Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Find the answers to all those questions you were too embarrassed to ask in Sunday School. Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. Hosted by Luke Taylor.
Dive deeper! Sign up for the newsletter (and catch up on past newsletters) at this link: https://weirdstuffinthebible.beehiiv.com/
Why does God allow evil spirits to remain? The conclusion of the Enoch series.
Matthew 18 & Enoch 16
Introduction
Last week, we talked about where demons come from.
This week, I want to talk about why they’re still here.
So demons are the spirits of the giants in the Old Testament. Most of them probably lived prior to the flood. But they all died, and when they did, their spirits didn’t leave this planet. God left them right here on the earth to act as spirits of affliction against mankind.
These are demons. The ghosts of giants.
God literally says in Enoch 16, “thus shall they destroy until the day of the consummation, the great ⌈judgement⌉.”
And by the way- I’ll show you today that the Bible backs this up 100%.
But hold up. Why do we have to deal with them? The giants and their spirits are irredeemably evil. They do nothing but cause problems. The flood was supposed to give us a fresh start. Why not just send them on down to h-e-double-hockey-sticks and we can be done with them?
I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why the demons got left behind in the book of Enoch, as well as in our Bibles.
And not only that, it’s going to conclude our week-by-week journey through the Book of Enoch that we started in January.
So if you’re ready for that, turn to Matthew 18, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]
(Continued)
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and I am really glad I didn’t get hit by a car this week.
That’s a weird thing to say, but it is an actual fear I had because this is a direct follow-up to last week’s episode. It’s kind of a part-2. When I have to do a two-parter episode, I always get a little nervous because I’m afraid something might happen to me before I finish part 2. And not only that, this is the conclusion to a series we’ve been doing on the book of Enoch since the beginning of the year. All week long I kept thinking: this week would be a really inconvenient time to get hit by a car. Thankfully I didn’t, so here we go!
This Enoch series has studied places where the Bible intersects with the Book of Enoch, I thought it would last about 16 weeks, and that we’d get all the way through chapter 36. That is known as the Book of the Watchers. The first 36 chapters of Enoch are far and away the most credible part of the Book of Enoch. It doesn’t mean that they’re perfectly preserved; but they show the most evidence of being true and reliable accounts of what Enoch himself experienced.
Now maybe you’re thinking: “Luke, you failed, you didn’t even get through half the chapters.” And that’s somewhat true. But one, by word count, we actually covered the majority of the Book of the Watchers. The chapters after this start to get really short. Two, I’m not entirely done with studying the Book of Enoch. We will revisit it from time to time, including in the next few months, and cover some of these things in chapters 17 through 36. It just might not be verse-by-verse like what we have been doing. But I hope you’ve enjoyed what we’ve explored in the first half of 2026; it’s been amazing for me.
Basanizo
But let’s get into today’s study. Like last week, I’ve covered some of this material before, so I’ll move kinda quickly.
You’ve been hearing about some pretty spicy b-words the past couple weeks. Beautiful. Babe. Words I like to use for my wife. But the B-word for this week is basanizo. A basanizo is the Greek word for tormenter. A torturer. Someone who inflicts suffering. (Not a word that I use for my wife- unless she mixes two kinds of coffee). We see this word basanizo come up in the parable of the unmerciful servant.
This story is in Matthew 18.
Starting at verse 21
21 Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’
So just to recap- and you’re probably familiar with this story already- the parable of the unmerciful servant is about a guy who was forgiven a huge debt. The king just wrote it off. A major blessing for this guy who owed so much money, he was never gonna be able to pay it off.
And the analog is you and I with our sin debt. We were in such a debt of sin that we could never pay the price for our rebellion against God. But Jesus paid it all on the cross.
In the parable, the servant who had been forgiven all this debt then turns to someone who owes him a little bit of money in comparison and says, “Pay me back.” When the guy can’t do it, he starts literally choking him out! We read that and we’re like, “What a jerk.” But the analogy to us is that when we withhold forgiveness toward someone for something they’ve done to us, we’re forgetting what hopeless sinners we were before the Lord.
