Reluctant Demon (15 page)

"What about Og?" Satan asked.

"Og? What about him?" I had no idea why he was asking about the Nephilim king.

Enjoying my bewilderment, Satan condescended to tell me, "Og tried to hide in the rafters of the ark. I wonder if he made it."

CHAPTER 18

I'M SURE GOD
was expecting more lasting results from the flood than what He got. It wasn't long until humans played right back into Satan's hands.

I suppose God did manage to clean up the gene pool in both man and the animals, but beyond that, there was very little behavioral modification in the humans.

I wondered what it would finally take for God to admit that the idea of free will was going to be a continual source of trouble for Him. Unless He pulled it out of the human formula, I could not see anything changing.

If you wanted to see a man hugging trees and kissing the ground, you should have been there when Noah stepped out on terra firma. He was so glad to be off that boat, he could not wait to start planting gardens. He didn't care what he planted; he just wanted to feel dirt in his hands. One crop that grew well for him was the grape. There were grapes all over the place, so many that no one family could eat them all. So naturally, Noah went into the wine-making business. The only problem was that he sampled so much of his product that he was always passing out.

Satan had told me to keep an eye on this situation in case Noah slipped up in some way. I obeyed, but I knew better.

"Not going to happen," I said to myself. "Noah might drink too much wine and drift off to sleep wherever he happens to be, but he isn't about to do anything to affect his standing with God."

I might have known Satan didn't really have any interest in Noah anymore. It was Ham upon whom he had his glassy eye. I knew the boy was going to be bait for the demons at some point. He, of all the kids, had been the one most intrigued by the sexual perversion that had been upon Earth. Noah never knew a thing about it, of course, but Ham found some of the goings on exciting to watch. As soon as Satan saw the opening in Ham's soul, he dispatched an earthbound spirit of lust and another of voyeurism to attach themselves to Ham. The weeks Ham spent on the ark with nothing but time on his hands had allowed a craving to develop deep inside him (fueled by the evil spirits' urgings) for the kind of excitement he used to enjoy in secret. He was such an easy mark. He didn't resist the temptation at all.

It happened one afternoon when Noah was sampling the wine, as was his custom. Tasting a few too many, which was also his custom, he wandered into his tent to sleep it off, another custom. Because of the warmness of the day, Noah usually took his clothes off and slept naked on his bed. I don't know how the door was left open on that particular day. Noah might have done it, or maybe Satan caused it to blow open, but however it came about, Noah lay unconscious, totally nude, when Ham passed by.

I should have known Satan had set the whole thing up when he called us together to watch and see what would happen. Ham's disdain for his father was well known and often gossiped about in the demonic ranks. Although it had been my assignment to watch Earth, because I didn't know about Noah until God selected him to rescue the human race, I completely missed whatever happened to breach the relationship between Noah and his son. So, although I had my own ideas, I didn't know for certain what the root of the offense had been. Some of the demons claimed to have seen what happened but did not think it important enough at the time to tell me. Because demons lie so often, it's foolish to rely on any information from them anyway. So I went with my own theory for Ham's character dysfunction: middle-child syndrome.

That had to be it.

When Ham entered the tent, Satan sent a slew of spirits in after him: rejection, pride, and envy—all the usual suspects. Satan's eyes burned with satisfaction as he listened to H a m curse his father and make fun of his inebriated stupor.

Shem and Japheth were outside the tent when Ham came stumbling out. "What have you done?" they shouted as they grabbed him by the arm.

"Nothing. Leave me alone," he said as he tried to push his way past them.

"Tell me what you did." Shem held tightly to Ham's arm. "Why were you in his tent?"

"None of your business," Ham struggled to break free.

"It was an accident. I didn't know he was in there."

Shem and Japheth did not buy into his story for a moment. They knew full well Ham would not hesitate to embarrass his father. They shoved Ham aside as they took a cloth and walked into the tent backwards to cover their father's nakedness without looking at him. But when Noah woke up and realized how Ham had disrespected him, you could have heard him screaming and cursing from any spot in the universe.

