Let me state this plainly.  What you regularly feed upon in the spiritual will eventually feed upon you in the natural.  If you load your spiritual man with dangerous substances, don’t be shocked when the devil and his demons are feasting upon you.

     I am not a ‘professional’ counselor, but I am a Minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ who--not by my knowledge or wisdom--have been trained in the area of spiritual warfare from the Word of God.  As the ‘old folks’ used to tell us in our youth: “If you DON’T understand it now--just keep ON living!”  Being among the older set myself, I get what they were trying to tell me, back in the day.

     Whether or not you believe that the devil is real does not change the fact that he is on the hunt for your soul.  In the world, there are all kinds of lies about the devil and the reality of his existence.  In the Bible, The Gospels of Matthew, Chapter 4, and Luke, Chapter 4, give one all the evidence they need to be aware of the devil.  The Book of Job, Chapters 1 AND 2 paints a grim portrait that the devil STILL has access to heaven AND roams to and fro upon the earth in the hunt for vessels to do his bidding.  He is a destroyer and will use his prime tool of the spirit of murder in order to punish men and women.

     In the Gospel of John 10:10 (KJV), the devil (Satan) is fixed upon his job to “Steal, kill and destroy.”  Notice that in the verse, the word ‘kill’ is very visible.  Thus, Satan is not above murder to achieve his ends.  He hates God, God’s son Jesus Christ, and man--the creation of God.  Yes, God has set limits on Satan (The Book of Job, Chapters 1 and 2), however, there are times when God lets the devil slip off his leash to do his thing (The Book of Jeremiah) as a means of punishing sin, and rebellion against God and His plan.

WHY IS MURDER A DRIVING SPIRIT?

     In a brief comparison of suicide and murder, suicide is a spirit that ‘stalks’ an individual.  It may ‘attach’ itself to a person for a variety of reasons, and from a variety of sources, but it is ‘triggered’ by external forces.  However, the spirit of murder is a ‘driving’ spirit.  It is a spirit that comes from the inside of a heart and may be ‘triggered’ by internal AND external forces that will ‘drive’ someone over the edge to do things that they would not normally do.  In a contest between the two spirits, murder is the stronger of the two, in my opinion.  If both spirits are in the neighborhood, the spirit of murder is the ‘senior partner’, so to speak (as in murder/suicide pacts).  Just as a righteous spirit may be ‘stirred up’ in a regenerate heart (through the salvation experience; one with Christ), an unrighteous spirit may be ‘stirred up’ in an unregenerate heart (the heart of a sinner, heathen, or pagan; one without Christ).

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND…FOR A NATION:

     If I may get historical for a moment, history has a way of being cyclical for a nation or a people.  Slavery was a portion of the founding of America.  Slavery, as you know, is a sin against God.  God will ONLY allow a nation so many opportunities to correct the wrongs done to others.  Then, there is a payday that comes, and a check that must be cashed.

     In terms of slavery, in the United States, after decades of bickering, death and mistreatment, the payday that came for America was in the form of the Civil War.  Hundreds died.  Hundreds more maimed, crippled, and tortured.  Cities destroyed and wounds placed where the scars were seen on a worldwide basis.

     The checks of that payday are still being cashed today--in blood and misery.

     Adding to that payday, Abortion on Demand.  Put into the paymaster’s window in 1973 with a Supreme Court decision (much like the Supreme Court enshrined slavery, years ago).  At last count, more than 60 to 70 million innocent lives have been lost, including an estimated 20-plus million Black babies, murdered in the womb.

     God has had enough with our land.  That payday has come, and the checks are being cashed--in blood--in our streets.  Laugh if you may about spiritual things and coincidences.  As the old folks used to say: “God’s boots are made of brass.  They may move slow, but they grind fine…and always move ON time.”

A NATIONAL OBSESSION WITH MURDER AS ENTERTAINMENT:

     If you have noticed on your large or small television screen, TV shows--especially on streaming services--have gotten more and more sinister, darker, and aiming squarely at the occult, death, and murder.  On any evening, on any station or cable outlet, viewers are treated to offerings from the ‘rival’ channels and streaming platforms (and, these channels and streaming platforms are partially owned by the big networks and movie studios) featuring movies and television series that hit upon the occult, police case murders, drug cartel/gang murders, and the glorification of death in slow motion.