So it’s a parable about unforgiveness. And when we withhold forgiveness from others, this is what happens:
Verse 29
29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers [basonizo], until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
If we do not forgive others, the Lord will hand us over to the “jailers,” this Greek word basanizo. And this is not just a cop or a bailiff; this is a torturer. (If any of this sounds familiar, Beatty Carmichael took us through these verses in an interview I shared last November, so I’m revisiting some of this to build on it today.)
I used to look at this story as if it was a threat to send us to hell. After all, we pray in the Lord’s prayer: forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. That if we refuse to forgive someone else, then God may not forgive you. And I’m not saying it can’t be a threat of hell. But primarily, this is not about torments we might experience in the afterlife, but the spirits of affliction that might come after us.
How can they come after us? Because unforgiveness is a sin, and when you sin, you create legal rights for demons to oppress you. And this can manifest in physical or mental torments. That’s what this basanizo is.
So let’s talk about a couple of things here: the motivation of these spiritual beings, and the motivation of God to allow them access into our lives.
Persons Without Bodies
Enoch 15, which we finished last week, said these words: And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble: they take no food, ⌈but nevertheless hunger⌉ and thirst, and cause offences. And these spirits shall rise up against the children of men and against the women, because they have proceeded ⌈from them⌉.
We established in the previous episode that the demons or unclean spirits of the New Testament are spirits of the giants. They now wander the earth, seeking humans to oppress and afflict. But why do they do this? Because they have urges and temptations and desires, but they don’t have bodies in which to act out these urges. Therefore, they seek a presence within our bodies to fulfill these desires.
The words say “they take no food, ⌈but nevertheless hunger⌉ and thirst…” This is a curse for them; we read earlier in Enoch about the insatiable hunger of the giants, and that they even resorted to cannibalism and devoured people. They are cursed with a hunger that can’t be satisfied; and not just a food hunger, but all of the other desires of the flesh. They now have no flesh, yet they still seek wet bodies to act upon these urges. That can include food, or lust and sexual temptations, and other things. I like how
Ephesians 6:12 is rendered in The Living Bible translation:
For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against persons without bodies
Spiritual beings are persons. They have their own minds, wills and emotions.
And they’re not all the same. They have particular proclivities. Just like some people might be addicted to alcohol, or drugs, or have temper problems, there can be spirits who are seeking to feel drunk, or spirits of rage.
I remember once attending a Messianic church service. These services started at sundown and they lasted about three or four hours. They went until midnight sometimes. And there was this gentleman sitting on the front row, grinning like a fool. Like, just with a huge smile plastered across his face, the whole service. It was kinda creepy; I’m like, this guy is too happy to be in a three-hour church service! (That’s a joke, by the way. The services were pretty awesome). So the guy just sat there, and his smile really stood out to me. He didn’t do anything else.
Anyway, the pastor there- toward the end of the sermon- points at this guy and says, “You have a spirit of alcoholism and it’s going to come out right now!” And when he said that, the guy immediately fell on the floor and started convulsing. I think he started kind of crawling like a snake. That was kinda wild to see. And some of us went over and prayed over the guy. I think I did briefly, too; it lasted about 20 minutes, and apparently the demon was cast out.
And that pastor demonstrated a gift called discerning of spirits. You can read about it in I Corinthians 12:10. Some people call this the gift of discernment, but that’s not the gift; we’re all supposed to practice discernment. The gift is discerning of spirits; being able to tell what kind of spirit is in operation in a person’s life or a situation.
And when this spirit of alcoholism was called out, it manifested right there. There was another time that I was at a Saturday night worship service and a woman who was involved with the occult came in. (I think I’ve shared about this before, so I’ll keep it brief). When this woman first came in, I didn’t pay much attention to her. Didn’t know anything about her. I was just praying and worshipping by myself.
I’m kneeling there at my chair praying and this incredible urge to smoke a cigarette comes over me. I didn’t smoke. I don’t think that I had ever even tried a cigarette in my life. It was the most bizarre desire; all I wanted to do in that moment was walk out of that worship service, go find a gas station, and get a pack of cigarettes. What a weird feeling. It was so bizarre to me, a non-smoker, to get this desire, I kind of just pushed through it and kept praying. After a minute or two, the sensation passed.
About 45 minutes later, this woman who had been in the occult starts manifesting demons. People are praying for her to be set free. There’s a woman standing in front of her calling spirits out. And they called me over to help pray. The woman standing in front says, “You have a spirit of cigarette addiction.”
