The Reality of the Spiritual World

When you think of angels and demons, what do you see in your imagination?

Chubby little baby-faced, innocent looking cherubs with halos over their heads, floating on clouds and playing harps? Opposed to them, do you see gruesome looking monstrosities with red, burning eyes, smelling like the stench of death, speaking with a scratchy, other-worldly sounding voice? A bogeyman?

Such pictures are make believe.

The Bible is the only sourcebook for our conceptions of these beings, and it does not picture them in this way at all!

Yet, we cannot treat them as make believe. They are real. Very real! Both groups have far greater power than we do.

Don't accept the pictures seen in The Exorcist or in some B-grade horror movie. But don't deny the reality of these beings and their existence either.

The 21st century is an age of enlightenment--right? Everything has to have a logical, physical, scientific explanation or we don't believe it. Naturalism threatens to eliminate the supernatural force from our everyday thinking and life.

But the truth is that their realm is more real than ours. Think about it. Our world is destined to be annihilated one day (2 Peter 3:10-13). Whereas, their spiritual realm existed before ours, and will continue to exist after this one is destroyed (Job 38:4-7, Luke 20:36). It is the realm of forever.

The Supernatural Realm Is More Real Than Ours

Okay, right there you may already be thinking that I have lost my mind. But think about it. The supernatural realm is a realm of spirit beings. I call it a "realm" because to speak of the spirit "world," it appears we are suggesting that these things are far removed from us--a universe away. But they are far closer to us than that.

The spiritual realm is real, and is a present battleground for our own souls. God wants us to share in His glory and love--Satan wants us to share in his misery and destruction.

Satan reigns over a kingdom of darkness that is organized in opposition to God (Matthew 12:25-26). That opposition crystallizes in its connection to man and God's plan for him. So that is where Satan wages his war against God (cf. Genesis 3:1-15).

From the beginning, man would be the spoils of the battle--the prize to fought for.

The "Heavenly Places". When you look at this life, all we are is "dust in the wind." That is all you can say about the earthly realm--we are here today and gone tomorrow.

But the spiritual realm--the heavenlies, or heavenly places--is quite different. The Book of Ephesians describes this realm more than any other book.

• It is a realm wherein we can find, enjoy, and experience all of the spiritual blessings in Christ right now (Ephesians 1:3).
• It is a realm wherein Christ is sitting and reigning right now (Ephesians 1:20).
• It is a realm wherein we can sit and reign with Christ right now, while still living in this world (Ephesians 2:6).
• It is a realm wherein other principalities (governments and rules assigned to certain princes) and powers govern. These have also learned more completely about God's will for man--something they only had glimpses of in previous times (Ephesians 3:10, cf. 1 Peter 1:12).
• It is a realm that is not heaven itself, but is the spiritual domain in which powers of darkness are waging war against us. It is the battleground where we are fighting for our own spirits while we are trying to live on a higher spiritual plane with Christ (Ephesians 6:12).

Does that make any sense? The "heavenlies" (which are only mentioned in Ephesians) refer to a spiritual realm or domain. It is related to heaven. But it is not heaven. It is a realm in which we live presently (Ephesians 1:3, 2:6), and a realm in which Satan's cohorts work too (Ephesians 6:12).

When we enter a spiritual relationship with Christ, we join Him in this sphere of activity and existence, along with all the other spirits of men, angels, and demons (Ephesians 6:12, Hebrews 12:22-24).

Who are the supernatural spirits in this realm? Who makes us this menagerie of spirits in this domain?

Satan. Satan is the most notable. He is to be feared because he "walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8). But if we resist him he will flee from us (James 4:7).

Jesus described him as the "ruler of this world" (John 12:31, 14:30). He has a tremendous amount of authority in this world, and his kingdom consists of everything that is opposed to Christ's kingdom. Satan is the ruler over men and kingdoms of this earthly realm, because they have chosen to follow him over Christ. He has authority that he usurped from God!

Angels. These are beings who were created to carry out God's will--agents of God's work (Hebrews 1:7,14). God has given them authority, principality (a domain of jurisdiction), and power (Psalm 103:20-22).

Among them are good angels. Those who are faithful to God, who have chosen to serve Him and remain humble even in their glorious state (2 Peter 2:10-11).

They are holy angels (Revelation 14:10). They praise God continually (Revelation 5:11-12) and minister to God's saints for Him, giving them protection and dispensing God's blessings to them (Psalm 34:7, Hebrews 1:14). They transport the souls of men to the spirit realm, which is cut off from the physical realm (Luke 16:22), and rejoice when one sinner returns to God (Luke 15:7).

Also among them are wicked angels. The demons and fallen angels of the Bible are not wicked beings who were created wicked by God. Neither are they God's equals on the dark side--evil alter egos. They are spirits (Matthew 8:16, Luke 10:17, 20).

Demons are angels who, by the abuse of their free will, have become enemies to God and consequently enemies to us. They do not differ in nature from good angels, rather their nature is depraved by their own choice (2 Peter 2:4, Jude 6). They are destined for eternal destruction, but as yet are not fully experiencing it (Matthew 25:41, 8:29). Some are confined (imprisoned) and others are loose and out to destroy our souls (Jude 6).

