We should never forget that everything in this world is both spiritual and physical. When the leaders of the nations (and their prophets) vehemently and angrily call for violence against their perceived enemies, it has a spiritual effect at home too. Violent spirits are empowered to wreak harm in their own nation.
The first human government to emerge was established by a man called Nimrod.
Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.” And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went to Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah (that is the principal city) (Gen 10:8-12 NKJV).Nimrod was the most powerful strongman on the earth so he established a kingdom in Babel. This is the first mention of a kingdom in the Bible. Nimrod extended his kingdom to Nineveh. This makes Nimrod the grandfather of all the early kingdoms and empires on earth.
The name Nimrod comes from the expression “we will rebel”, so when the Bible refers to Nimrod “before the Lord” it means in opposition to the Lord. The first governments were started by a “rebel against God”. The fruit of this rebellion was the tower of Babel.
Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth" (Gen 11:4).Heaven-scraper
However, something more serious was going on. If we read the story through a three-agent lens, we get a different perspective. The spiritual powers of evil were threatening a dangerous assault on the purposes of God.
The people of Babel planned two things:
A “name” represents a person’s authority. The people of Babel intended to establish authority (name) for themselves apart from God. They would achieve this goal without God by attaching their political power to that of the spiritual powers of evil.
A "tower" represents authority. This tower was an attempt by the people of Babel to extend their authority right up into the spiritual realms (heaven) by cooperating with the spiritual powers of evil. They wanted to expand the authority of their earthly empire into a spiritual empire. They believed that they had a chance to do it, and the spiritual powers of evil working with them believed that they could squeeze God of the spiritual realms in a reversal if the way that they had been pushed out by the holy angels (Rev 12:7-8).
God had no choice but to send a Protective Judgment to put the forces of evil back in their place. The evil was constrained by sending confusion of language that made combining for a common purpose more difficult.
So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city (Gen 11:8).
Many Christians pray for the sick and are disappointed because nothing happens. One reason for this failure is the common belief that sickness has a physical cause. We have imbibed the modern view that all events in the universe have biological, social, genetic, environmental or physical causes. If this is true, it make sense to ask God to intervene and reverse the physical cause.
The Bible teaches that everything that happens on earth has a spiritual cause (Eph 6:12). God does not create sickness, so all sickness comes from the spiritual powers of evil. If we do not understand that reality, we will find it hard to pray for the sick.
Although events may appear to have a physical cause, the real cause is spiritual. For example, an inspection of Job’s body would have discovered a staphylococcus causing his boils, but the Bible explains that they were actually caused by an attack of Satan (Job 2:7).
Jesus came to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). One way we he did that was to heal the sick. He healed numerous sick people. In each case it would have been possible to diagnose the infection causing the disease, but from God’s point of view, they were “under the power of the devil” (Acts 10:38).
Jesus healed a woman who had been bent over for so long that she could not straighten up. A physical examination would have diagnosed osteoporosis in her spine, but Jesus said, “Satan has kept her bound for eighteen years” (Luke 13:16).
We must learn to look beyond the medical facts and into the spiritual dimensions of life to understand the real cause of sickness. We must stop thinking that sickness is something that God and has allowed and begin understanding that sickness is something that the powers of evil inflict. They were defeated by the cross, but they will only pull back, if they are resisted by people standing together in faith (1 Peter 5:8-9).
Many Christians have asked God to heal a sick friend or family member, and been disappointed. Some have taken offence at God, because they believe that he let them down. But God was not the problem. The sickness was nothing to do with him. And the spiritual powers of evil are happy, because God is blamed for something they have done.
God has given the followers of Jesus authority to heal the sick. Asking him to heal someone who is sick usually does not work, because it does not deal with the spiritual powers of evil who have inflicted the sickness. We must stop pleading with God and being disappointed. Instead we should take up the authority he has given, and get into a battle with the power of evil, knowing that they were destroyed by the cross.
More at Healing.
A few Christians perceive what is happening in the spiritual realms through their external senses. Most of us perceive it in through our imagination when the Holy Spirit displays what is happening in the spiritual realms in our imaginations for us. Sometimes, our own spirit will perceive things in the spiritual realms and put a picture of it into our imaginations.
A limitation is that most of our imaginations can only see in three dimensions. This is natural because we live in a three dimensional world. The spiritual world has many more dimensions, so when we perceive something from the spiritual realm, our spirit or the Holy Spirit has to translate it into three dimensions, so that it will fit into our imaginations.
