In the wake of any horrific event like the recent school shooting in Uvalde, TX, we suddenly hear lots of talk about “evil”. It’s interesting since so many seem to attribute violent actions to either mental illness, a response to a terrible home life, or other adverse experiences.
But when someone does something so extreme, so irrationally hateful, especially to the most innocent and harmless among us, people start to realize there’s something more than just mental illness at work. Psychologically troubled people lash out when they feel threatened by some predator, whether real or imagined. But to find pleasure in the pain of others makes no sense, not even to the mentally ill.
There is something else at work among us. And it doesn’t have a logical explanation. I learned this by staring straight into eyes that had hidden evil behind them…
Mesac Damas had been in jail for several years when I met him. Trial date after trial date had been postponed due to his various antics. He would go on hunger strikes for weeks on end, and then say something disruptive in his hearing. He’d give grief to his own counsel who’d eventually resign in frustration.
Mesac was in jail for taking a knife and slitting the throats of his wife and their five beautiful children. And now here I was, sitting at his cell door and answering his rather complex questions on Christ’s second coming.
The “end of days” is a common subject of interest for inmates. As a chaplain working in the county jail, I would get endless requests for copies of the famous “Left Behind” book series. The books offered inmates one possible option for eventual “escape”. In their minds, the Second Coming of Christ was effectively Jesus breaking them out of prison.
But Mesac had returned those books when I tried to send them. He said they were just fictional novels (which is correct), and that he wanted more scholarly sources for Biblical study. So today, I walked down to the special area of the jail reserved for inmates who were physically or psychologically impaired to tell Mesac in person the jail really had no theology books on that level.
I was holding my breath waiting to hear his response to the bad news. Surprisingly, he was quite friendly and reasonable.
He asked, “Would you have the time to talk with me and answer my questions, verse by verse?”
I agreed, partly out of curiosity to see what kinds of theological questions are asked by a guy who murdered his family with his bare hands and a kitchen knife. As we talked, I leaned in toward the opening in the door where his food tray is inserted and listened.
“Hey, Chaplain, you need to move back right now!” An officer at a central desk in the large room called out to me frantically.
“What’s wrong?” I answered as I pushed away from the thick plexiglass cell door.
“Chaplain, all that man has to do is reach through that opening and rip out your trachea! You can’t sit that close to the opening!”
The inmate I’d been speaking with seemed so reasonable. I’d forgotten for a moment there was such a thing as evil, and that the man within just arms reach of me was well-acquainted with it.
Which brings a question to mind I’d like to ask you…
Do you believe in evil? In a personal, intelligent force like the Bible describes that is working against us and, in some cases, through us?
“What is your name?” Jesus asked. “Legion, for we are many.” – Luke 8:26-39
That kind of pure, irrational evil is something we’re skeptical of these days. Most people never experience anything in daily life as dramatic as the evil manifested in your garden-variety exorcism movie. So it’s easy to dismiss the concept and attribute any carnage to mental illness.
Skeptics might ask, “If there is supernatural evil, why don’t we see those kinds of demon-possessed people like Jesus faced?” Are those stories merely the superstitious products of a primitive culture lacking any better explanation?
Good question.
I believe I have met evil in person. I’ve talked with perfectly reasonable people, like Mesac, who have done things they themselves can’t explain. I’ve counseled child abusers who’ve felt compelled to do unspeakable things to the innocent. You’d have to be crazy to do those things, right? But more often than not, those people will strike you as common, almost boring. There’s often nothing extraordinary about them other than the terrible things they’ve done.
I often wondered, when looking in their eyes during those conversations, if I might catch a glimpse of evil staring back at me.
Mesac sits calmly and talks with me about fairly complex theological issues. He asks intelligent questions, some for which I don’t have adequate answers off the top of my head. When I tell him I don’t have a particular book or don’t know something, he doesn’t lash out at me but responds graciously like any rational person would.
Mesac claims that what he did was a caused by demonic possession. Sure, that sounds like a desperate excuse someone might make to get off on six murder charges. Except that Damas never tried to get his attorneys to argue that in court that I can find. Frankly, I think he knows no one will believe him. Instead, they’ll go for an insanity plea, even though there’s nothing in my visits to indicate he’s insane.
