For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen... (Romans 1:20)
There are two parts to our mortal existence. The first part is what we experience with the physical senses. It consists of what we see, hear, and touch in our physical body. This is the world we know from birth. The second part of our mortal existence is unseen, yet it can be seen. It is unheard, yet it can be heard. It is untouched, yet it can be felt. This is the spirit realm.
Though men by default do not perceive or acknowledge it, the spirit realm is real. Before this world existed physically, it existed spiritually. It was from that realm that God spoke and brought the physical world into existence. Because the physical was created by the spiritual, the spiritual realm is greater than the physical world we live in.
Everything we experience pertaining to this world is experienced in our physical bodies. Yet, our physical bodies are not our entire selves. Erroneously thinking they are leads many people to lives absent the glories of heaven and full of suffering. This world is no different. Just as each of us has a physical body and a spirit, this world is comprised of spiritual and physical portions. The world works the same way as we do: what happens in the physical realm cannot be separated from what happens in the spiritual realm. They are intertwined, and understanding how each effects the other is crucial to living the way God intended.
Imagine driving a car with black paint covering all the windows. You would be able to start, propel, and steer the car, but you’d have no idea where you are going or whether you have arrived. You would have to drive very slowly, and you would have no idea what was happening or why when you unavoidably collide with other objects. Trying to live in and understand the world with physical perception only is like trying to drive a car with opaque windows.
What happens in the physical world is mostly just the visible effect of what is happening in the spiritual realm. Awareness of the spiritual realm will grant you an understanding of just how much of what happens in the physical world is a product of what happens in the spiritual realm. A perception of the spiritual realm will enable you to act in the full breadth that God intended and empower you to have a much bigger impact on your life and the lives of others.
The vast majority of men bumble through life blissfully unaware of the greater half of mortal existence. Like children, they exist in a world they do not understand. Much of our frustrations and our failure to achieve our godly potential lies in our ignorance of the existence of the spirit realm and how to interact with it. As children of God, every person on this earth was created to act, not to be acted upon. And yet, if you do not understand or perceive the spiritual realm, you are quite limited in how you can act and react to the events around you.
We operate ineffectively in the spirit realm because we try to interact with it from earth. That relationship is backwards because everything on earth, being a lower degree of glory, is governed by what happens in the spirit realm, consisting of the higher degrees of glory. When we effect the natural realm through working in the spirit realm, we can infuse God’s goodness and glory into earth life, which is naturally of a lower, fallen estate, and walk in mighty works of God and in constant companionship with him and his light. To operate only in the natural realm is to be a serf in God’s kingdom—living out the doldrums of life without an awareness of greater things or how the world really works. The more we learn about how to operate in the spirit realm, the more we learn to have a real, powerful effect on bringing God’s will to pass on earth as it is in heaven. We grow from a blind, dumb, deaf baby incapable of acting for itself into a fully functioning agent on the Lord’s errand.
As Christians, we strive to be God’s soldiers on earth. Yet, if we do not understand or perceive the spiritual realm, we are quite limited in what we can do. Like a sailor in a war fought mostly on land, if we want to fight, we need to expand our capabilities to operate in the spirit realm.
The real world is not the real world. The spirit realm is the real world. This world is just a lower realm fully controlled by what happens in the spirit realm. Living here without knowing about or being able to work in the spirit realm is like being an animal in a cage, fully subjected to the evil rulers of this world. If you do not know who controls you, and how they control you, how can you gain power over them?
God wants you to understand the spirit realm. Paul contrasted the physical life with the spiritual. Referring to the Israelites in the wilderness he said, “For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest.” (Hebrews 12:18) At that time, the Israelites lived a law of carnal commandments housed in the physical realm. Paul contrasted this with a charge to come up to something higher: “But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels.” (Hebrews 12:22) We are meant to ascend to a spiritual existence. We are meant to ascend from canned commandments to a living, interactive existence with God. We are meant to see as we are seen. The only way for that to happen is for you to see the spirit realm. God wants you to be able to see the spirit realm. He wants you to see eye to eye (Isaiah 52:8), or see the same things, as those who have seen heaven, who see him, and who see angels.