This means that we rarely see the spiritual world as it really is. When people describe their experiences of the spiritual realms, they describe it in a three dimensional way. They describe the height, width, layout and colour of things as if they were three dimensional. They should understand that they are not really seeing it as it is, but in a way that a human mind can understand.
Therefore, recording the height and hair colour of an angel does not mean much, unless the height and colour tell us something spiritual, such as the character of the angel.
When Daniel saw the ancient of days, he had hair like white wool. It was not real wool. Daniel’s spirit translated what it saw into something that his imagination could perceive.
When John saw Jesus, he described him like this.
Among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters (Rev 1:13-15).This is not the way Jesus actually is, because he now lives in the spiritual realms. The Holy Spirit translated this reality into something that John’s imagination could actually perceive.
The same applies to visions of the afterlife. It is a spiritual world. Our imaginations cannot handle it, so our spirit or the Holy Spirit, must translate it into three dimensions so that we can understand it. So we are seeing a reduced form of what it really is.
Mathematicians and physicists have models that require multiple dimensions. I wonder if those Christians who think in these multiple dimensional frameworks for a big part of their working lives, are better able to perceive the spiritual world. I suppose they are so focussed on scientific things, that they actually find it harder.
Angels do not have physical bodies. They are not three dimensional beings like us. They live and move in a multi-dimensional spiritual world. This is why we usually do not see them. Our three dimensional eyes and minds cannot cope with the multiple dimensional spiritual realm.
Angels can sometimes appear in a three dimension formal, as if they have physical body. That was the situation when three angels appeared to Abraham.
Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby (Gen 18:2).
He offered them food and drink and offered to was their feet. Angels do not need to eat physical food, and do not need their food washed, but Abraham made the offer because they appeared to him like other men. He only realised they were angels once they had spoken to him on behalf of God. These angels had changed their appearance to a physical form, so that they were visible to human eyes.
Joseph seems to have been less spiritually aware, because the angels had to appear to him in a dream.
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream (Matt 1:20).
This happened three times for Joseph (Matt 2:13, 2:19). In contrast, the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary in a way that enabled her it see him physically (Luke 1:28-29).
When humans see angels in the spirit, we are not really seeing them as they are. We actually see a three dimensional representation of the angels, which are multi-dimensional spiritual beings. They Holy Spirit shows them to us in this way, because that is all our minds and imagination can handle.
When an object is translated to a reduced set of dimensions, it loses some of its glory and splendour. A sphere becomes a disc when it is painted onto a piece of paper. In the same way and angel loses some of its glory when it is represented to us in three dimensions. Gabriel reminded Zechariah that he stood in the presence of God (Luke 1:19). His natural home was the spiritual realms where God dwells. What Zechariah saw was a representation of that glorious existence.
Isaiah saw angels with six sets of wings. He saw them flying around the throne. This vision amazed Isaiah, but it was a reduction of true reality. Angels do not really fly through the air with physical wings. They can move instantly to any place in the physical world at any time, because they are spiritual beings and are not constrained by physical boundaries. Humans see them flying, because that is the only way that our human minds can cope with what they do.
The spiritual realms are not three dimensions plus time like our physical world.
Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
The spiritual realms are a multi dimension reality which is totally different from the physical world with which we are familiar. Our minds can only cope with three dimensions, so to see in see into the spiritual realms, we have to see things there as if they were three dimensions (except brighter and more beautiful).
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor 2:9).
The fact that the spiritual dimensions are hard for us to comprehend, does not mean that we should give up trying to see them. Paul tells us to fix our eyes on the things that cannot be seen.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2 Cor 4:18).
We are to focus on the thing things that cannot be seen, because they are eternal, whereas the physical world that we see with our limited vision is temporary.
Paul’s command seems slightly illogical. How can we fix our eyes on things that we cannot see? The good news is that the Holy Spirit. He is able to show us the physical realms in a way that our three dimensional eyes can see and our three dimensional minds can understand. Jesus promised,
The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things (John 14:26).
He is able to show us what is happening in the spiritual realms.
These are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God (1 Cor 2:10).
The Holy Spirit translates the things that are happening in the spiritual realms into three dimensions, so that we are able to see them. Given the limitations of our minds, that is probably the best that we can do, but we must remember that we are just seeing a representation of something different and much greater.
