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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/ea-johnston/demons-at-your-door/
Heavenly Father, I come unto you in the name of your Son Jesus. There are some here this evening who will hear this message, who are still bound in the kingdom of darkness. And although they have entered a church, they have not entered your kingdom of light and life.
They are blinded by the devil and enslaved in the chains of sin. The evil one guards his goods from being spoiled. But I pray that you, Lord Jesus, by your blood and by your grace, will come and find the strong man and set the captive free.
I pray for you to work through this sermon and attend your word by your spirit and disturb folks and let the unsaved see hellfire flash upon their soul. Bring them near the bottomless pit and let them hear the shrieks and cries of the damned.
And let the foul smell of burning sulfur taint their nostrils as that black smoke billows from that pit of outer darkness. Make them tremble as you thunder your broken law and show mercy and grace this evening, I pray, in the strong name of Jesus.
Amen. The title of my message this evening, friends, is Demons at the Door. And in my message this evening, friends, I will present evidence of the existence of angels and demons and demonstrate demonic activity in our day.
And I pray that if you don't know God before this message, it will make you a seeker of God by the time I'm through. There is a story about the British preacher Charles Spurgeon, which has always fascinated me.
Spurgeon liked to travel to the south of France for his health, and it was there, in the sea-coastal town of Menton, France, that he died. The story goes that Spurgeon's faithful secretary, Joseph Harold, was standing in the lobby of the Hotel Beau-Rivage, and he looked out the window toward the hills beyond that were under a cloudless sky.
And he was astonished by what he saw as he looked out that window. To his dying day, he claimed he saw, out in the distance, hovering outside a company of angels, looking as though they were waiting for someone.
Well, they didn't have long to wait. Charles Spurgeon died in his hotel room upstairs a few hours later. I believe that story, friends, because my Bible, in Luke 16, 22, says the same thing. And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom.
I also believe that when an unbeliever dies, their soul is dragged down to hell by demons. There is a story I read about Michael Landon, the actor from Little House on the Prairie, that during his last days, when he was dying, as he lay in bed, he was constantly thrashing his arms all around him as if to drive off an unseen enemy.
I believe when a lost person lay dying, that demons circle their bed like wolves would circle their prey. For when a lost sinner dies outside the blood of Christ, then demons, like ravening wolves, will be prowling at the door of your soul, snarling for you, drooling over you, ready to drag you down to hell.
I used to know a Satan worshiper who became a Christian, and we became friends. And he told me things that would make your skin crawl. He sat on my couch one day in my living room and shared with me that he became so involved in devil worship that he was assigned a personal demon who spoke to him and it had an ancient name.
He said that this demon would appear to him at night physically and it would give him instructions on what to do. The demon would order him to go out to the country at night and steal a goat from a neighboring farm and then take it out in the woods and cut its throat with a knife and then sacrifice it to Satan.
This man told me that his eyes were opened to the spiritual world by this demon and he was given the ability to see demonic spirits. He said when he was at a shopping mall, he could see the demons in the crowd of people walking beside them.
But this Satan worshiper told me that when he went to Rome, he was so unsettled by what he saw there. He said the whole time he was there, the entire city seemed like it was crawling with demons. I believe the devil knows his goods and that he wants to keep them secured.
In Mark 3 .27, Jesus declares, No man can enter into a strong man's house and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man and then he will spoil his house. Men without Christ live and operate in the kingdom of darkness as they are the captives of the devil.
Unless Christ sets the captive free through saving faith, there is a constant dark shadow that follows them. The dark shadow is cast by demons who, like wolves, stalk their prey, ready to pounce upon it at any moment.
Once they die, their soul is spoiled and dragged down to the bottomless pit. There they are placed in chains of darkness as they await the final judgment. There is an unseen world all around us for sure.
I once stayed at one of the most haunted hotels in America, the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina, where, as soon as I checked into my room, I felt an eerie presence near me. Everywhere I went, I felt like I was being followed, and there was a certain part of that hotel where I felt a strong demonic presence.
It was very unsettling, and I've never wanted to return there. I felt unseen eyes were always watching me. There is an unseen world all around us, friends. Wherever Christ went in his earthly ministry, he disturbed the demon factors in that area.
In Matthew 8, 29, we read, And behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? Art thou come hither to torment us before the time? There is an insane asylum in Bolivar, Tennessee, that opened in 1899, that housed more than 2 ,000 patients, some of whom were the most disturbed murderers and rapists of their time.
The stories about the insane asylum are legendary. They tortured the patients there by turning hoses on them to wash them. They chained the patients down. They used medieval torture on them, and they experimented on them by carrying out lobotomies and electric shock therapy until the bad news got out and closed the institution down.
It literally was a chamber of horrors, and it is a most seriously haunted spot. It's an abandoned building today, and the reason I mention it to you, friends, is years ago, I had just bought my daughter a Nikon camera, and I took her and her friend up to Shiloh Military Park, where the Civil War was fought, and we were going to take some pictures there.
But on the drive from Memphis up to Shiloh, we passed through Bolivar, which had that old abandoned insane asylum there, and my daughter and her friend begged me to go see it so they could take some spooky pictures.
Well, it sure looked spooky, but it was just an old abandoned building. We got out of the car and stood in front of that eerie-looking building that was full of windows. My daughter took several photographs of the asylum with her new camera, and when we got back home, she posted the photos on her Internet page, and when she did that, she started hollering for me to come to her room and look at her computer because the windows of the asylum were full of ghosts.
One had his mouth opened like he was screaming. One window had three images in it in old period clothes. Another window showed a person pointing at us, but when we were there, all the windows were empty in that abandoned building.