The fact that the supernatural realm embraces not only the morally good but also the morally evil, aggravates modern man's disbelief. But this is a real spiritual world of good and evil, and it needs to scare us! Not because some demon is going to jump out of the bushes or our closets and bite our heads off, but because they are fighting for the most important thing we possess--our eternal soul!

The Influence Of Spirits In This World

Do these spirits work in this realm? They are actually inhabitants of a greater, supernatural realm which operates above ours. They are not confined by natural law therefore they are not subject to human visibility or other physical sensory perception. Yet, that doesn't make them any less real than the personal spirit which inhabits the body of every one of us.

So how do they influence this realm?

Spirits Are Instrumental In The Rise And Fall Of Nations. God is the one who sets up kings and brings down nations. He is in control (Daniel 4:25, Romans 13:1-7, Acts 17:26). Evidently good spirits wage war with evil spirits who oppose them to accomplish God's purposes (Daniel 10:4-14, 20-21, 11:1, 12:1).

In another example, when the nation of Syria came against Israel, God's spirit army overcame Syria's physical army (2 Kings 6:13-18). God uses them to carry out His will in the nations.

The battle is fought on a spiritual plane between God's angelic army and Satan's demonic army. Satan is "the ruler of this world" (John 12:31, 1 John 5:19), and he fights for the control of this world-because that is all he has. And he won't even keep that forever. While these wicked forces are not pushovers--even for God's army--they are destined to lose!

Spirits Are Out To Destroy Men. Invisible, extremely intelligent, strong and depraved personalities can do much harm to man, leading him to do evil (Ephesians 2:2-3; Colossians 1:13). They can influence his mind through temptations and his own lusts (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).

They seek to destroy God's people with a fierce determination (Ephesians 6:10-18). They wage war against us in the spiritual realm, and want to slice up our souls, and leave us lifeless on the ground.

It appears that Satan even has some power to endanger our physical safety by exercising a certain control over natural forces (Job 1:12,16,19, 2:7, Luke 13:11,16). Is that really surprising since he is "the ruler of this world" as Jesus indicated (John 12:31)?

Sometimes we say "The age of miracles is past. So Satan is not working like that any more." I agree that the age of miracles is past (1 Corinthians 13:8-13). But what makes us think these are miracles? Besides, Satan has never been able to perform an actual bona fide miracle. If he could, then the miracles that Jesus did would not be proof that He was God's Son (cf. Acts 2:22). We are not talking about Satan doing miraculous things--rather doing supernatural things.

Satan and his demons subject us to temptations in trying to destroy us (Genesis 3:1-7, Matthew 4:3, Luke 22:31, John 13:27, Acts 5:3, 1 Thessalonians 3:5). What is going on in your spiritual life is not just a haphazard bunch of events. There is war going on for your soul!

Yet all is not lost! The power of these spiritual forces is greater than our own--but we have heavenly allies too. God gives us spiritual armor to battle these forces (Ephesians 6:10-18). God sends His angels to protect and defend us (Matthew 18:10, Psalm 34:7; 91:1-13). God sends His blessings to us through the hands of apostolic messengers and agents (Hebrews 1:14).

Spirits And False Religion. One of the most dangerous, yet subtle roles of demons is the perversion of revealed truth. They never cease nor tire in their efforts to turn men away from the gospel of Christ, and deny and distort God's word. Satan and his evil cohorts have opposed God's word from the very beginning (Genesis 3:4-5, John 8:44). How has he been able to accomplish that?

He blinds men to the truth (2 Corinthians 4:4). Spirits have waged a persistent and endless counterattack to keep men ignorant of God's word.

He spreads false doctrine (1 Timothy 4:1-3). Deceiving spirits and seducing demons are the invisible spiritual agents behind the visible human agents and false teachers. The existence of such spirits is the reason we must always "test the spirits whether they be of God" (1 John 4:1-3).

He deceives us (2 Thessalonians 2:8-12). Ignorance of Biblical truth breeds gullibility. A person many naively think that since God has the power to heal and perform miracles, that everything that tries to pass itself off as a miracle comes from God.

He sends us ministers of deception (2 Corinthians 11:13-15). That is why we must evaluate the spirits in light of Bible truth (1 John 4:1-2,6). We need to realize that if Satan has the power to induce sickness upon someone (Luke 13:11,16, Job 2:7), then it would not be strange for him to release a person from that sickness, then try to cloak it as a miracle!

Conclusion

In this world there are two realms--the physical (temporary) and the spiritual (eternal). You won't see manifestations of demons or angels today that you can recognize, but you can be sure that they are actively engaged in an attempt to win your soul.

We need to be frightened of such things. But we need to be confident too, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: 'For your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.' Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:35-39).

Satan is a "roaring lion" but the one who is in us "is greater than the one who is in the world" (1 John 4:4).

- Rob Harbison