Since none of the boys were actually in the tent when Noah woke up, I found it amusing how Noah knew exactly which one had humiliated him. Before this happened, as a dad, Noah had ignored the rumors saying there was something perverse about Ham. It was obvious now that he knew better.

Satan, as you might expect, was beside himself with joy over this one. Ham would be the father of an entire nation whose sin would be passed down for generations.

God knew about the brokenness in Ham and should have put a stop to his lineage right then and there. Why allow him to propagate? Ham was not a candidate for rehabilitation. If God let the bloodline continue, things could only get worse in future generations. And, of course, that is exactly what happened.

One of Ham's children was Cush, who had a son named Nimrod. This boy was bad even by our standards.

He was a hunter, but not just of animals. He became a hunter of souls for Satan through his morbid fascina-tion with the prince of darkness. Satan himself mentored Nimrod and even found the perfect wife for him.

Her name was Semiramis, and she fancied herself to be the high priestess of the demonic realm, if you can believe it. One really had to admire Satan's ability to seduce humans into thinking he would share his power with them. The grandiose lies Satan could conjure up to entrap mankind were bizarre and completely unbelievable; yet, they nearly always worked. More bizarre than the lies themselves were the humans who believed them in spite of all reason—all done in the human quest for spiritual power.

Satan told Semiramis she would become pregnant by a sunbeam. What is it with human women? She will demand written detail of the simplest thing a man might propose. How is it she will turn around and listen to Satan make the most outlandish claims and never think once to ask for a character reference? Semiramis actually believed what Satan said. She did become pregnant all right, but believe me, there was no sunbeam involved. It was Satan himself who planted his evil seed within her.

She gave birth to a son named Tammuz. I remembered what God had said in the garden that day about Satan's seed, but I never really thought it would happen.

Tammuz was a hunter also, unfortunately for him; he wasn't very good at it. He managed to get himself killed by a wild boar. Semiramis went into mourning for forty days, and when she was done, she declared that Tammuz had come back to life. Of course, he hadn't, at least not the part of him that was human. But his demonic nature made a complete recovery. By this time, he and his mother were completely in the clutches of Satan.

If it had not been for Eve and how she filled in the missing gaps in Adam's personality, Satan would probably never have thought about how much there was to be gained by having women on the team. We had certainly never had any in our ranks before. But now here she was, Semiramis, the queen of heaven and the high priestess of Satan. She and her son, Tammuz, would seduce many into the worship of themselves, which they would turn to worship of Satan. Hard to believe humans could not see right through that charade, but most did not then and many of you do not now.

As the sons of Noah spread out over the entire earth, so the worship of Semiramis and Tammuz would cover the same land. Over time, they would be known by many names. It was because of Semiramis that Nimrod built a high place of worship intended to reach into second heaven. The human shell of Semiramis kept her bound to Earth, but her spirit and soul, being lost to her, longed for second heaven to be near Satan. To keep peace in the house, Nimrod built a temple for her. Satan was positively giddy with the prospect of an earthly temple connecting the demonic realm with Earth.

I must say it did look like the old serpent had them this time, but I still remained jittery about the whole thing.

"There is no way God will look the other way while His humans march headlong into perfect demonic possession," I remarked to a few of the demons who were hanging around my perch. Of course, they couldn't wait to tattle to Satan that I was a doomsayer.

"Look," Satan growled at them. "We had a wager, and I won. Just like I told Him, given free will, His miserable little humans would choose to worship me, and they did." Satan chuckled, "I don't see there is much He can do about it this time."

As I listened to Satan boast, I caught myself chewing on my claws. It is a terrible habit I picked up. I saw some of the humans doing it with their fingernails, and it seemed to calm them, so I thought I would give it a try. I can't say that it works that well, but once you get started, it's hard to stop.

