Some time ago I wrote a three-part blog series on spiritual warfare. – (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). This is not so much a revisiting of those blogs as it is a discussion of our enemy—really, enemies—in the spiritual realm. In this era of derailed Christianity we as believers must not only have an awareness of what authentic Christianity is but also an awareness of the true nature of the kingdom of darkness. Understanding the extreme wickedness of these spirit beings will, hopefully, spur more believers to take the faith seriously.
Satan is the head of the evil spiritual kingdom. He is a fallen angel of the angelic order of cherubim and was known as Lucifer (light-bearer) before his fall. God gave him a very high position, right at His throne. Apparently Lucifer also had responsibility for music in heaven and was in the garden of Eden before he fell. Perhaps that at least partially explains why, when he came to tempt Eve, he did so in a different form, as a serpent. Isaiah 14:3-11 describe the fall of the king of Babylon, but from verses 12-21, as well as being about him, it is also about Lucifer. In the same vein, Ezekiel 281:12a discuss the king of Tyre, but in 12b-19 the narrative switches course, clearly describing Lucifer. The Isaiah and Ezekiel passages complement each other in relating the account of Lucifer’s downfall:
Isaiah 14:12-21: “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit. Those who see you will gaze at you, and consider you, saying, ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world as a wilderness and destroyed its cities, who did not open the house of his prisoners? All the kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, everyone in his own house; but you are cast out of your grave like an abominable branch, like the garment of those who are slain, thrust through with a sword, who go down to the stones of the pit, like a corpse trodden underfoot. You will not be joined with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land and slain your people. The brood of evildoers shall never be named. Prepare slaughter for his children because of the iniquity of their fathers, lest they rise up and possess the land, and fill the face of the world with cities.”
Ezekiel 28:11-19: Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: the sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created. You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways, from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you. By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within, and you sinned; therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God; and I destroyed you, o covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings, that they might gaze at you. You defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities, by the iniquity of your trading; therefore I brought fire from your midst; it devoured you, and I turned you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all who saw you. All who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you; you have become a horror, and shall be no more forever.” ’ ”
We can see that Lucifer had considerable power and responsibility before he fell. He was the wisest and most beautiful of all created beings. Tragically, Lucifer was not content with that. In his pride he thought he could be like God Himself, and coveted God’s position on the throne. Clever as he was, he convinced one third of the angels to go along with his rebellion:
Revelation 12:3-4a: And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.
The Revelation passage selected is part of a larger narrative in Revelation 12:1-12 describing, simultaneously, Lucifer’s rebellion and then, as Satan, his efforts to prevent the coming of the promised Savior—Jesus Christ—and his hatred for Israel, as well as the war to be waged against him in heaven and his being cast to earth in the second half of the Tribulation. Some time after his initial fall from perfection, Satan returned to Eden in the form of a serpent and seduced Eve and, by extension, Adam, into sin. God promised a coming savior who would issue a crushing defeat to the devil:
Genesis 3:15: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heal.”
According to ancient writings and noted in the Bible (Genesis 6:1-4), some angels known as Watchers came to the earth to teach mankind the ways of righteousness and worship of God. Two hundred of them came here in the days of Jared, one of Adam’s descendants, and another two hundred at some time shortly after the Flood. These Watchers took on human form and, therefore, human capabilities and frailties, falling into lust for human women and having intercourse with them. These unsanctioned unions produced human-angel hybrids—the giants. In this Satan saw his chance to corrupt the human race’s bloodlines and thereby prevent the coming of the promised Savior. He failed, of course. The first set of giants was completely eliminated in the Flood.
The second set, according to various archaeological findings, remained active on earth well beyond the slaying of the last noted Biblical giants (1 Samuel 17:4-51; 2 Samuel 21:15-22; 1 Chronicles 20:4-8). Evidently their activities were greatly curtailed by God, or else the world would have been rapidly overran with evil again as it was in Genesis 6. Not only that, but this foiled Satan’s plans of preventing the coming of the Messiah by ruining humans’ bloodlines. He made several other attempts at this, including influencing the evil Haman during the time of Queen Esther (Esther 3:1-7:10) and, while Jesus was a toddler, driving the already maniacal King Herod to have all male children two years old and under in Bethlehem and all its districts killed (Matthew 2:1-21). Satan’s ultimate defeat came, however, when Jesus rose again from the dead after being crucified.