When receive our spiritual bodies and the spiritual brains that go with them, we will be able to see the spiritual realms as they really are.
We are all different and have different giftings. Blake Healy's seeing is very visual and seems very physical. The way he describes it in The Veil indicates that he often sees things with his physical sight. However, he understands that he is seeing a visual representation of a spiritual reality that human eyes cannot see.
When you see in the spirit, it is a visual representation of spiritual reality. That thing isn’t really there, but represents something that is.
When I receive something from the spiritual realms, it seems like an idea or a picture just arrives in mind. This is often described as seeing in the Spirit.
An angel is a spirit, not limited by physical form. When I see an angel, I am seeing a visual representation of what and who they are… I am seeing a visual metaphor of who this angel is.
To explain how this works, I need to compare it with ordinary perceiving. When I am struck by an idea I have read in a book, it is retained by my memory. I can pull it out of my memory into my mind and think about it any time. If I have an experience that strikes me, it is retained in my memory. I can rehearse in my imagination any time. For example, if I saw someone that I had not seen for a long time getting off a train yesterday, I can pull that scene out of my memory into my imagination and see the scene again. These memories come through my physical senses. I see the scene and hear the conversation. I read the book with my physical eyes.
With spiritual stuff, it is very similar, except that I did not have the initial experience of seeing the scene of hearing the idea with my physical senses. The spiritual thought or picture is just there in my mind and I do not know how it got there (I presume by the Holy Spirit). It drops from mind into my memory, so I can recall the idea t and think about it, even though I have not come across it before. Likewise, I can bring the picture to my imagination and see it, and describe what I see, even though have not seen it with my physical eyes. The difference is that the idea or picture is put into my mind by the Holy Spirit, via my spirit, rather than passing through my physical senses.
I realise that we are all different, but reading The Veil made me realise that there are many other ways of seeing available to Christians that I need to press into.
Last weekend was the fiftieth anniversary of the death of President Kennedy. It did not get much attention in my part of the world, but here is what I wondered about the event.
It now seems that the report of the Warren Commission was severely flawed. There seems to be strong indications that the US security establishment was heavily involved, possibly with the support of future President Johnson.
The political consequences are now history, but what would be the spiritual effect, if the security establishment assassinated the president and then covered it up. I would expect that they following would gain a dominate place among the spiritual principalities and powers that control the nation.
Were these more evident after the assassination of the President? They certainly are now. The problem is that these spirits were well established in the United States before JFK entered the political scene. Nevertheless, if his assassination was organised by people in high place, these spirits would have significantly increased their spiritual control over the nations.
Prior to the fall, Adam and Eve could see into the spiritual world. They were able to walk with God in the cool of the evenings and speak directly to him. They were able to see the devil, when he came to tempt them. His activity in the spiritual dimensions, made him appear snakelike from a physical perspective.
This situation did not last longs. When Adam and Eve sinned, their sight was changed so that they could no longer see into the spiritual realms. 
The Bible says their eyes were opened, and they realized they were naked (Gen 3:7). This statement is a huge irony. Their eyes were actually closed to the spiritual realms. When they could see the brilliant glory of the heavenly realms, their observation of the physical world was dimmed, and they did not notice they were naked. Once the light of heavenly glory was turned off, their view of the physical world was greatly intensified, so they realised for the first time that they were naked. 
After his death and resurrection, Jesus gained a spiritual body, which enabled him to interact more freely with the spiritual world. After death, those who believe in Jesus will be given new spiritual bodies. This will enable us to interact with the spiritual dimensions in the same way that Adam and Eve did before the fall. We will be able to see the glory of the total universe that God created. We will be blown away by the glory of the spiritual realms and the wonder of the physical world will be diminished.
The spiritual realms are not limited to three dimensions like our physical world. The Bible does not tell us how many more, but the fact that it is more complex than our three-dimension world means that it is hard for our minds to understand. The spiritual aspect of life can be thought of as additional dimensions beyond the three core dimensions of length, height and breadth. The spiritual world is not another world in another place, but additional dimensions to the physical world we observe.
An even better way might be to think of the physical world as three additional dimensions tacked on to a multi-dimension spiritual world. The spiritual world is more real than the physical world, so this latter view is most likely correct, but it is very hard for us to handle, because our eyes are calibrated for a physical world. Our eyes are so attuned to seeing a three-dimensional world, that we find anything grander difficult to conceive.