The Lord can open your spiritual eyes. The Lord opens the eyes of the physically blind when they asked him to do so. Won’t he do the same for those who are spiritually blind? The Lord once partially healed a blind man, who first received blurry vision. He can do this momentarily, granting a vision or visitation to you, to entice you to seek more. Don’t stop there! Rattle the cage of heaven until he fully and permanently opens your spiritual eyes!
As your spiritual eyes open, you will start to become aware of what is happening in the spiritual realm. What you comprehend in the spiritual realm will inform your behaviors and attitudes in the physical realm. Seeing the spiritual realm is not about entertainment or curiosity. Rather, these experiences are to communicate knowledge and provide opportunities for supernatural action. Working in the spiritual realm makes it possible for you, as an individual and a nobody, to effect outcomes that are hard to overstate.
So much of what we war against in this world is actually spiritual in nature. Because we don’t initially see the actuating forces, we lose sight of that fact.
How many of our worldly conflicts are actually spiritual in their root? Demons can cause physical outcomes: they tempt men to sin, inspire caustic human relationships, create physical sickness, and much more. Similarly, angels can inspire men toward God, mend hearts, enlighten minds, heal ailments, and much more. For too long, demons have had free reign to operate on us, our children, and our neighbors while we fruitlessly cut the heads off the hydra of symptoms in the physical realm, of what are truly spiritual diseases. It is time for Christians to understand and use the power and authority the Lord has given them.
We are using the wrong weapons in many of the battles we wage. Paul understood the supremacy of the spirit realm. He said:
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)
He was not saying that we do not have problems in the physical world of flesh and blood. He was saying that all problems in the physical world have roots in the spiritual realm.
Comprehending the spiritual realm causes us to react differently to our physical circumstances. When Paul feared for the state of the ship he was on, he was soothed not by the physical world, but the spiritual realm. An angel visited him and told him that all passengers would survive. When Daniel faced being eaten alive by lions, he did not engage the lions physically. Instead, he knelt down and prayed. Can you imagine yourself in this situation? Would your first instinct be to look for a makeshift weapon, to cower in fear, or to pray? Daniel was protected through spiritual intervention. He understood that his problem, like all problems, was not physical in its root, but spiritual. He reacted accordingly.
So often, we rage against our circumstances in the physical world without realizing that if we glimpsed the full picture the spiritual realm provides, we would gracefully accept what is actually completely for our good. If we are keeping all of God’s commandments, we can trust that God is doing something good for us, even if we do not perceive the goodness. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) By recognizing that there is good in everything that happens to us, even if we don’t perceive it, we invite God to open our eyes to the truth. “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:5) Even when all we see is darkness, the light is still shining. We just don’t comprehend it. It is impossible for the darkness to overcome the light (see John 1:5, AMP). It is impossible for anything in this world to overcome the good God has set up as the eventual outcome of what may seem like an endless chain of trials.
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:39)
With an awareness of the light comes a perception of the darkness. Those whose perception is limited to the physical realm recognize only the outwardly obvious places where Satan reigns: nightclubs, gambling halls, strip clubs, bars, and inner city street corners. As your spiritual eyes open, you will marvel at what places are strongholds of the enemy despite no indication in the natural. As just one example, consider college university campuses. While most realize that college students’ lives are infiltrated by porn, sex, drugs, and evil ideologies, few comprehend that most university professors are as demon possessed as their pupils, and are as depraved in morals as much as they are in common sense, as their lives are devoid of light.
Our spirits can intensify to the point that wherever we go we effect our environment without even noticing it. Peter was so infused with the Lord’s spirit that his presence resulted in healing the sick without even touching them:
15 Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.
16 There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one. (Acts 5:15-16)
Paul was so infused with the Lord’s spirit that his personal articles had power over demons.
