Once you know the biblical origin and nature of demons, it’s incredible to see the correlations to the gods of Greek and Roman mythology.

Demons are disembodied, unclean spirits with real personalities and supernatural power who operate as frontline foot soldiers in Satan’s army.

They originate with the fallen angels, identified as the “sons of God” in Gen. 6, who “intermingled” with human females in the years preceding the Flood to produce offspring of giants on the earth who “ became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”

These angels, we learn from Jude 6, left their positions as angels in their “first estate,” or the habitation God gave them to live and function in up in heaven, and came down to earth to go “after strange flesh,” thereby corrupting the “seed of the woman” in fulfillment of a Satanic plot.

From Gen. 3:15, we’re given the first hint of God’s intention to produce a Coming Redeemer through the seed of the woman.

With the Flood, some of Satan’s angels were immediately relegated to chains of darkness in hell, but others, according to Psalm 82:7, died like men. These were likely the sons of God, or at least their offspring.

“Their leaders are in hell in chains of darkness, but their bodies are down there in that deep at the bottom of the universe (Psalm 136:6, Rev. 20:13), where the lake of fire's going to be, and their spirits are loose today—disembodied,” explains my pastor, Richard Jordan (Shorewood Bible Church, Rolling Meadows, Ill.), in a study I have on tape. “Their bodies are down there in the ‘water below the firmament,’ and they're loose, and have been, and will be until the Second Coming of Christ when they're all bound up and cast into the pit.”

When the Gospel accounts refer to them as “unclean spirits,” it’s a reference back to Gen. 9 and the corruption, violence and rebellion they instigated in the earth and have been committed to ever since.

What we know about these disembodied spirits, who seek to reside in animals and humans, is they possess literal personalities, super-human strength, intelligence, emotions and an affinity for fire, water and high places.

From a passage in Luke 8, we see a demon has the intellectual capacity to recognize who Jesus Christ is and, as a result, becomes fearful, crying and falling down because he knows he’s going to be tormented.

“It’s fascinating that the evil spirit knows what’s going on and has the wisdom to know who Christ is,” says Jordan. “In the Matthew account, he says, ‘Have you come to torment us before the time?’ This shows he knows the dispensational time out there where there’s going to be a war between his side and God’s side—between Satan’s angels and his troops and the Lord and his angels and his troops.”

Acts 16:16 tells of a “certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination,” showing there’s a demonic ability to tell the future. In Acts 19:11, we see the evil spirits weren’t fooled by the exorcists, who were false prophets, showing a capacity for discernment.

“They are not just influences, they are real specific, personal beings,” stresses Jordan. “It’s not some mystical, ‘woo-woo-woo’ kind of thing. These are real creatures just like you’re real.”

In Luke 8, Jesus Christ heals a man so completely riddled with unclean, disembodied spirits, or demons, he's called "Legion."

“The unclean spirit doesn't really like this guy and you have to understand, demons don't like people,” says Jordan. “They want to torture people. Destroy people. Satan, his angels, and the demonic spirits, would destroy every human being if they could. They have a very special hatred for humans that is indescribably bitter.”

Even so, demons come along at the outset as “familiar spirits,” meaning they put up a friendly facade, introducing themselves in a deceptive manner in order to hook humans.

In Lev. 19:31, God Himself warns, “Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.”

“These spirits don't come in like fire-breathing enemies; they get to be friendly with you first,” explains Jordan. “They come in like, ‘Hey, have I got a deal for you!’ They want you to come and participate with them in what they’re doing so they court you, deceiving you. That's why they're called ‘lying spirits.’ They corrupted the nation Israel away from the truth into a lie program using supernatural means of demonstration. You don't do that unless you come in and trick people.”

God further warns in Lev. 20:6, “And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.”

A wizard is always a man, and a witch is a woman, and they are the willing participants and mediums for evil spirits.

The reference to them going “a whoring,” is not meant in the physical sense of adultery and fornication; it's spiritual. But it will result in the other.

“Jeremiah talks about committing adultery with the other gods—spiritual adultery,” explains Jordan. “Israel was married to the Lord; they were to be faithful to Him and when they went after other gods, it was considered that they broke the marriage covenant they had with God. They were adulteress. That's what the book of Hosea is about.”

From the very beginning of Israel’s history, the nation was under Satanic attack and his approach was to seek to corrupt them spiritually so they couldn’t be used by God to accomplish His purpose with them in the earth.

The same attack is being conducted against the Body of Christ today and that’s exactly what Paul warns about in I Tim. 4:1 when he writes, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.”

“The way he corrupts is with doctrinal corruption, so that Believers, rather than standing and living in the identity they have in Christ, live like Israel did, or like the Gentiles who lived in the ‘vanity of their minds,’ ” says Jordan. “That’s what Paul means in II Tim. 2:24 when he says they ‘oppose themselves.’ They've been caught in snare of the devil; drawn away from the truth and what's right with the promise of some physical, delightful, experiential thing.”