Now guys, that sounded really weird to me. I’m thinking, “that’s a weird thing to say. A spirit of cigarette smoking?” Like, my first thought was, “the Bible doesn’t say cigarette smoking is a sin.” And by the way, since I don’t have a chapter and verse, I don’t teach that it is. As far as I’m concerned, smoking is bad for your health, but it’s none of my business what someone else wants to do with their body, anymore than it’s not my business whether someone wants to eat six pieces of cake every night for dinner. I’m not saying everybody who smokes cigarettes has a demon. But that experience stood out to me because, several days later, I was thinking about that night and it hit me: I was hit with the exact same urge that they called out of that woman later on. I didn’t even put 2 and 2 together that night that those two things might be related. But I believe this woman had a spirit of cigarette smoking, and while she was in the room that night, that spirit came over and knocked on my door. It wanted in.
So guys, let me just say: pay attention to your urges. Not every thought you think comes from you. Not every urge you have is necessarily natural. It could be supernatural. And as a Christian, you aren’t supposed to give into these things. You see, unsaved people don’t have much defense for these things.
Philippians 3:19 says
Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.
Romans 8:5 says
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
We are to live above that, not being led around by our passions and spirits of evil desire. We’re to be led by the Holy Spirit; the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. He doesn’t give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.
So, there are a lot of spirits listed in the Bible associated with various sins or sinful desires. Like, for example, a spirit of fear. There’s a spirit of fear that can enter and control people- see II Timothy 1:7. There are spirits of error, spirits of slavery, spirits of sexual immorality.
For today, I won’t go into them all; I’ll try to share a list of them in this weekend’s newsletter. So if you aren’t on the email list, you can go sign yourself up in the show notes. I’ll try to provide a catalog of all of the spirit types in the Bible.
These won’t be “named” spirits, like Azazel or Michael or Satan. I do have an article up on the site now that’s a catalog of all the named spirits in the Bible. But I’m also going to create one on spirit “types.” There are spirits of various types, and this is what Enoch 15 and 16 tell us.
So, so far we’ve discussed the motivation of evil spirits. But now let’s discuss God’s motivation in keeping them here.
Enoch 16
And for that, we’re going to read Enoch 16. This short little chapter is only a few sentences, and it wraps up Enoch’s journey back and forth between God and the Watchers. Remember: God is up in heaven, the Watchers are chained up down in the Underworld, and they’ve been petitioning God to get out early, and that their children would be given long life as well. They really have no leverage, but I guess they had nothing to lose by trying.
Enoch 16 states- still talking about the spirits of the giants- “1. From the days of the slaughter and destruction and death ⌈of the giants⌉, from the souls of whose flesh the spirits, having gone forth, shall destroy without incurring judgement--thus shall they destroy until the day of the consummation, the great ⌈judgement⌉ in which the age shall be consummated, over the Watchers and the godless, yea, shall be wholly consummated."
God says that the spirits of the giants will roam the earth until judgment day- that’s the day of consummation. That would be until the day that Jesus returns. The devil and his demons will be active in the earth until that time.
There’s an interesting comment made in the story of the demoniac of the Gadarenes; this was the man said to have a Legion of demons inside him. It includes this detail in the account in:
Matthew 8:29
And behold, they cried out, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?”
Why do they say “before the time”? Because they know what Enoch 16 says- that there’s a day coming when the demons will be thrown into the Lake of Fire, but when Jesus showed up in Galilee, these demons weren’t ready for it. They’re like, “are you going to torment us before the day of consummation?” Which means they know what is coming, they know their time is running out. And this is why I said in the intro: the Bible backs up this chapter of Enoch.
Also notice that they say this to Jesus through the man in the same account in
Mark 5:7
“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.”
Adjure is a legal word. It’s the same root you find in “jury” or “adjudicate.” It means they were establishing their legal right to remain there; and trust me, just as demons would resist the Son of God, they will resist you as well. More on that later.
