Casting Down Strongholds: Understanding Spiritual Warfare

Casting Down Strongholds: Understanding Spiritual Warfare

The theme of this session is entitled, "Casting Down Strongholds," and it deals with spiritual warfare. First, we need to understand why there is spiritual warfare, who is fighting whom, and which side we are on. Let's turn to Matthew Chapter 12: a passage about the ministry of Jesus, which highlights the basic fact that there are two invisible spiritual kingdoms at war with one another. One is the kingdom of Satan, and the other is the kingdom of God.

Most of you will likely have no problem with the concept that God has a kingdom. Some of you may not be aware that Satan also has a kingdom, but he does. It's crucial for us as Christians to understand the nature of his kingdom and how it operates. If we are in the kingdom of God through Christ, we are automatically at war with the kingdom of Satan. Do you understand? Suppose I were a citizen of, let's say, Australia, and Australia was at war with New Zealand. We trust that such a thing will never happen, but if it were so, then as a citizen of Australia, I would automatically be at war with New Zealand because I belong to a nation that is at war with another nation. Similarly, if the kingdom of God is at war with the kingdom of Satan, and we are in the kingdom of God, then we have no options. We are automatically at war with the kingdom of Satan. It's very important for us to know this and to understand the nature of the war.

Real-Life Examples

Anyhow, when Jesus did this, we'll read what happened. When the Pharisees heard it, they said, "This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons." They made a terrible accusation. They said, "He can cast out demons because He's in league with the ruler of the demons." Jesus answered and said, "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?" So Jesus said very clearly that Satan has a kingdom and it's not divided. Then He went on to say, "And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they shall be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you." There Jesus speaks about the kingdom of God. So in this ministry of delivering people from evil spirits, the clash between the two kingdoms is brought right out into the open. The invisible kingdom of Satan is represented by the demons, and the invisible kingdom of God is represented by Jesus and by those who continue His ministry in His name.

I believe Satan particularly fears this ministry of deliverance because of two things. First of all, it brings out into the open his invisible kingdom, and he'd much rather have it invisible. Second, it shows the victory and the supremacy of the kingdom of God over his kingdom. But I'm just starting with that passage to show you that the New Testament reveals clearly that there are two invisible spiritual kingdoms at war with one another: the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan.

The Kingdom of Satan and Its Headquarters

Now for a brief description of the kingdom of Satan and its headquarters. We turn to Ephesians chapter 6, which is an absolutely key verse on this whole theme. Ephesians chapter 6, Paul says in verse 12, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." Now I would like to give you the Prince version of that verse. It's the amplified Prince version. You ask me: am I qualified? Well, I have learned Greek since I was ten years old, which is a long while now. I'm qualified to teach it at the university level. That doesn't mean necessarily that I'm always right, but I'm entitled to my opinion. So, I'm going to give you the amplified Prince version: "For our wrestling match is not against persons with bodies ...".

Now that phrase is taken from The Living Bible, and I think it's a very good phrase. We are in a wrestling match, but we're wrestling against persons who don't have bodies. That immediately causes us to adjust our thinking because we're not used to the concept of persons without bodies, although there are multitudes of such persons in the universe. Then he says: "... against rulers with various areas and descending orders of authority." So, it's a very highly organized kingdom. There are rulers in this kingdom, each with a particular area of responsibility, and under each of those rulers, there are sub-rulers who are responsible for sub-areas in that kingdom. You might say Satan was very clever to devise such an organization. That's not so. The truth of the matter is that he rebelled against God. Being, as most people believe, in charge of one-third of the created angels. He brought his angels into rebellion against God with him, and they were cast out of heaven and simply set up a rival kingdom, keeping the organizational structure that they had when they were part of God's kingdom. So, he doesn't get any credit for this extremely clever organization.

Our wrestling match is not against persons with bodies, but against rulers with various areas and descending orders of authority, against the world dominators of the present darkness. I deliberately used the word "dominate" because the Greek word is very powerful. I choose the word "dominate" because God never dominates anybody. Wherever you encounter domination, it's something satanic. That's not how God rules people. But Satan's ambition is to dominate the whole world. Do you understand that? Not just some little part of humanity, but through a kingdom of darkness to dominate the whole world. And because his kingdom is a kingdom of darkness, the people who are in that kingdom, for the most part, don't know what they're in. See, the kingdom of God is the kingdom of light. If we're in the kingdom of God, we know where we are somewhat. But most of the people who are in Satan's kingdom don't know where they are because it's a kingdom of darkness; they can't see.

Spiritual Hosts of Wickedness

And then going to the final phrase in verse 12: "... against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies." Or in the heavenly places. So, there are vast armies. You know the word "host" is Old English for "army." Vast armies of satanic beings, persons without bodies, arranged in battle order against us. It's important that we know that, isn't it? It's going to make a lot of difference in our lives if we realize what we're up against.

Now, let me point out that Satan's headquarters, as stated here, are in the heavenlies. We have a lot of language in the church which speaks about Satan as if he were in hell. Hell is a place of confinement for wicked persons below the surface of the earth. My comment on that is, it would be nice if Satan were in hell, but he isn't. He's very much at large, he's very active, and his kingdom is in the heavenlies. Most of you will then begin to say in your minds, "I thought Satan was cast out of heaven." You're perfectly right. He was. The key to understanding this is that there's more than one heaven. This is absolutely essential. Actually, in the first verse of the Bible, it says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens, plural. The earth, singular." So, right from the first verse of the Bible, we have this revelation that heaven is plural.

