A person should soberly and thoughtfully consider the evidence that points to demon influence in the Pentecostal experience. Remember what the inspired apostle Paul wrote to Christians warning them against the “operation of Satan with every powerful work and lying signs and portents” to deceive those who do “not accept the love of the truth.”—2 Thess. 2:9, 10.

Missing the Mark

MANY people in modern society regard belief in sin as out of date and the consciousness of it as being bad for one’s mental health. This view tends to remove moral restraint, with the result that public morality deteriorates. Commenting on how Freudian psychology has contributed to this demoralizing view, Psychologist O. Hobart Mowrer, a past president of the American Psychological Association, stated:

“For half a century now we psychologists have very largely followed the Freudian doctrine that . . . the patient has been in effect too good; that he has within him impulses, especially those of lust and hostility, which he has been unnecessarily inhibiting. And health, we tell him, lies in expressing these impulses.” By trying to destroy consciousness of sin, psychologists have, according to Dr. Mowrer, also abolished moral restraint, with the result that personality disorders have become more widespread and baffling.

Notwithstanding the denials of worldlywise people, sin is a reality that cannot be lightly dismissed. Much more is involved than the breaking of moral laws. It damages a person’s relationship with his Creator, because sin has to do with the violating of divine laws. The Greek word for it is hamartía, which carries the thought of missing, as missing one’s road, to fail of doing something, to miss one’s point or to go wrong. The Hebrew word for sin has a similar thought. Jehovah God has set up a standard of righteousness for his creatures as a mark of perfection. Missing or failing to meet this mark is called sin. It can be of two types—inherited sin and sin that we personally commit.

Inherited sin is responsible for the imperfect way that our bodies function and for the death that automatically comes to everyone. Speaking about it, God’s Word says: “Through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned.” (Rom. 5:12) That one man, Adam, was the common ancestor of all humans. By his willfully missing the mark of perfect obedience to God he sinned and brought himself into an imperfect condition. His children, being brought forth in