Enoch 16 continues: 2. And now as to the Watchers who have sent thee to intercede for them, who had been ⌈⌈aforetime⌉⌉ in heaven, (say to them): "You have been in heaven, but ⌈all⌉ the mysteries had not yet been revealed to you, and you knew worthless ones, and these in the hardness of your hearts you have made known to the women, and through these mysteries women and men work much evil on earth." 4. Say to them therefore: "You have no peace."'
So that’s the final word on this section. Remember that the Watchers had shared forbidden knowledge with humans. God said something really interesting to the Watchers here. He said, “you have been in heaven, but all the mysteries had not yet been revealed to you, and you knew worthless ones.” It means, you hadn’t even discovered all the glories of heaven. You learned the worthless things, and then you ran off down to earth to teach those to mankind before you even learned the really good stuff.
It means angels learn things, just like people do (I Peter 1:12). But these Watchers had learned just enough to think they were pretty cool, and then they came down to earth to seduce the women and act like know-it-alls and teach all these secrets to the people.
And remember what they taught the people in those chapters- skills like metallurgy, or how to make swords and knives. Now, I always thought that was kind of strange- surely in heaven they have lightsabers or something, right? Surely they had advanced beyond knowledge of swords. Even human beings have gone beyond that.
Well apparently heaven had more, but these Watchers who rebelled didn’t realize it. They left the theater five minutes into the movie and thought they knew all they needed to know. God is like, “The stuff you’d learned was useless compared to what I had in store for you, and you lost it.”
I don’t know what the process of revelation is like in heaven, but apparently you don’t know all there is to know on day one of being there. There are mysteries of heaven, great things to discover. And that makes the idea of going there someday sound very exciting to me.
Types of Spirits
So why does God allow these spirits to roam the earth at all and not just put the demon spirits down in the Underworld with their parents? Because God uses spirits of affliction to accomplish His purposes. It’s the same reason He allows Satan to exist and roam the earth: Satan serves a purpose. But let me give some examples of God commanding or using or even unleashing evil spirits in the Bible:
I Samuel 16:14
Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him.
The King James calls it an “evil spirit” from the Lord.
Judges 9:23. God wanted Abimelech to die. It says
And God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem, and the leaders of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech
I Kings 22:21-22, a divine council scene
21 Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ 22 And the Lord said to him, ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.’
So right there, God sent a lying spirit to deceive Ahab through the false prophets.
Now, has God impugned anybody’s free will in this story? I wouldn’t say so. The people in these stories rejected God before He sent these spirits to mess around with their lives. It reminds me of some verses about the end times in
II Thessalonians 2
they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
When an unbeliever wants to reject God and the truth, God will give them exactly what they asked for.
But that’s not to say that God won’t also send spirits that we don’t want. Listen to these words Paul wrote in
II Corinthians 12:7
So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.
Paul was given a messenger of Satan- that is angelos- same word often translated angel- and this means a spiritual being. Paul was given some kind of hindrance or problem from this evil spirit, but note this: it was given to keep Paul from becoming conceited.
Let me ask you a question: who wants to keep Paul from being conceited. Is it the devil? No, the devil loves pride. Pride is, like, his favorite sin. Pride is one of the worst sins. Satan doesn’t want to protect Paul from pride. God does. So this ultimately came from God- to keep Paul humble.
Verse 8 continues:
Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
God is sovereign over all spirits- good and evil- and uses them for His purposes- good and evil.
And to return to Matthew 18 and basanizo, God will even allow basanizo tormenting spirits into your life in order to bring you to repentance and guide you to live righteously.
Matthew 18’s story ended this way:
34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
So God uses spirits of affliction to discipline us. And that’s why we need to avoid sin so that we don’t give them an open door into our lives and our bodies to do that.
And I’ll give a little more info on that as we close down, but for now, we’re gonna call that a wrap on the Book of Enoch series of 2026. If you want more Enoch, don’t worry, I’ll have more to say about this book later this year. But for now, I have some other biblical topics I’d like to explore with you all.
Next Time
As I said earlier, I really don’t like leaving things unaddressed. Leaving loops unclosed. So a few months ago, I did some episodes on Mount Hermon, and I mentioned that this is most likely the mountain where the Transfiguration took place in the Gospels.
But it’s always kinda bothered me: what was the Transfiguration all about? There’s a lot of strange elements going on in that story, and I’ve never quite been sure how they all tie together. Until now! I’ve been researching the Transfiguration in the background for the past few months, and I’d like to share what I learned. That will be the next two episodes of the podcast.
