My Life and Books (9) Spiritual Powers of Evil

A big step for me was understanding that the spiritual powers of evil have used politics to leverage their power on earth. Although they were defeated by the cross, they have maintained their authority on earth by using spiritual principalities and powers to control political power and empires on earth. Every town, city, nation and region on earth is controlled by a principality or power in the spiritual realms.

Their authority on earth is perpetuated by a hierarchy of authority.

• The principalities and powers in the spiritual realms control the political powers on earth, such as kings, emperors and other political leaders. The personalities may change over time, but the spiritual powers remain in control.

• These kings and political leaders have authority over large groups of people, so this gives them immense authority on earth.

• The people look to their political leaders to solve the problems that disturb their lives, so they mostly submit to them. They should be looking to the Kingdom of God for their salvation and to Jesus as their king.

• Political leaders and kings use military force and political coercion to control their people. This gives the principalities their power a point of entry to control them.

This hierarchy of authority allows the spiritual powers of evil to exercise authority on earth, despite their defeat by the cross. The principalities and powers have authority over all the spirits living in the nation or region they control. These follower spirits listen and obey their commands.

Christians frequently talk about principalities and powers, but they have not understood the implications of their power. Most kings and political leaders can easily be dominated by a government-spirit because they are vulnerable to pride and control. They make it easy for the spiritual powers of evil to control a nation.

Many Christians assume that other nations are controlled by principalities and powers (Iran and North Korea), but they have no understanding that a principality or power controls their own nation by manipulating political power. This is why political action always disappoints.

Enemy

A clever trick of the spiritual powers of evil is persuading Christians to assume that their enemy is Satan or the Devil, because one spiritual being does not seem that dangerous. One enemy up against the entire human race would seem to be well out-numbered.

I usually refer to the spiritual powers of evil (as Paul did in Eph 6:12) as a reminder that we are up against a vast host of evil beings, who often work together in various ways. We need to be alert to all their activities.

Hit Harm and Run Tactic

We need to understand the tricks of the spiritual powers of evil. They like us to think that they mostly work by an evil spirit possessing a person and controlling them, but that tactic is relatively rare. The reality that there is a finite number of evil spirits. With the human population of the earth growing into the billions, possession of a single individual is an inefficient tactic. The spiritual powers of evil no longer have the numbers to allow a legion of spirits to control one man. Consequently, evil spirits engage far more with a Hit, Harm and Run tactic.

Imagine a young girl who is bullied and beaten by her father. Every time he strikes her, an evil spirit says to the girl, “You deserve this treatment because you are a bad person of no value to anyone.” We hear words clearly when we are fearful, so the words penetrate deeply into her memory. Once the evil spirit has said this half a dozen times, the words have stained her heart and gained a stronghold in her memory.

The evil spirit can then move onto harass another person, leaving its harm behind to keep on dragging her down. Every time she is abused by her father, the door to her memory that was opened by the trauma opens up and she hears the words again, even though the evil spirit is moved on.

When she has grown and escaped her father’s control, every time she faces distress or trauma, she still hears the lies of the evil spirit coming up from her memory. “You are no good. Bad stuff will happen to you because you deserve it. You are of no value”. She is scarred for life.

This is how the Hit, Harm, and Run tactic most commonly used by evil spirits works. They are the cause of the problem, but there is no point in casting the evil spirit out, because it left years ago. She needs the Holy Spirit to rip out the lies that have become part of who she is and replace them with the truth as God sees her.

The Hit, Harm and Run tactic also causes physical attacks. An evil spirit was able to attack a woman’s spine and leave her physically crippled. Jesus laid his hands on her to heal her rather than casting out the evil spirit because it had probably already gone when it had done enough harm to cripple her (Luke 13:11-13).

An evil spirit can attack a few cells in a person's body and set off a cancerous growth. The evil spirit does not need to continue attacking the person, because the cancer continues growing on its own accord. Casting out an evil spirit does not cure the cancer, because the evil spirit has already moved on. The person needs someone carrying the gift of healing to pray for their body to be restored.

Evil Spirits can just as easily attack a person's brain and destroy neural pathways that should be joined and those incorrectly join those that should be separated. These little twists often cause people to see the world and themselves in a negative light that destroys their relationships with others and causes them to harm themselves.

Again, casting out the evil spirit is pointless, because it moved on long ago. What the person needs is for the Holy Spirit or his angels to remove the junk that the evil spirit has left behind and restore the brain to working in the way that God designed it to function. We need to learn how to help him to do this work by prayer.