the sin against the Holy Spirit, the hardening of heart the final satanic rebellion against God's grace. Here the point of n( return is reached, the state ii which a person is beyond redemption.

The Lord told Peter: "Simon, Si. mon, behold, satan demanded t( have you, that he might sift yoi like wheat, but I have prayed fol you that your faith may not fail and when you have turned again strengthen your brethren." The prayer of our High priest Jesus Christ on our behalf, is our sole trust, comfort and strength. Bu at the same time: "Therefore le any one who thinks that he stand! take heed lest he fall."