     It used to be “blood with your eggs” as news outlets used to broadcast the latest local murders at breakfast...just as the kiddies were heading off for school.

     Now, thanks to the same media, you can have blood with your dinner.

     In the venue of video games, I find it highly amusing that video game business  manufacturers, programmers, and players get highly offended when someone gets on their case for the violence and racism and stereotyping that exists in the console.  YET, when I was a Probation Officer with my county juvenile court a few years back, I noticed that many of my high-risk and at-risk clients had a host of violent video games in their homes and enjoyed playing them.

     Coincidence?  I doubt it. 

     As I have mentioned earlier, in a different way, what you feed your spirit through the eye gate, the ear gate, and the other gateways of the body, you eventually ‘serve’ or have your spirit and soul ‘identify’.  Identification becomes snares, and snares become strongholds.  The doorway to your soul now becomes a beachhead for Satan and his demonic commandos.

     Think video game industry officials like the suggestion that ‘their games’ are a possible contributor to the national rise in murders and shootings?  Remember the outcry over violent lyrics in Rap/Hip Hop music?  Remember how that industry ‘deflected’ criticism…but kept on pumping out the filth?  Before this was the game “Dungeons and Dragons” and other occult-laced fare pumped out by the gaming industry.  Remember the outcry over teen suicides and murders?  Remember the non-response of the gaming industry?  The cycle is being repeated once again, only in these last days, with the boldness amplified.

     I watched a TV interview with a well-known video game representative on a national business news show a few days after a double mass murder incident took place.  Of course, he deflected any questions--or criticism--of a link between mass murder and video games. 

     Just like the talking heads of Rap/Hip Hop.

     Confession, in this case, would be bad for business--as the ‘mafia Dons’ would say.  Again, coincidence?  I doubt it.  When money is involved, there are some groups that care more for the dollar, than for the health of their fellow citizens.

GRIM REMINDERS AND BODY COUNTS:

     One may casually observe that murder and suicide seem to go hand in hand.

     Do NOT be fooled.  Of the two, as I have mentioned, murder is the more sinister, and the more driving of these two spirits.  In fact, the relationship of the two may be described thusly: IF Suicide--which I have identified in another column is a stalking spirit—murder would best be described as a driving spirit. 

     Walk with me for a moment.  Observe the headlines and news reports about a domestic violence situation, or a person who has killed someone of public importance.  Once that individual realizes what they have done, they quite often take their own lives, AFTER they have taken the lives of loved ones or strangers.

     *A divorced mother of six drives her car the wrong way on an interstate to kill her children to please her boyfriend and deny her ex, custody of the children?  Lust, jealousy, suicide and, of course, that driving spirit of murder.

     *Four teenaged girls kill a classmate because they didn’t like her.  Envy, anger and, of course, that driving spirit of murder.

      *A woman, who was fixated on the 20^th anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado, travels a great distance across the country to possibly do harm at the school…but is later found dead by her own hand. 

     Suicide, fueled by that driving spirit of murder.

     *In Virginia Beach, a disgruntled city employee shoots and kills a dozen or more people and wounds another half-dozen--including a police officer--before he is shot to death by police.  Anger, then that driving spirit of murder.

     Get the connection more clearly now?

     Let us focus on the weaker vessel, as identified by the scriptures for a moment, that being the female of the species.  Ever since her fall in the garden, Satan had prodded women to disregard godly standards and do her own thing.  The devil’s M. O. is the same as it was in the garden:  drive women to capture something (or someone) that she cannot (or should not have); enable them to vent anger, rage, and finally murder under the guise of her thinking that she is ‘superior’ in spiritual wisdom and the application thereof.