11 And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:
12 So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them. (Acts 19)
As your spiritual eyes open, you will perceive as demons flee from the light that emanates from you as one of God’s servants. Your home will become a refuge from the demon saturated world. When you arrive at your place of work, you will drive away and keep at bay the forces of Satan. When you travel, your presence will chase away the demons that have made a stronghold out of the places you visit. The Lord will use you in sophisticated plans to provide opportunities for his children to be emancipated from darkness and to embrace light. Sometimes, you’ll be shown the amazing and astonishing details of these plans. Other times, you will be aware that you are being used, but unaware of the consequences in the lives of others. At still other times, you will be oblivious to what is happening in spite of the magnitude of the effects of God’s light in you.
Demons stand up and take notice of God’s servants. The opposition you will encounter will come in equal proportion to the light you receive. This is addressed in a later chapter.
Israel’s military victories demonstrate the power of working in the spirit realm. If you were given the task of conquering a city with hardened, impenetrable defenses, how would you do it? The allied forces in WWII broke through the German resistance at Normandy with staggering losses. They pitted flesh against bullets and bunkers, and paid a terrible price. In contrast, the Israelites conquered Jericho, a supposedly unconquerable city, without the recorded loss of a single life. They did it not with military might, but by working in the spirit realm. The Israelites conquered Jericho in 7 days. For the first 6 days, they did not engage in any war. Instead, they focused on God, carrying the ark of the covenant around the city once per day. On the seventh day, God miraculously knocked down the thick walls of the city, and they ravaged the previously impenetrable city in a day. How long would it have taken with conventional means? Would it even have been possible?
What are the Jerichos in your life? How have you been attacking them? It does not matter how temporal the matter at hand may seem, fighting it in the spiritual realm will reveal root causes you had not considered and will yield results that were otherwise impossible.
There is an apocryphal quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln where he states that if he had four hours to cut down a tree, he’d spend three of those hours sharpening his axe. Anyone who has tried it can tell you that chopping down a tree with a dull axe is a disaster. The axe handle might go before the tree does! When we are ignorant of the spiritual realm, we spend far more effort on the physical realm than is necessary, and achieve far fewer goals than we could if we had simply put sufficient effort into tackling the matter in the spirit realm first.
The key tool for interacting with the spirit realm is prayer. God can open our spiritual eyes in visions, our ears to hearing voices, and our minds through quickened flashes of knowledge, but we cannot initiate any of those experiences directly. Real experiences from God cannot be conjured by desire or imagination. They must come from God. Sometimes they come unexpectedly. Many times, they come in response to prayer. Prayer is how we initiate communication with God. Prayer opens the eyes of our spiritual understanding. If we want to see the unseen, we ask in prayer. If we want to know what we do not know, we ask in prayer. If we need to summon the assistance of angels, we ask in prayer. Our frequent practice of prayer opens, expands, and persists our connection with God, making his communications with us more frequent, whether his responses come during our prayers or between them.
God administers the universe through the angels that stand by his throne and are distributed throughout his kingdom:
And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. (1 Kings 22:19)
Every level of God’s government has an angel in charge, and each governing angel has angels under his charge. This pattern continues both in heavenly realms and here on earth. For example, each region on earth has a chief angel. In fact, each person has an angel assigned to them. As you can imagine, that adds up to a lot of angels. They are innumerable:
And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; (Revelation 5:11)
These angels don’t simply sit idle. They conduct God’s work.
With angels being the agents of God’s work, and with so many of them, it should come as no surprise that they are intimately involved in the daily affairs of life on earth. The spiritual realm is the realm of angels. If you desire to do God’s work, you must learn to work in the spiritual realm. If you desire to work in the spiritual realm, you must learn to work with the angels.
Interactions with angels are key to our work in the spirit realm. Angels are critical agents in God’s plan, yet they operate outside of the awareness of most Christians. It ought not to be this way.