Make sure you’re subscribed so you can get them! And I’ll still keep trying to not get hit by cars so I can share that info with you all.
Closing Thoughts
Now, I want to share two more important things with you before we go. One, not every physical problem is because of an evil spirit. You see Jesus healing a lame man in John 5 and a blind man in Mark 10 and He didn’t mention anything about a spirit of blindness or casting out an unclean spirit. So just because you have a physical problem does not mean that it’s because of an evil spirit.
However, I wouldn’t be biblically faithful if I didn’t raise the possibility that it is. Sometimes it can be caused by spirits of infirmity. So it’s worth considering and praying about and seeing if God reveals anything to you about it. And that’s where a process like Beatty Carmichael’s Prayer of Freedom can potentially help you.
Another thing to remember: God can send unclean spirits or allow them into our lives, and we can do things that allow them into our lives, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that every unclean spirit is sent by God. Sometimes they’re present because of a curse- and we’ll talk more about curses this year. Sometimes they can be present because of someone else’s sin.
Anywhere that an evil spirit can assert itself, they will try; and so it’s incumbent upon us to do whatever we can to sever their legal rights. The spiritual realm is a legal realm. Just like those demons tried to adjure Jesus to allow them to remain.
How do we get them out? You’ve heard the verse: We will overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our ______ What? Our testimony. It’s in Revelation 12. Our testimony can overcome the enemy.
Now, we’ve kind of turned the word “testimony” into sharing our life story. And it’s incredible to hear life stories. But let’s not forget what a testimony is- it’s legal terminology. And that’s what we’re involved in when we go to court against the enemy. When you go to court and you’re put on the stand, you give a “testimony.”
Revelation 12:9 says the devil accuses us. “Accusing” is legal vocabulary. He demands legal rights to us. And he’s probably right on some of the things he says about us, because we are indeed sinners.
But Revelation 12:10 says we can overcome his accusations by (1) the blood of Jesus which takes away our sins, and (2) the word of our testimony. “Testimony” there is the Greek word Marturia (mar-too-ree-ah), and it means “what one testifies before a judge.” (BibleStudyTools interlinear bible).
The spiritual realm is a legal realm. We’re gonna have to deal with some malicious spirits in that realm. And if you want to remove the legal rights of the enemy in your life, you have the tools you need. Because God is the judge, and your defense attorney is the judge’s son. And both He and the Judge know that His blood will set you free.
So if going to court against the devil sounds weird, I hope you’ll be a little more weird today, too.
Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end of the Book of Enoch series, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.
Closing Thoughts
What are some of the most common sources of open doors? I’ve been reading a lot of deliverance materials the past year, and the same three things seem to rise to the surface the most: sexual immorality, idolatry or the occult (which are messing with demons), and unforgiveness.
And that’s the example Jesus pointed to with the parable of the unmerciful servant. Unforgiveness. I’ve heard story after story of someone having a demonic stronghold in their life that didn’t go away until they forgave somebody.
There’s a strange little story in Genesis 4. I say it’s strange because it feels kinda disconnected with everything else going on. Genesis 4 is in the pre-flood world. If we’re only getting a few chapters on the pre-flood world, we probably want to know about fallen angels and giants and sins of the watchers, right? But instead your Bible tells us about this bad dude named Lamech. He was a womanizer and a murderer, and this is what he said after he killed someone:
Genesis 4:24
If Cain's revenge is sevenfold,
then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold.
What is revenge? Revenge is unforgiveness. And Lamech says, “if anyone harms me, let that person be harmed 77 times as much.” What a strange number: 77.
You don’t see 77 come up again until Matthew 18, where Jesus tells the parable of the unmerciful servant.
(Matthew 18:21-22)
21 Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”
Peter is thinking that this is quite generous. Forgiving someone 7 times in one day would be a lot.
22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
In Genesis, we’re introduced to 77x revenge. In Matthew, Jesus introduces us to 77x forgiveness.
So if you have someone in your life you need to forgive, do it today. Forgive them from your heart. Because you don’t want basanizo getting in your business.
And if you think forgiving someone 77 times is weird, I hope you’re a little more weird today, too. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.