     It is NO secret that we are living in a feminized culture in America, which has an undercurrent of fueling from a variety of false religions, of which feminism is one of them.  Women, deceived by feminism, have usurped the man’s role in the home, the church and society.  The social message that is being pushed is that women can have and do anything that they want EXCEPT be wives, mothers, and keepers of the home.  Once they find out that they have been sold a ‘bill of goods’ by Satan, instead of repenting of their sins, they strike out--sometimes with weapons--against men.

     There is a lot of frustration among women today, regardless of socioeconomic or racial identity.  Why?  Anyone who is deliberately outside of the will of God and his biblical plan and design is going to be frustrated.  Take the recent case of a 40-something female college professor.  According to published reports, this professor was highly upset that she ‘believed’ that she could ‘have it all’ and poured herself into her career.  Unfortunately, her biological clock reportedly ‘ran out’ and she was frustrated that she did not take the time to have children (and maybe, get those children through marriage).  Then, there is another example.  A high-profile female writer and producer confessed that her highly successful TV series and movie left her empty.  She missed being married and having a loving man to share a home.  She has success, but no one to share it with.  Further, due to the ‘inspiration’ of her works, other women were led to ‘punt’ their marriages and relationships for the thrill of drinking and ‘hanging out’ with their girlfriends and talking (and experimenting) with all kinds of forms of fornication.

     Anyone can yield to the spirit of murder.  All it takes it the right combination of factors, beginning with ‘not getting one’s own way fast enough’.  There have been several recent cases of women who have murdered men for a variety of reasons.  One of the more intriguing cases involved the man having a restraining order put out against the woman in his life, and she showed up to kill him IN SPITE of that restraining order.

MEANWHILE, THE BODY COUNT RISES:

     It’s not by accident that more and more mass shootings, or murders in general are happening on the weekend AND the Lord’s Day (Sunday).  In my neck of the woods, over the past few years, there seems to have been a ‘spike’ in the number of homicides that have taken place on Sundays--which is the usual day for Christians (and others) to attend church services.

     In 2019, the nation was rocked by TWO mass shooting events--caused by white males--on the weekend.  I mention the racial ID of the perps as what has been released by law enforcement to the press and public.  Within some 13 hours of each other this murder spree took place.  In the first one, a young man decided to drive for miles to ‘shoot up’ a major store in El Paso, Texas.  The result:  nearly two dozen dead, and more than two dozen wounded.  Thirteen hours later, around Dayton, Ohio, a gunman kills his sister, and more than a half-dozen others before he was gunned down by law enforcement.

     Believe me, for the spirit of murder to make a ‘jump’ from one side of the country to the other in under 24 hours is a small feat in the supernatural of the spirit realm.  Again, I will say that the individual who is behind that demonic spirit of murder is none other than Satan, the devil himself.  He uses the doorways into the soul in order to cause wreckage and ruin among mankind.

     These are only the high-profile murders.  Plain old inner (and outer) city violence took place during the same weekend and Lord’s Day.  In Chicago, Illinois during roughly that same time frame of the El Paso and Dayton incidents, there were reportedly 40-plus shootings according to published reports.  The number of shootings was so bad that it was reported that one hospital emergency room closed its doors for a while, just to handle all of the carnage.

     It gets worse.  While I was putting this column together, it was announced that a studio in Hollywood was getting set to release a movie, featuring stalking and murder as their two ‘main sellers’.  In a nutshell, the film features a group of liberal elites who kidnap normal conservative people from around the country, for the purpose of hunting them down and killing them--for sport.  What makes this film even more potentially dangerous are two things:

1. Those who ‘supposedly’ are for gun control, use guns and other weapons against their political and social enemies.
2. Those who ‘supposedly’ are stressing one political view over another advocate killing the opposition, rather than talking, or even persuading them about an alternative point of view.  The underlying message that is being sent out to young people:  murder is a great debate stopper.

     Where does the ‘cancel culture’ come from?  Right.  Murder, that driving spirit.

SAME DOORWAYS…WITH A TWIST:

     If you read my column entitled “Suicide, That Stalking Spirit” (which came out not too long ago--feel free to Google it), you’ll remember that I wrote extensively about some of the doorways into one’s soul that could ‘generate’ entry points for suicidal thoughts.  Again, some of these doorways include alcohol, drugs, feeding on occult-laced media and video games, playing around with the occult AND depression.  I also mentioned that there were giants of the Christian faith, Charles H. Spurgeon being one of them, who wrestled with depression.

