I am often asked why a Christian reader should purchase a novel about demons. After all, isn’t reading about demons exposing oneself to the influence of Satan?

Let me clue you into a disturbing fact: if one is a Christian, one is already under the influence of Satan! 

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” Ephesians 6: 12,13 (And verse 13 is why I call my publishing entity 613media).

If you are a Christian and you are totally unaware of the influence of Satan in your life there is a good chance he has you right where he wants you! J. Warner Wallace of coldchristianity.com calls most people in our culture, apatheists. They just don’t care about God or demons or religion.

But for those who have dedicated their lives to following Jesus Christ, we are in a battle between the forces of good and evil. True, God and his angels are on the winning side but Satan and his fallen angels (demons) are making headway in today’s culture. Ignoring spiritual warfare is to relinquish the battle to the enemy! For example, 26% of Americans identify as “nones”, someone who has no identification with religious issues. This means that over one quarter of Americans do not believe there is a God!

My “demon” books do not glorify Satan or his minions. Rather, these books expose the nature of demonic influence in our lives. Each book is built around an important tenet of Christianity and discusses methods and means to protect oneself from the influence of the enemy.

Here is a graphic that illustrates the widespread influence of the forces of evil in our world.

In my fictional accounts of spiritual warfare, my broken, angry hero, Jonathan Steel, faces off against humans hosting powerful demons from a “Council of Darkness” dedicated to opposing the plans of the followers of Christ. Each book features an important spiritual concept and, usually, a cultural “deception” to divert attention from the work of the Lord,

My books do not contain profanity or gratuitous violence. They can be read by teenagers and people of all ages. One of the main character is a teenager. Let me tell you two stories about the genesis of these books.

Way back in 2010, I visited Abilene, Texas with my good friend and apologist, Michael Licona. He asked me to interview a man who had experienced a near death experience and to comment on the medical side of his experience. The specifics of that story, I’ll save for another day but the evening of the first day, a group of us were eating at a local Tex-Mex restaurant. Jessie, the man who had experienced significant trauma, had survived, and had a religious epiphany said he often saw “Dad”, as he called Jesus, walking around the room and speaking to him. You can imagine this doctor had a bit of skepticism about his visitations!

Jesse sat across from me at the table and suddenly stopped talking and looked over my shoulder. I glanced behind me. No one there. He looked back at me and said, “Dr. Hennigan, what does the number thirteen have to do with you?”

Salad fell from my open mouth. “What did you say?”

“Dad said to ask you about the number thirteen.” He said innocently.

I had never met Jessie before that day. He had no way of knowing I was coming or who I was. Let’s just say, he was not tech savvy. I was in the final stages of publishing my first book with a traditional publisher and no one knew this, not even Mike Licona,

“Well, I am about to publish a book entitled ‘The 13th Demon’. I turn in the manuscript in a couple of weeks.”

He smiled and looked back over my shoulder and nodded then his gaze met mine. “Dad said no matter what happens do not let Satan stop you. And that is why you have two guardian angels.”

Affirmation from God I was on the right track from the most unexpected source! The second story is creepier. Sitting in my office in one of our satellite hospitals, I had accessed the internet on what was then only a dial up connection. Hospitals are notoriously way behind time on tech! Deep in the weeds planning my next novel on vampires, I opened a search result link. The screen went completely black and from the center an image emerged. Bulbous eyes, fangs, forked tongue comprised a demonic face that grew and grew. Suddenly, the image overlapped the edges of my laptop screen! The things was coming OUT of my laptop! Impossible!

I slammed the lid shut and removed the battery (an option at that time with Powerbooks). Gasping for breath, I called my co-author and pastor, Mark Sutton. I told him what had happened. Was I going crazy? He didn’t hesitate in telling me, “God must really want you to write these books. Satan is pulling out all stops to stop you.” The follow up to this experience was my week in the “demon” house in Austin while finishing “The 12th Demon” about vampires. But I’ll save that for later. Let’s just say, that face that came out of the laptop? It became very physical!

I don’t mean to boast that my books are “God ordained”. But, I believe without a doubt I was inspired to write a series of books accessible to Christians and non-Christians exposing the underside of evil. Including my last book in “The Chronicles of Jonathan Steel”, “The 1st Demon: Imago Diaboli” there are twelve books. One for each apostle, one for each demon on the Council of Darkness. Note I am considering the prequel book, “Death by Darwin” as part of the series as it introduces Jonathan Steel.

I encourage you to consider reading my books. I assure you will learn quite a bit about spiritual matters, spiritual warfare, how Satan works, and most importantly how God is all powerful and has already won the battle.

Blessings.