Is it possible for a demon to do good works?

[Guest Nicole]

For instance:

A demon looking for redemption for feeling bad for supporting Satan in the past. Might he use his powers now to help someone as angels do to help God servants?

[Melinda Mills]

Demons having remorse? You are greatly mistaken.  They are willful in what they do, just like Satan.  They are stored up for destruction for many centuries.  Read the books of Genesis, Jude, and Revelation.  However they may sometimes appear to be doing good things.  They have many strategies to fool people:

(2 Thessalonians 2:9-12) 9 But the lawless one’s presence is according to the operation of Satan with every powerful work and lying signs and portents 10 and with every unrighteous deception for those who are perishing, as a retribution because they did not accept the love of the truth that they might be saved. 11 So that is why God lets an operation of error go to them, that they may get to believing the lie, 12 in order that they all may be judged because they did not believe the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness.

(2 Peter 2:4) 4 Certainly God did not refrain from punishing the angels who sinned, but threw them into Tarʹta·rus, putting them in chains of dense darkness to be reserved for judgment. 
 

We are presently doing the Bible Reading in the Gospels. What did Jesus do when the demons sought to help by identifying Jesus as the Son of God (they know him of course - they used to be in heaven together at one time).  He always rebuked them and did not accept help from them.   The apostles did the same.

(Mark 5:2-13) . . .And immediately after Jesus got out of the boat, a man under the power of an unclean spirit met him from among the tombs. 3 His haunt was among the tombs, and up to that time, absolutely no one was able to bind him securely, even with a chain. 4 He had often been bound with fetters and chains, but he snapped the chains apart and smashed the fetters; and nobody had the strength to subdue him. 5 And continually, night and day, he was crying out in the tombs and in the mountains and slashing himself with stones. 6 But on catching sight of Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down to him. 7 Then he cried out with a loud voice: “What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I put you under oath by God not to torment me.” 8 For Jesus had been saying to it: “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.” 9 But Jesus asked him: “What is your name?” And he replied: “My name is Legion, because there are many of us.” 10 And he kept pleading with Jesus not to send the spirits out of the country. 11 Now a great herd of swine was feeding there at the mountain. 12 So the spirits pleaded with him: “Send us into the swine, so that we may enter into them.” 13 And he gave them permission. With that the unclean spirits came out and went into the swine, and the herd rushed over the precipice into the sea, about 2,000 of them, and were drowned in the sea. 

(Acts 16:16-18) 16 And it happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a certain servant girl with a spirit, a demon of divination, met us. She used to furnish her masters with much gain by practicing the art of prediction. 17 This [girl] kept following Paul and us and crying out with the words: “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who are publishing to YOU the way of salvation.” 18 This she kept doing for many days. Finally Paul got tired of it and turned and said to the spirit: “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.

(Deuteronomy 18:10-12) There should not be found in you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, anyone who employs divination, anyone practicing magic, anyone who looks for omens, a sorcerer, 11 anyone binding others with a spell, anyone who consults a spirit medium or a fortune-teller, or anyone who inquires of the dead. 12 For whoever does these things is detestable to Jehovah, and on account of these detestable practices Jehovah your God is driving them away from before you.
 

A word to the wise.

 

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

It seems very simple.

Perfect creations rebellion is never forgiven by God.

This is not Darth Vader's Star Wars scenario where you can destroy whole worlds, then have a "facepalm" moment when you die, and come back smiling and made whole.

There is only ONE valid excuse for anyone's rebellion against one's legal Sovereign ...

IF YOU WIN.

And they won't.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

On 5/22/2018 at 1:12 PM, Melinda Mills said:

11 Now a great herd of swine was feeding there at the mountain. 12 So the spirits pleaded with him: “Send us into the swine, so that we may enter into them.” 13 And he gave them permission. With that the unclean spirits came out and went into the swine, and the herd rushed over the precipice into the sea, about 2,000 of them, and were drowned in the sea. 

As an aside ... this always confused me .... what are 2,000 pigs doing in Israel, eating up all the forage?

2,000 pigs is a LOT of pigs!

[Melinda Mills]

It could be that swine were kept by  or sold to Gentiles living among the Israelites.

See research below for some good points relating to pigs/swine.

 

*** it-2 p. 1049 Swine ***
The Israelites generally seem to have viewed swine as especially loathsome. Hence the ultimate degree in disgusting worship is conveyed by the words: “The one offering up a gift—the blood of a pig!” (Isa 66:3) To the Israelites, few things could have been more inappropriate than a pig with a gold nose ring in its snout. And it is to this that Proverbs 11:22 compares an outwardly beautiful woman who is not sensible.
Although apostate Israelites ate pork (Isa 65:4; 66:17), the Apocryphal books of First Maccabees (1:65, Dy) and Second Maccabees (6:18, 19; 7:1, 2, Dy) show that during the foreign domination of Palestine by the Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes and his vicious campaign to stamp out the worship of Jehovah, there were many Jews who refused to eat the flesh of swine, preferring to die for violating the decree of the king rather than to violate the law of God.
Whereas some other nations did not eat pork, to the Greeks it was a delicacy. Hence, likely as a result of Hellenistic influence, by the time of Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry, there were apparently quite a number of pigs in Palestine, particularly in the Decapolis region. In the country of the Gadarenes there was at least one herd of about 2,000 pigs. When Jesus permitted the demons that he had expelled to enter this large herd, every last one of the animals rushed over a precipice and drowned in the sea.—Mt 8:28-32; Mr 5:11-13.
The Cast-Out Demons Who Entered Swine. No fault can be found with Jesus for allowing the demons to enter the swine, especially since certain unstated factors may very well have been involved, such as whether the owners of the swine were Jews, thus being guilty of disrespect for the Law. It was, of course, not required that Jesus exercise foreknowledge as to what the demons would do once they entered the unclean animals. And the demons may have wanted to take possession of the swine in order to derive therefrom some unnatural sadistic pleasure. Also, it might reasonably be argued that a man is worth more than a herd of swine. (Mt 12:12) Furthermore, all animals actually belong to Jehovah by reason of his Creatorship, and thus Jesus as God’s representative had every right to permit the demons to take possession of the herd of swine. (Ps 50:10; Joh 7:29) The demons’ entering the swine manifested their ouster from the men in a very forceful way, thus also making very apparent to observers the harm that came to creatures of flesh that became demon possessed. It demonstrated for such human observers both Jesus’ power over the demons and demonic power over fleshly creatures. All of this may have suited Jesus’ purpose and may explain why he allowed the unclean spirits to enter the swine.
Illustrative Use. The inability of swine to recognize the value of pearls was employed by Jesus in illustrating the unwisdom of sharing spiritual things with those having no appreciation whatever of spiritual thoughts and teachings. (Mt 7:6) And in Jesus’ illustration of the prodigal son, the degradation to which a young man had sunk was accentuated by his having to hire himself out as a swineherd, a most despicable occupation for a Jew, and by his willingness even to eat the food of these animals.—Lu 15:15, 16.
The apostle Peter compared Christians who revert to their former course of life to a sow that returns to its wallow after having been washed. (2Pe 2:22) However, it is evident that, as relates to the pig, this illustration is not intended to apply beyond the surface appearance of things. Actually, the pig, under natural conditions, is no dirtier than other animals, although it indulges in wallowing in the mud from time to time in order to cool off in the heat of the summer and to remove external parasites from its hide.