     All of these factors--and more--come into play when the spirit of murder is involved.  The individual--if NOT under the protection of Jesus Christ by His atoning sacrifice on Calvary’s cross--is ripe for Satan’s plucking and dropping into a killing frenzy. 

     Let us also remember that God sovereign.  While the Christian is protected by the blood of Christ, there is no ‘guarantee’ that we will ‘escape’ the carnage, IF it be the sovereign will of God for a Christian to go through the valley of the shadow of death, then the Christian must accept His will.  The difference between the sinner and the saint arriving on the shores of the Jordan river is that saint crosses over into the joy of the Lord.  The sinner crosses over into the wrath of God.

REMEMBERING THE PROPHETIC:

     One thing that will give a Christian the strength to look up in these rough times is the understanding of bible prophecy; what is to come before the Rapture takes the Lord’s church out of this sin-sick world.

     In these last days, as covered in II Timothy, chapter 3 (KJV) we see a perfect prophetic outline of modern society.  Men (and this includes women and children) have a laundry list of afflictions tied to the downfall of Adam (and Eve) in the garden. 

            These afflictions--among others--come OUT of the hearts of men:

            *lovers of their own selves

            *covetous

            *boasters

            *proud

            *blasphemers

            *disobedient to parents

            *unthankful

            *unholy

            *without natural affection

            *trucebreakers

            *false accusers

            *despisers of those that are good

            *Traitors

     …and more are liable to drop into the sinning heart and manifest into a full-blown murderous spirit which may surface without warning--until it is too late.

     I realize what is happening in the headlines.  Cheer up, it IS going to get worse.  In the words of the late Pastor Adrian Rogers: “It is growing gloriously dark.”  This only means that when the light of Jesus Christ becomes visible in the dark corners of our society, the darkness will flee, and there will be joy coming in the morning from God’s own hand.

SPIRITUAL SOLUTIONS FOR SPIRITUAL PROBLEMS:

     Society likes to attempt to make Jesus Christ and His church impotent in the face of evil.  Smashing evil is in the job description of a Christian.  The world system takes great joy in mocking Christians and the church, even when the body count rise higher and higher.

     Here’s a sad reality.  Every time spiritual solutions are put forth as an answer to the real problems of society, society rebels.  When society attempts to drive God out of the public square, the problems grow worse and worse until society is forced to say “uncle” and allow those with the wisdom of God through Jesus Christ to bring godly solutions to the table.

     Which will you choose as an explanation as the next tragedy unfolds?  A spiritual solution or the same old shop worn social solutions that leave money in the pockets of various individuals and groups—without solving the problem!

     Jesus Christ IS the solution to the gang problem and/or ANY problem.  Sadly, a lot of people would rather go to jail, prison, juvie or the grave rather than deal with the spiritual issues in their lives, repent FROM their sins, and believe God for salvation.

     Many say that this solution, that ‘bible’ stuff is too simple.

     Simple or not, it WORKS!

     Murder is a driving spirit.  I trust that I have made my case explaining why.  It begins in the heart.  To solve it means that one needs a NEW heart, and that comes from Christ.  Who will rule YOUR heart when things get tough?

            Mike Ramey is a Minister, Book Reviewer, P-School Ranger, Modern Street Gang Specialist and Syndicated Columnist who lives in Indianapolis, Indiana.  “The Ramey Commentaries” is one of a variety of columns that Ramey has in cyberspace.  To drop him a line…or a whine…the address is still the same:  [email protected].  ©2019, 2022 Barnstorm Communications International.

Mike Ramey is a Retired Gospel Minister who lives in Indianapolis, IN. Book Reviewer, Syndicated Columnist and Award-winning Journalist in Radio, Television, Print and Internet with more than 25 years experience. KJV Bible Teacher and Modern Street Gang Specialist. Veteran teacher and instructor.