Police Expose Looters Exploiting Death, Ransack Coral Gables Home

This piece argues that evil comes in three forms—ordinary human sin, deceptive doctrines that deny Christ, and genuine demonic oppression—and explains how to spot each without collapsing them into one vague category. It draws on recent crimes and trials to show why clear thinking matters, offers a practical order for discernment, and preserves the Bible’s tests for spirits as the starting point for any judgment. The aim is sober, not sensational: name what is human, expose what denies the Incarnation, and recognize that some darkness in the world may be personal and intelligent. Read with Scripture in hand and a refusal to flatten every tragedy into a single explanation.

The Coral Gables burglary after a tragic helicopter crash is a plain example of flesh doing what flesh does; thieves saw an empty house and took advantage. The crime needed no manifesto, no possession, just opportunity and greed, which is often enough. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9” is a reminder that many wicked acts are domestic to the human soul.

James’s warning is blunt about temptation coming from within and ending in ruin, and it fits most offenses we call evil. “But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. Then sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. James 1:14-15” Greed, envy, sloth, and fear explain countless headlines without invoking the supernatural.

That clarity matters because mistaking ordinary sin for spiritual warfare robs sinners of law and gospel and paints repentance as irrelevant. A man who steals from a dead couple is a thief before anything else and needs justice and mercy, not a metaphysical label that lets the culture off the hook. Name ordinary sin and insist on repentance.

There is a different category for teachings that oppose Christ at the core, and John gave a test for those spirits that is doctrinal, not merely emotional. The apostle warned believers to test claims and to measure every spirit by whether it confesses Jesus come in the flesh. The passage below must be preserved as his measuring rod.

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. 1 John 4:1-3

This is not a mood check. It is a doctrinal test. If a movement or teaching dissolves the Incarnation, it is functioning in the spirit John warned about, whether it wears robes or marketing copy. Courtesy and cultural popularity are not proof of truth; they are often proof of kinship between a teaching and its audience.

Some creeds and systems deny the essential confession that saves, so they belong in the second category rather than a neutral field of religion. That does not license hatred or cruelty, but it does require clarity about what Christian confession actually is. A loving neighbor can still be told the truth without mistaking kindness for agreement.

The third category is smaller but real: occasions when Scripture and experience point to personal oppression or possession that ordinary medicine does not fully explain. The New Testament records miracles of deliverance and moments when evil intelligence acted in particular people, so the category cannot simply be dismissed as medieval superstition. At the same time, not every illness or mental suffering is demonic, and medicine and pastoral care both have their place.

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:12” That passage does not exclude human agency; it insists that spiritual battle is real and worth naming alongside justice and therapy.

The Duxbury case shows how messy the overlap can be when crime, mental collapse, and cultural reaction collide. Nobody beyond the scene can certify what unseen force moved in that basement; courtroom facts, medical testimony, and witness reports will sort the legal questions. Still, the public ritual of defending the woman while the children became footnotes signaled a cultural pattern worth recognizing and resisting.

So try a working order of discernment this week: presume the flesh until facts force you further, apply John’s confession-test to teachings and movements, reserve room for genuine spiritual oppression without turning every tragedy into an exorcism, watch how communities react around an evil act, and stay rooted in Scripture and the church that confesses the Son. Keep distinctions sharp so the church can both call sinners to repent and guard against a spirit that unmakes the very flesh Christ assumed.