Paul visited the spiritual realms in a vision. He was dramatically affected by what he saw, but he could not describe it (2 Cor 12:2-4). His problem was that human language is designed for describing a physical world, so it cannot cope with spiritual reality. He explained that,
Eye has not seen,
We need spiritual insight to understand what is happening in the spiritual dimension. That is why Paul prayed that they “eyes our hearts may be enlightened' (Eph 1:18).
nor ear heard,
and no human mind has conceived (1 Cor 2:9).
Christians need a better worldview, that that sees the spiritual realms operating over and alongside the physical realms. We need an awareness of authority in the spiritual realms, if we are to understand the functioning of authority here on earth.
Part of the problem is that we see God as “way up there” far away from our world. We think of heaven as a distant place that we go to where we die. This is shortsighted.
Heaven is not a distant place where God lives. Nor is just a place that we go to when we die. The Bible refers to the “heavenlies” as a label for the spiritual realms that exist alongside the physical world. The spiritual realms are just as real as the physical world that we can see. These two realms overlap and interact with each other.
We live in a multi-dimensional universe in which the spiritual dimensions exist in parallel to our three-dimensional physical world. The spiritual realms operate in continuity with the physical/natural world that we observe. Most humans cannot see into the spiritual dimensions, so we can only observe the physical side of existence. However, events in our physical world are shaped by activities in the spiritual realm. If we just look at the physical world in isolation, we miss much of what is happening in the universe.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. This was not just earth and sky. “The heavens” is the biblical name for the spiritual world that exists in parallel to the physical world. God created a multi-dimensional universe. We can only see the three dimensions of physical space plus time, so we assume that is all that exists. The spiritual dimensions consist of many more dimensions of reality beyond what we can see.
We cannot see into the spiritual world due to the effects of sin, so we think that the physical world we see makes up most of the universe. This leads us to assume that the authority systems that we see on earth are important, but we miss the parallel authority systems that exist in the spiritual realms and frequently interact with the authority system on earth. To understand the full working of authority, we need a thorough understanding of the way that authority functions in the spiritual realms, and how it affects events on earth.
Growing up in the modern world, we are taught that the physical world is all that is important. If something cannot be scientifically observed, it is not real. We all imbibe this materialistic understanding of the world during our education and daily lives. We think that the physical world that we live in is all that exists.
The physical realms consist of the earth, the sea and the sky. It includes people and the things they have made. This realm of life can be partitioned into two parts. The people who live according to Gods will are part of the Kingdom of God. Those who reject God’s will belong to "the world" (1 John 2:15-17). In reality, these two groups are mixed up together and interact with each other all the time. I have only portrayed them separately for the purpose of illustration.
Even in a city, the intensity of spiritual forces of evil will vary.
When Christians go to a new city to establish a new church, they tend to go to the centre of the city. This is a mistake, as the centre is the place where the spiritual opposition will be strongest. They will often find homes in suburbs all over the city. This isolation leaves them spiritually vulnerable and easy for the enemy to pick off one at a time.
Christians should identify the areas of the city where the enemy is weakest. This will often be a place where some people have chosen not to recognise the authority of the political powers and are not vulnerable to the spiritual forces released by them. It might be a place where a Person of Peace is living. Jesus told the apostles to look for the Person of Peace when they went to a new town (Luke 10:5-7) as they will be living in a place where spiritual interference is minimal.
Christian apostles going to a new city should establish a spiritual beachhead. Three or six should submit to each other to provide a wall of spiritual protection around them. (The command to resist the devil is plural (James 4:7). They should direct their caring, sharing and healing activity towards the people living around them and draw them into the place of peace they have established.
We do not need to study evil to know where to establish a beachhead. We just need to be in the right place together with other Christians who can support us in the spiritual struggle. If we listen to the Holy Spirit, he can show the place to go. Jacob did not need to understand the spiritual world, he just had to be in the right place (Gen 28:16-17). And if we have ended up in the wrong place, we should shake the dust from out feet and go where the Holy Spirit leads.
In the first two chapters of Genesis the universe seems quite small. The sky looks like a great bowl over the earth. The sun and stars and moon seem to be close.
The reason is that after the creation, the physical world was still open to some dimensions of spiritual reality. Adam Eve could speak with God. God could walk in a garden on earth. This spiritual openness allowed Adam and Eve to see into some of the spiritual realms of existence. Compared with the glory of the spiritual world, the physical world seemed quite small and insignificant.