Although the devil failed at using the progeny of the Watchers to ruin all the human race, he was handed an unexpected boon in that the spirits of the dead giants did not automatically get sent to hell, but were left to roam the earth, not seeing their final doom until the day of the great white throne judgment (Revelation 20:11-15). These spirits are the demons. In case you think this is some fairy tale, myth, or flight of fancy, consider that this was known to many in both Old and New Testament times, and that highly respected early church fathers believed it and wrote about it.
The noted first-century Jewish historian Josephus also corroborated this in his writings. From about the third century onward the view that the intermingling of the godly line of Seth and the ungodly line of Cain was the real explanation for the giants, so although demons were still known of, their origins were obscured and thus also the teachings about what really went on in the early days of human history. For more details about demons and giants look in our Remnant Bible Study Course.
How was all this a boon to Satan? He had gained a whole army of evil spirit beings—untold billions upon billions of them—under his rule to torment the human race. Just as they loved to terrorize people while on earth as living giants, so demons now revel in afflicting people with physical and mental illnesses, false religions, the allure of sinful pleasures, and anything else they can set loose upon their targets.
While Satan and his many fallen angels oversee the affairs of the earth, from nations all the way down to towns, et cetera, the demons are assigned to attack people. They are to keep the lost in their spiritual condition and to not only hinder the growth and effectiveness of Christians but also to destroy us if at all possible. When you see the characteristics of Satan in Scripture you also see the traits of the fallen angels and of all the demons (John 10:10a; 1 Peter 5:8).
You must know that each and every one of these spirit beings is totally evil and totally dedicated to evil. Even in the vilest and most hardened of human sociopaths there is still the occasional good act or moment of sentiment. Not so in Satan’s kingdom. No fallen angel or demon has the least shred of light, sentiment, or conscience. They differ in power and degree of wickedness, but for pure evil-mindedness and utter lack of mitigating characteristics, they are all on the same level: Totally unredeemable and void of any goodness whatsoever. They hate all human beings, particularly those of us who are born again. When you become a Christian you become a sworn enemy of Satan by default.
When the giants lived on earth, they terrorized the smaller, weaker, less intelligent human beings. Since the giants were never meant to exist, there was never any atonement available for them, just as there was never any atonement available for fallen angels. Atonement for sin is and always has been intended by God for human beings only. These depraved evil spirits know they are irrevocably damned, and like the saying goes, misery loves company. They will do whatever it takes and whatever they can get away with to ensure that any person whom they are assigned to target never gets saved. It is a great defeat to demons when a person is born again, and you can be certain that Satan, their boss, does not like it, either.
It is hard enough for an evil spirit being to know that a lost person can be saved, something they can never experience. Seeing a person receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord drives them to incomprehensible levels of jealous rage. Demons are assigned by Satan to each Christian, not only the ones who had been afflicting them but other, stronger demons as well. Demons work all the time to keep Christians divided and to keep each of us from being effective.
We see the results all the time: Christians who do not pray regularly, those who seldom if ever read their Bible, believers whose lifestyles are so worldly as to be carnal (1 Corinthians 3:1-4), and so on. Now, demons are not responsible for all the wrong things we do, but they sure do help our wrongdoings along and encourage more wickedness. If demons can discourage a saint then that person may give up, backslide, or even turn his or her back on God. If they can get a Christian to forfeit his or her salvation, that is like winning the lottery in the spirit realm.
The kingdom of darkness plays for keeps. There are no days off for any demon. There is no jocularity among evil spirits. In grim and relentless fashion these depraved beings work day and night to destroy people. As Christians we must pray for the lost and strive to reach them for Jesus. We must not lead them further into sin! We must not also fall prey to the wiles of the enemy ourselves.
It is true that we have authority over demons (Luke 10:17-20), and that is who we contend with, demons and not with fallen angels or Satan himself. God and his good angels fight them. As having authority over demons we are not to live in fear or dread of them, for by the power of the Holy Spirit and the authority granted us by Jesus Christ they cannot defeat us if we do not let them. If we become careless, however, demons will use any advantage, no matter how slight, to make inroads into our lives, and their end goal is always the same: total destruction. We are in a real war, a spiritual war.
Fellowsaints, we don’t counsel demons. We don’t buddy up with demons. We don’t play with demons. You cannot reason with the unreasonable or redeem the unredeemable. We keep them in check, pray for one another, love one another, and fight for the souls of the lost. Do not be casual, and do not be ignorant. Know your enemy.