The interplay between your standing with God and an angel’s standing with God determines how you will interact with them. We are told that men are a little lower than the angels (Psalm 8:5), but we are also told that men will judge angels (1 Corinthians 6:3). Which is it? Actually, both are true. Angels, men, and demons each come in all degrees of power. Some have attained great power, and stand in the presence of God. Gabriel, for instance, said that he stands in the presence of God (Luke 1:19). As an angel, the devil obtained power to stand in the presence of God (Job 1:6). Some angels are high ranking, some are lower ranking, and many angels fall somewhere in between. In some cases, angels will appear to you and you will give them God’s instructions. In many cases, angels will appear to you to give you God’s instructions. Sometimes, you will work alongside angels in carrying out God’s instructions. In all cases, angels are agents of God’s will. They are not objects of worship, and they are not replacements for God himself.
A case study in interacting with angels is provided by Paul’s call to go to Macedonia. After preaching the gospel in several cities, he was searching for where to preach next. He suggested options and was rebutted by the Holy Ghost:
6 Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia,
7 After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not.
8 And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas. (Acts 16)
Then he reported the following night vision: “There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.” (Acts 16:9) Who was this “man of Macedonia?” At first, it seems that Paul saw a man in Macedonia who was praying, asking that Paul come to them. This is not the case. How would a man who has never heard of Paul know to pray for him to come? The man was not praying in the modern sense of the word (praying to heaven), but was urging or asking Paul directly. This “man of Macedonia” was the chief angel over Macedonia. God, knowing Paul was available, allowed that angel to request that he come to Macedonia to help the angels laboring there. Many times we think that the angels exist to help us, and many times that is true. However, there is no reason that we cannot also help them.
If we are going to interact in the spirit realm, we must understand the hierarchy that exists there. Just as regions have chief angels and all ranks of subordinate angels, regions have chief demons and all ranks of subordinate demons. Just as angels interact with demons and men, demons interact with angels and men. When righteous Daniel prayed for understanding, God dispatched Gabriel to answer his prayer. Mighty Gabriel was detained by demonic chief angel over Persia.
12 Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.
13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia. (Daniel 10:12-13)
This demonic prince was so powerful that Gabriel was unable to conquer him until the archangel Michael came to assist him.
Some Christians foolishly assume that they have authority over all demons, or that they as humans are mightier than all angels. There is no scripture that suggests that such is the case. In fact, there is ample evidence to the contrary. Despite Daniel’s righteousness, when Gabriel appeared to him he collapsed from the strain of being in Gabriel’s presence. Yet, Gabriel is lower in glory than Michael, whose extra strength was required to overcome the prince of Persia. Though Michael is capable of overcoming chief demons, for now he must rely on the Lord to rebuke Satan himself (see Jude 1:9). To think that somehow a normal man can have authority over Satan when Daniel, Gabriel, and Michael cannot is great folly. Satan and many of his minions have greater authority than the typical man.
When demons are rebuked by men they outrank, the demons laugh at their ignorance. They are apt to physically harm those who engage them without sufficient authority, as happened to the sons of Sceva:
13 Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.
14 And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so.
15 And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?
16 And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. (Acts 19:13-16)
Consider the legion of demons that the Lord cast out of the Gergesene man. The account says that this man occupied tombs that were along a popular road. People had to avoid the road because the man would hurt them. They expended great effort to chain him, but the demons gave him superhuman strength to break the chains. What do you suppose would have happened to the Lord if he had approached this possessed man without sufficient authority to cast out the demons? It is easier to tear apart a man than iron chains!
When you exceed your authority with demons, they will unleash their power on you. This can result in great physical and spiritual harm. This is why it is very important to understand what power and authority you have with God. Obtaining that power and authority is the subject of the next chapter.
For far too long, Christians have lived below their privileges as our angelic advocates have been underutilized. It is time to become active participants in the decisions of heaven, and to bring to pass God’s will on the earth.