I mention it to you, friends, as evidence of an unseen world all around us, full of demonic activity. When a person lies dying, angels hover near to carry that soul up to heaven, or demons stalk the bedside ready to drag that soul down to a devil's hell.
The blood of Christ Jesus is the only remedy and refuge for sin. To be washed in His blood is to have eternal security. But to be outside His blood is a real and present danger. I used to work with a woman who claimed she was a good church member, but who was also possessed with a demon.
I know that for a fact because one time when I was with her, I saw the demon take possession over her eyes, and her eyes changed as it peered out at me. I never get that horrible image out of my mind.
In Luke's Gospel, Jesus said, When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places seeking rest and finding none. He saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out, and when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished, then goeth he and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there.
And the last state of that man is worse than the first. The only safety and security a person has is to be under the blood of a crucified Christ. Salvation in Jesus is your only hope of not being dragged down to hell by fierce demons.
Some people just don't believe in the existence of demons today. They say that it was just for Bible times. Oh no, friends, demon-possessed individuals are all around us. Why do you think somebody goes out for no reason and butchers somebody in a bloody murder?
Demons, brother, demons. People hear voices that tell them to kill, like Son of Sam heard voices before he butchered his victims. In Luke's Gospel, in chapter 8, we read,. And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee.
And when they went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long time, and wore no clothes, neither a boat in any house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high?
I beseech thee, torment me not. For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man, for oftentimes it had caught him, and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters, and he broke the bands and was driven of the devil into the wilderness.
And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion, because many devils were entered into him. And they sought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep. And there was a herd of many swine feeding on the mountain, and they sought him that he would suffer them to enter into them, and he suffered them.
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. I will stop there. It is true, the devil blinded men and women, running a hazard in a herd as they crawl all over each other's backs on a mad descent into hell, where they will perish.
The damned in hell scream like stuck hogs on their way to the slaughterhouse. Jesus encountered demons among the tombs there in Gadarenes. I encountered a demon in a cemetery on more than one occasion.
I often visited the grave of David Brainerd in Northampton, Massachusetts, and in Bridge Street Cemetery near Brainerd's grave. I have on several occasions encountered a demon. The first time I visited the cemetery I was alone, and behind me came a voice.
It was laughter. A man was laughing, but it was in a mocking tone. I walked over to the sound of the voice, but no one was there. I walked back to Brainerd's grave, and the laughter commenced once more.
Again I went over to the sound of it, but could see no one. On my second visit to Northampton it was a year later, and once more I heard the same eerie voice. It was a mocking laugh. Again I found no one.
Two years later I returned to Bridge Street Cemetery with a fellow evangelist, and I had told him the same story. He heard the laughing demon as well that day. He walked over to the sound of the laughter, and he returned mystified.
The demon kept laughing and laughing, and it so unsettled my friend that he begged me to leave that cemetery quickly, which we did. There is an unseen world all around us that is real, and when encountered it will make the hair stand on your neck.
It will send chills down your spine. It will drain the blood right out of your face, and it will loosen your joints and make your knees go to knocking. You better get to Christ, friend, if you want to stay out of hell.
For hell is crawling with demons. 2 Peter 2 .4 says so. For if God spared not the angels that sinned but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment, Jesus suffered and died on a cross at Calvary.
He was buried, and on the third day he rose again, and he ascended back into the heaven of which he came from, where he now sits on the right hand of the Father, and he earned that right by way of a bloody cross.
The only hope this poor preacher has is that when Christ's life is laid down and applied to me, he loved me and gave himself for me. Bless my soul, and the only hope you have, friend, is to come to Christ and get your sins washed in his blood.
If you have not trusted this blessed Savior, receive him now before it's too late. Soon he will come in judgment on this world when his anger shall burn as an oven, and then you shall meet him as your judge.
For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
You need to get to Christ, friend, and venture all you have and all you are on him. When it comes time for you to die, if you are outside of Christ, then demons will be at your door waiting for you, leaping on you, clawing at you as they bind you and drag you down to a burning hell.
I want to close this sermon with the following true story. Listen to me, friend. Demonic activity is always unsettling. I know what I'm talking about because I grew up in a haunted house. My family moved in there when I was a young teenager.
We realized something was wrong about our house. During our first week there, strange happenings began to occur. The first time we realized our house was haunted was when my parents and I were in the living room one evening when we heard heavy footsteps upstairs.
It sounded like someone was slowly walking up and down the hallway above us. The footsteps were deliberate, heavy. We looked at each other in alarm, and my father tried to laugh it off by saying, Spooks!
But we soon discovered it was no laughing matter. The next night we heard the footsteps once again, and I rushed upstairs to see if an intruder was in the house. If there was, I couldn't see him with my eyes.
It made a chill go down my spine. Eventually, we would turn the volume up on the TV to drown out any other sounds. But when the television was off, we heard the dreadful plop, plop, plop of those heavy footsteps up above us.
We would just stare at the ceiling, feeling helpless. Something terrible must have happened in that house because things grew worse. There was a door beneath the stairwell that would suddenly erupt into the most violent pounding, like someone was pounding frantically on the door.
That sudden pounding would stop you in your tracks. I was home alone one day. I remember it well because our air conditioner was broken, and it was 100 degrees outside, and it was very hot in the house.
Suddenly and without warning, the pounding began on that door, and when it stopped, I rushed over to the door and opened it. But when I did, a breeze of chilling air came out upon me, and it scared me, and I quickly shut the door.
But that house was haunted by demonic activity, and it troubled us the whole time we lived there.