Reluctant Demon (16 page)

With a little help from us, mankind soon learned some plants were hallucinogenic. When people ate them and chanted themselves into a lustful frenzy, we were right there encouraging them to abandon their natural inhibi-tions God had placed in them for their protection. Once they lost one, it was gone forever.

What with the drugs and our quickness to make them think they were in touch with some super power, humans were crazy in their desire to worship us. Satan found it thrilling, and I found it embarrassing, especially when they started imagining what we might look like.

Somehow they got the ridiculous idea that we came from rocks. The stonecutters would carve outrageously bizarre little statues and declare they were idols made in the perfect images of the gods. The people wanted to buy the idols and take them home. Satan picked up on it right away. Humans wanted a god they could hold in their hands.

God would never have stood for such an abomina-tion, but Satan did. The truth be told, it was downright insulting that anyone would think a powerful demon could be anything like one of those pathetic idols. As frightful as we might have been, we were much better looking than the way they depicted us. Satan, who himself is normally the essence of vanity, shook it off and said, "Worship is worship; take it where you find it."

What amazed us was if humans truly believed we looked like those idols, why didn't they gasp and run?

Once the stonecutters convinced the masses that worshiping ugly rocks was a sane thing for rational people to do, it wasn't long until some figured out how to make a business out of religion. The one who had the largest franchise in idol making was a fellow named Terah. He was one of Shem's grandkids. Terah had shelves of every idol known to man and available in all prices. His business was booming.

Terah had a son named Abram. One fine day, Terah went to the market and left Abram in charge of the store.

I didn't think much of it when it first happened. After all, I've seen a lot of teenage humans do silly things for no good reason. At first, I thought maybe one of the demons was having sport with the boy and had unleashed a spirit of destruction on him.

Later when I offered that as an explanation to Satan as to why I had not reported it sooner, he roared at me and called me an imbecile. He also told me not to think anymore. Anyway, quite suddenly, Abram took a broom from his father's closet and went about smashing every idol in the place.

When Terah came back to the store and saw what Abram had done, he was livid.

"Why did you do such a thing?" he yelled at the boy.

"Because, Father, if they were truly gods, shouldn't they have been able to defend themselves?"

Terah ranted, "Of course they are not gods. They have no power. They are only made of stone and metal."

Abram looked his father in the eye and said, "Father, do you realize what you have said?"

Whether or not Terah understood what he said was unimportant to us. Our eyes were now locked on the boy Abram. Something entirely new in the human race had surfaced: spiritual discernment. This could not be a positive development.

Right away I figured out what, or should I say who, was behind Abram's rampage, but I was not about to say a word because I did not want the grief. Not only did I know it was Ruah Ha Kadosh who had put the idea into Abram's head, but I also knew what was going to happen next. God was going to speak to Abram, no doubt about it, and it was just a matter of time until He did.

I had become pretty good at predicting when God was about to personally invade Earth's history, but I never was able to guess how. What new scheme would He come up with to try to save the humans from themselves? It always had to begin with a specific person. When I saw God pick out one of them for destiny, I would listen intently so as not to miss a word. Though, I must tell you, the human part of the conversation changed very little from Adam to Abram. When God suddenly appeared in their circumstances, not one of them showed surprise. I was certain none had ever talked with God before, so why did they behave as if the next-door neighbor had stopped over for tea? I postulated a theory, which if I were right, Satan would be beside himself in wrath. The humans had God's spiritual DNA. When God dropped in, He felt like family. I shuttered at what this might mean if they ever figured it out.

Decades later, God did stop by. Abram was no longer the upstart teenager. He had left those years far behind.

In fact, he left behind a good bit of his adult years.

Middle age was a distant image in the rearview mirror of his life.

God said to the elderly Abram, "Leave your country, your people, and your father's household, and go to the land I will show you."

Just like that.

Don't ask me how I knew. Just believe me; I knew without one doubt that Abram was going to obey. I saw it in Noah, and now I saw it in Abram: the uncanny willingness to believe what God says is true.

God saw it too, and He continued, "I will make you a great nation. I will make your name great, and all Earth will be blessed by you."

Then He went quite over the edge, as He was prone to do when someone has His favor.

"I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you."

Abram had not the slightest idea what had just been said, but Satan did. Oh, yes, when I told him, he understood it completely. If Abram obeyed, the human race was about to take a turn he had not counted on.

Satan wasted no time in sending the demon of doubt and unbelief to Earth to bombard Abram's mind with confusion.

"Ask Him for a map," the dark prince hissed in Abram's ear. "Make Him show you a deed. How long is this going to take? Ask Him for proof of performance.

You are the heir of your father's fortune; you are a fool if you walk away from riches for a God whom you have never heard from before. If He is real, where has He been all this time?"

"Those are great questions," I cheered from heaven's rim.

"You do it, Abram. Insist on an advance. Trust me, God doesn't have a backup candidate. Use your leverage."

But it did not work. Abram packed up the camels, the wife, and the nephew and set off as if he knew exactly where he was going. The prince went back in defeat to Satan's fury. I stayed and watched Abram's caravan disappear over the horizon.

Oh, how I wished I could have gone with him.

CHAPTER 20

I WATCHED THEM LEAVE
and marveled at how unconcerned they seemed to be with how old they were. Abram was seventy-five years old, and his wife, Sarai, was sixty-five (or so she said—with women, who can be sure?) when they started off for the land of Canaan. It was as if marching off the map to an undiscovered country were a normal thing for two people to do who really ought to be thinking about retirement. Satan had made it painfully clear to me to stick close to them at all times so there would be no conversations with God without his knowing about it. When God showed up again to talk to Abram, I would hear every word of it.

