If I may suggest, I would avoid vague terms such as "Christian," "saved" and analogies as well, like "royal families..."
Ron, I don't disagree with your advice, you gave to Eleanor, but I have to disagree that words like Christian and saved are vague terms! They are only vague because they have been used wrongly by so many people. Their true meaning is plain enough.
I think the biggest trouble with this presumptive teaching is that we do honestly fear for our unsaved children and cannot bear to face the fact that if they are not saved, they are lost, and are in the Kingdom of darkness, and children of the devil! Until I realized that about myself, I could not cry out to God for salvation. I read a book before becoming a Christian called Being Human by Jerram Barrs and Ranald Macaulay (from L'Abri) that made me realize where I was spiritually.
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Rescued From Darkness Paul also views the work of Christ in its effect on the principalities and powers of darkness. "He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (Col 1:13-14). We think of Satanists and occult practicers and those involved in explicitly demonic activities as belonging to Satan's Kingdom, but we tend to see the rest of mankind, including ourselves before we were Christians, in a neutral position--hovering between two kingdoms. However, the New Testament teaches that there are only two possibilities: either we have fellowship with God and through faith in Christ are in his kingdom or we belong to Satan. There is no neutral ground. Jesus called Satan the prince of this world, the world to which we belong. So every individual who is not a believer is a member of his kingdom. Satan is even called the god of this world by Paul. Humanity lives in enemy occupied territory, and we are all subjects of its king.
Satan can claim all human beings as his subjects because of our sinfulness and because, being made in God's image, we have a moral nature. We all do wrong, and we know it is wrong...
Those words stirred me up to cry out to God for mercy and to bring me into His Kingdom! The danger is real and until we are saved, we are lost and without hope!