The fall changed everything. Sin almost totally blocked the spiritual realms off from Adam and Eve. Once mankind could no longer see into the spiritual dimensions of existence, the physical world began to dominate their reality. (This is the opposite of the effect that will take place at the parousia and the physical world seems to disappear). The heavens seemed to roll out like a scroll, when the far greater glory of the spiritual dimension disappeared from human sight.
When evening comes, the stars seem to appear out of nowhere and roll out across the sky. Of course, they were there all the time, but were hidden from our view by the greater brightness of the sun. We can only see the stars, when the sun disappears. Likewise, when the spiritual dimensions of reality were hidden from mankind, the physical world seemed to take on a new splendour.
Losing contact with all the time dimensions in the spiritual realm, drew out the time dimension on earth, making it seem much longer. Since then mankind has never fully understood the concept of time.
We must remember when we look at the earth and sky that we are only seein g a small part of the reality of God.
Flatland had houses and walls. The characters of flatland could not pass through walls. The visitor from Spaceland was able to choose where he entered and departed the flat world. He once entered the locked room in which the narrator was sitting. He was able to go out of the room and move into a locked cupboard and carry them back to the room where the narrator was waiting.
When a person living in a three-dimensional world has the capacity to move into an additional dimension, they are no longer constrained by physical barriers. When Jesus first came to earth, he was stuck in three dimensions, so he was restrained by physical barriers. After the resurrection, he had a spiritual body. This gave him access to an additional dimension, making him immune to physical barriers.
When Jesus entered the upper room where the disciples were hiding behind locked doors, he could choose the point of entry to their physical world. The physical doors and world were ineffective barriers.
After the resurrection, Jesus could move around the physical world, in the same way that the sphere from Spaceland could move around Flatland. Access to another dimension changes life in the remaining dimensions.
Towards the end of the Flatland, the narrator who lived in flatland had a visitor from Spaceland, a world with three dimensions. This visitor was a sphere, but when he entered the world of Flatland he appeared like a circle. When he first appeared the circle was small, but as he entered further, the circle became larger.
The visitor had a great deal of difficulty persuading the narrator that he was a sphere, because all the latter could see was a circle. The concept of a sphere did not make sense to someone who lived in a two-dimensional world. He eventually persuaded the narrator by rising up, causing the circle to shrink in size, despite not moving further away.
This reminded me that God had to become a man for us to understand him. People living in our physical world find it hard to understand the concept of God who is Spirit. God moves in many more dimensions than us. We will not recognise him with senses that calibrated for use in a three-dimensional world. By becoming a man, Jesus was able to bridge the barrier between our three-dimensional world and God’s multi-dimensional world.
We need discernment to deal with sickness. Too many modern Christians only see the physical cause of sickness. The cause is contact with someone with an infection. This is not a Christian view, but is rooted in the modern philosophy of naturalism or materialism, which assumes that everything that actually exists is material, or physical. Materialism seeks to explain every event in the universe as resulting from biological, social, genetic, environmental or physical interactions. All events are determined by cause and effect, with no spiritual or external influence.
The Bible teaches something quite different. In God’s economy, nothing happens by chance. Random events do not stride Christians. Everything in our lives has a spiritual dimension. Everything that happens on earth is an interaction between the workings of God and the machinations of the enemy.For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Eph 6:10).
Although events may appear to have physical causes, the real cause is spiritual. For example, Eli the high priest was blind and could not see (1 Sam 4:15). A physical examination would have shown that Eli had cataracts. However, the scriptures teach that he was blind because he refused to do anything about his sons sins, but “turned a blind eye” (1 Sam 2:29).
An inspection of Job’s boils would identify the staphylococcus causing problem, but the scriptures explain that they were actually caused by an attack of Satan (Job 2:7). King Asa sought help from the King of Damascus. He died aged thirty-nine from an infection in his feet, but the real reason was that “even in his illness he did not seek help from the Lord” (2 Chron 16:13).
Jesus healed numerous sick people. In each case it would have been possible to diagnose the infection causing the disease, but from God’s point of view, they were “under the power of the devil” (Acts 10:38). Jesus healed a woman who had been bent over for eighteen years and could not straighten up at all. A physical examination would have shown osteoporosis of her spine, but Jesus said, “Satan has kept her bound for eighteen years” (Luke 10:13-16). Christians must look beyond the medical facts and into the spiritual dimension to understand the real cause of sickness.