It was several weeks before the Lord appeared to Abram again. I knew by now how God could show up anywhere and at any time with no warning, so I was not surprised when He encountered Abram in the middle of the day in the middle of the road. Abram, on the other hand, having talked to God only one other time in his life, was not accustomed to such a strange encounter, and neither was his camel who bleated in fear, threw Abram off, and ran away with Abram chasing behind. I suppose it was God who stopped the animal so Abram could catch up.

Abram was sweating and breathing hard as he waited to see what God would say. "Look around," He said to Abram. "To your offspring I will give this land."

Just like Noah had done when he got off the boat, Abram's first response to God was not to ask a few good
when
and
how
questions; rather, he halted the whole caravan and built an altar to God right there in the traffic lane. With gratitude for what he had not yet received, Abram worshiped as if there were no doubt about God's truthfulness.

But Abram didn't stop there. He moved on to Bethel, and he built an altar. Everywhere they stopped to spend the night, Abram built an altar. The caravan was making terrible time because of the unscheduled stops, but you can guess how it pleased God. From that point on, Abram could do no wrong in God's eyes. Not only did the altar building positively guarantee Abram's success, but it also meant bad news for Satan. Before the altars were built, he had reigned and reveled in each of those locations without the slightest resistance. Just as soon as the altars went up and Abram declared that God was Lord over that place, the land trembled, and Satan felt his hold weaken. Although in nine million years he would never have admitted to such a thing, we knew it was so.

That was not the worst of it by far. Oh, my, no. The worst was right around the corner; a full-frontal assault on Satan's tactics in a way he had not anticipated. Abram started to pray. No one had truly prayed before.

To be sure, the demons knew that when humans get into trouble or get scared, they are likely to start crying out to some hoped-for cosmic rescuer in the sky. Begging for help is not the same thing as praying. Begging, wailing, and groveling did not constitute a petition to God. It was more yelling for help to any celestial being within earshot who might respond to the person's promises to live better in the future if only rescued from his circumstances in the now.

You humans still do this, although you still do not seriously expect anyone to answer, and generally speaking, no one does. As long as mankind confused
pleading
with
praying,
the issue of prayer was of no concern to Satan. That's why at first he seemed so disinterested in my report.

"So he's praying," Satan said without looking up from what he was doing. "So what?"

"It's not what you think, master." I tried to explain that the kind of prayer coming from Abram was different and much more serious than any version of prayer previously known to be in the spiritual skill set of humanity.

"Different? How?" Satan replied. "And don't waste my time."

"Abram is actually talking to God. He's thanking God for His mercy and protection on behalf of his family, his friends, his servants, the camels, the camel drivers, the dogs, and the cats. Abram is leaving nothing and no one uncovered." I wasn't sure I was getting through.

Satan had never before worried about the kind of whiny, wimpy prayer he was accustomed to hearing from you humans. He had often said that mankind's constant complaining to God was likely to have been more annoying to Him than helpful.

"Abram's prayer is nothing like you've heard before," I insisted.

"OK, so the old man's prayer is different. Tell me why I care." At least he was paying attention to me.

"It's...it's," I waved my hands around as if trying to pull the word I was looking for out of thin air. "It's intercession. That's what it is."

"So, it is prayer, then." He seemed annoyed. "Prayer has never helped them."

"That's because no human has ever engaged in intercession." I tried to make him see the urgency of the situation.

"Never?" Satan asked as if trying to remember if he knew of such a thing.

"We would have been the first to know if it had ever happened anywhere on Earth. Whining, begging, groveling, pleading, bargaining, trying to make a deal—all the time; but intercession? Never." I was exhausted from my attempt to warn him.

Satan's hordes were highly skilled in blocking mankind's prayer attempts, so Satan was simply not troubled by what I had to say.

"Earth people think prayer is about explaining situa-tions to God, which He already knows and understands far better than they do." Satan responded. "You know how the demons look forward to human prayer if it's a slow day."

He was right; it was like a game to them. Desperate people released their prayerettes, void of any direction, power, or authority. The little prayers floated up toward God all right, but first the fragile petitions had to pass through second heaven, where the demons shot them down before they came close to getting to God. I didn't know exactly what the repercussions of intercession might be, but I was certain there would be nothing fun about it.

I tried to explain it better. "Human prayers are like wishes floating toward heaven. Sometimes they get there, sometimes they don't, but nobody expects an answer anyway. Intercession doesn't involve wishing. It is directive and rapid. It declares what God has promised and demands it come about. It insists God remember what He has said and act upon it."

Satan looked perplexed, so I decided to chance going further. "What is more, God likes intercession."

He still wasn't getting it, so I tried harder. "God has tried for centuries to get His people to engage Him, command Him concerning His words, so to speak.

Someone is finally doing it."

Satan did not believe me until he experienced it for himself. Before he could say another word, a blast of lightning broke through the stone floor in front of him, knocked him back, and then crashed through the ceiling above.

"What happened?" he demanded as he righted himself.

"That's it! That's what I've been trying to tell you. It's Abram's intercession."

We were soon to learn how intercessory prayers could speed through second heaven so quickly and with such force, the demons would have to dance a jig to avoid being hit by one. Satan, who before had feared nothing mankind might do, hopped like a bunny right along with the rest of us to avoid getting in the path of intercession. Once intercession began, the prayers came in such a rapid-fire rhythm that they tore gaping holes in the floor and left the demons dazed and confused about where to stand to avoid being hit by the next one.

As Abram got better at intercession, it became worse for us. As fast as intercession went up, the response came hurling back even faster. I cannot tell you how many a demon could not get out of the way fast enough and was flattened by an incoming answer from heaven. While we were looking at the floor, trying to guess where the next one was likely to come through, Adonai would be up there slamming the answers back down faster, and all the better if it sideswiped one of the demons on the way.