He explains that in Haiti before coming to Florida, he dabbled in voodoo and spiritism. He claims that this exposure haunted him, and eventually led to the horrible acts he committed. He now claims to be a Christian, and in fact has held some Bible studies with other inmates when he wasn’t in the psych ward. After multiple conversations with him, I found myself struggling to decide what I believed about his claims.
I’m struggling in part because, like you, most of the evil I’ve seen is a much tamer brand. Sure, I’ve watched bitterness and unforgiveness growing like a cancer in a friend’s soul. I’ve witnessed the effects of substance and sexual abuse. I’ve seen breathtaking selfishness destroy marriages and families. But not the foaming-at-the-mouth, Latin-speaking demon possession. Actually, I’ve seen none at all like that.
“Legion” was the name of one of the demons Jesus confronted. That name was strategic. It was the demons’ way of bragging about their power. They wanted Jesus to know He was outnumbered. That’s how evil works – it manipulates you through fear and intimidation.
In the 1st century, many people believed not only in a God but in many “gods”. So a demon showed its preeminence among their “gods” by demonstrating its control over a victim, like with the young man Jesus encountered. Outrageous behavior and supernatural manifestations intimidated the 1st-century mind into submission and servitude. Satan was boasting to them he was the most powerful of all their “gods”, so they’d better do what he said.
Legion’s strategy worked pretty well until confronted by a certain rabbi from Nazareth.
Today, the deception is different: Satan’s strategy for our culture is disbelief. “There is no God” is the reigning deception of our day, and it’s working effectively. While a less advanced culture might be impressed by a demonic show of power, if our skeptical culture saw evidence of Satan they might also start believing in God as well. Satan knows any flamboyant manifestations of spinning heads and spitting pea soup would spoil his grand delusion.
A smarter strategy is to keep his work stealthy, subtle, undetected. So he camouflages his “designer demons” in the guise of social ills. He destroys families, causing fathers to abandon children. Those children, especially the boys, grow up never seeing examples of how to use their power for good. He educates them they are nothing more than intelligent animals, and that human life is cheap. He plants unrealistic pictures before their eyes of financial success, manhood, and womanhood they can never live up to.
Finally, he divides them up into warring tribes based on race and political ideology. He creates a perfect storm that results in carnage on our TV screens, which only adds more to our fear and isolation.
How can we fain surprise when our children finally lash out in demonic activity? They’ve been groomed quite well for just that end.
And for you personally, evil is at work in subtle yet substantial ways. it’s merely a coincidence you are so often struck strategically at your weakest point, right? Instead of turning to God with our pain, we side with “science” and let pharmacology deliver us from evil. Before the Corona Virus Pandemic, nearly 20% of adults were on daily mood-altering medications. All indications are those numbers have risen sharply in the years following.
We are too smart for our own good. Our overconfidence in our education has made us easy to deceive, and the deception of atheism plays directly to their arrogance. It’s like a 21st-century version of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Instead of telling the king he’s naked, we just persuade him smart people don’t need clothes. We’re convinced we’ve evolved past God, while standing naked against our enemy’s attacks.
Evil knows us all too well.
Mesac Damas finally plead guilty. He told the judge he wanted death, so that he could be reunited with the wife and children he slaughtered. I read comments on the local paper’s website where people made fun of that statement.
“He’ll never be reunited with them. He’s headed the opposite direction!”
Honestly, I’m not so sure about that. The man I spoke with seemed to be finally at peace with God. He knew he was responsible for letting evil overtake him. He’s asked God for forgiveness, and who am I to say he’s not deserving. According the Scripture, none of us are deserving.
In the words of Clint Eastwood’s tired gunslinger in The Unforgiven, “We’ve all got it coming”.
The judge granted Mesac’s requested. He was sentenced to death, six counts to be exact. If any of what he told me is true, I hope he is one day reunited with his family again. The man I spoke with was not mentally ill. It is my opinion he was overtaken by a very real and powerful evil he himself invited in, not realizing the consequences.
I know many don’t believe in evil. They just think awful things happen, never wondering what caused them, never acknowledging when those horrific actions don’t make any sense.
No, we don’t believe in evil. We are way too enlighten for such simple thinking. But still, the demons are all around us, watching us, waiting for an opening. And they are legion.