I considered reminding Satan how his bragging against God was the very reason we were exiles. If he would keep quiet for once, perhaps God might not notice the tower going up.

Too late. Thunder rolled, lightning made a direct hit on the tower, and the whole thing collapsed into rubble just that quick.

"Can He do that?" Satan bellowed at me. He had never asked my opinion on anything before, so for a moment I was stunned and didn't answer.

"Is it illegal?" he snapped at me again.

"I—I don't know," I stammered.

"It's a violation of the rules. I want to talk to Him,"

Satan went on.

I took a quick peak over the edge to check out the collapsed structure before speaking.

"Uh, sir," I said haltingly, "I don't think God is in the mood to negotiate."

Satan and the others stood along the rim, stunned by what had happened to the people of Earth.

"How bad is it?" Satan asked.

"It looks like a total effect. God has completely confused their language. They cannot communicate."

"What about Semiramis?" he asked.

"There she is," I pointed out, "running around babbling like the rest of them." Satan took a swipe at me.

I have never seen the humans as confused and confounded as they were that day. One minute they were able to talk to each other, and the next moment they were all talking at once, but no one could understand a word the other was saying. It was chaos.

We were caught off guard because, as far as any of us could remember, God had never created chaos. It was brilliant when you think about it. No one was killed. No massive destruction; no floods, no fires, or other calamities; just utter and complete bedlam.

Of course, the humans quickly abandoned the building project. Semiramis and Tammuz were positively livid, but since no one could understand their ranting, the people simply wandered back to their own homes. Most were trying to figure out what had happened to them but had no idea whatsoever of the extraordinary supernatural event that had just taken place.

Satan insisted that God had broken the rules of engagement when He intervened directly into the affairs of Earth. Finally, one of our former demons had endured quite enough of Satan's incessant whining, and he screamed at Satan.

"He does what He does because He is who He is, and you will never win over Him. We were fools to follow you."

I said he was one of our former colleagues because, unfortunately for him, he no longer exists. Satan ate him.

CHAPTER 19

TIME KEPT MOVING
with no regard as to how chaotic heaven and Earth had become. I thought God should have stopped the clock, reassessed how things were going, and let both sides regroup. Nothing like that happened. Time marched at its measured pace, and nothing could slow it down or speed it up.

Noah's sons continued to have kids, but none of them demonstrated any real promise of usefulness to God or in redeeming the confused mess reigning on Earth.

God should never have bound Himself to getting things done on Earth through human beings and human beings alone. It was not working out.

It was not as if the humans were disinterested in finding God's will. In fact, we were amazed at how spiritual humans were since they were only made of flesh and blood. They could not see God, and they could not see us either, and yet they were completely convinced that some other rank of spiritual entity, as well as God, existed. They also seemed to be aware of a power structure in the spiritual world. Most of Earth people innately "knew" there was an all-powerful God out there somewhere. Most also believed this God was inaccessible to them, and so they sought intermediaries to be advocates between themselves and this God. Satan's strategy to seize this opportunity was brilliant.

Demons were assigned to humans so when the people petitioned "the gods," the demon on duty would respond.

Here's how ingenious Satan's plan was. Say a person's child became ill. A parent begged the "god of the flu" to heal his child. Well, certainly a demon couldn't do anything of the kind unless the demon had made the child sick to start with. A demon could undo whatever he had done, but he could not do a creative miracle, such as healing someone.

That's how the demons became "gods" to them. They were always begging us to do things. Ironic, isn't it?

Especially when you know the only lust Satan had for their kind was to devour them.

God, on the other hand, would not do tricks to prove He existed. The demons, however, would because it was so easy to snare them once we acted on a request to curse a neighbor or cause harm to an enemy. We were still bound by the rules of engagement and could not touch a human directly, but we could manipulate circumstances to get the desired effect. For example, we could not push someone over a ledge, but we could make sure there was a reason for a person to be on the ledge to start with.