There are two passages in the New Testament which bring this out very clearly. The first is 2 Corinthians 12:2-4, where Paul is talking about people he knew who had marvelous spiritual experiences. He talks about one particular person who was caught up from the earthly level into the heavenlies. He says he doesn't know whether he was in his body or not. This is what he says: "I know a man in Christ who, fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a one was caught up to the third heaven. And I know such a man—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows—how he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter." Paul says this fellow Christian he knew was caught up into the third heaven. He also says he was caught up into Paradise, which would seem to suggest that Paradise is in the third heaven. Since there, he heard the words of God. The third heaven would apparently be the dwelling place of God.

Now, I am a logician. I can't escape from logic. One thing I am convinced of: if there is a third heaven, there must be a first and a second. There never has been a third of anything without the first two. So, that Scripture tells us there are at least three heavens. And that's what I believe. We have a phrase that people sometimes use when they're very happy; they say, "I was in the seventh heaven." I don't think that's Scriptural. As a matter of fact, I think it's probably taken from the Koran. So, if you're feeling very happy, just tell people, "I was on cloud nine," because the Bible reveals there are a lot of clouds in heaven. But my point is: there are at least three heavens.

Let me give you one other Scripture: Ephesians 4:10. Speaking about what happened to Jesus in death and resurrection, it says, "He who descended into hell is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things." So, Paul says Jesus ascended far above all the heavens. Now, I was a teacher of English as a second language in Africa, and I learned there are certain pitfalls in the English language. Some of you may have struggled with them. And one is the use of the word "all," because you can't use it in certain situations. For instance, one of my students came to me one day and said, "Please, sir, all my parents have come to see me." Well, I said, I understand what you mean, but you've got the wrong word, because you can't have more than two parents, and you can't use the word "all" for less than three persons. So, when Paul says, "above all the heavens," there must have been at least three heavens. I believe that's what there are.

I'll offer you just my opinion, and I'm not claiming that this is necessarily Scriptural, but it seems to me the third heaven is the heaven of God's dwelling place. It's the holy heaven. And remember that God dwells even above heaven. That's stated in many places. Then, the first heaven, I would suggest, could be the visible heaven that we see—the sun, the moon, and the stars. So, in some way, there remains a second heaven which is never called the second heaven, which is somewhere between the visible heaven and the heaven of God's being. Personally, I believe that's where Satan's kingdom is located.

Let me just offer you this theory, and maybe you'll think I'm very naive. I have travel a lot by jet airplanes. Recently, on the way from New york to India, we were flying at an altitude of 39,000 feet, which is a long, long way up. When I get that high, I sometimes have the feeling I am above Satan's kingdom. It's like it's easy to pray. You don't have to fight your way through opposition. This may be completely my subjective impression, but somewhere or other between God and us is a hostile kingdom which opposes us and seeks to hinder our prayers. And that's why sometimes we have to pray through. You understand? It's not that we're praying out of the will of God; it's not that God is unwilling to hear, but we have to penetrate a hostile kingdom in the heavenlies to reach God.

Rather than speculate, I want to give you a passage from the book of Daniel, which very clearly reveals that this is so. I'm not going to read the whole chapter, but if you're interested, you would do well to read the chapter for yourself later. Daniel chapter 10. This chapter relates how Daniel set aside a period of three weeks for special prayer. He did what we've come to call a Daniel fast. He didn't give up all food, but he only ate the plainest and simplest food, drank no wine, and ate no meat. He was mourning before God on behalf of his people, Israel, who were captives of a Gentile empire. At the end of three weeks, a very glorious angel came to him with the answer to his prayer, which was a revelation from God of what would be the future of his people, which consists of Daniel chapters 11 and 12. But the angel said to him, "The first day you began to pray, your prayer was heard, and I was sent with the answer to your prayer. But it took me three weeks to get through because somewhere between the throne of God and Daniel on earth, I was opposed by satanic angels. And I had to force my way through those angels." So, it's very clear that at the time of Daniel, somewhere between God's throne and earth, there was this satanic kingdom. I believe it's still there. It was still there when Paul wrote Ephesians 6:12, which was at least thirty years after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. In other words, whatever the situation was, it wasn't changed by the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Jesus ascended far above Satan's kingdom, but Satan's kingdom still remained in place.

Then the angel told Daniel, "I've come with the answer to your prayer, and when I leave, I'm going to have to fight my way back through the same angels, and then I'm going to have to fight other satanic angels." The angel that came to Daniel said, "On my way here, the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days." So, for twenty-one days, these angels were battling in the heavenlies. He also speaks about kings of Persia. In the language of the King James, which is used here, I understand the prince was the supreme ruler; the kings were sub-rulers. But they are all concerned with the kingdom or the empire of Persia, which at that time was the largest and most powerful empire on earth. It had 127 provinces. So, Satan had one super-angel who was responsible to him for the whole kingdom of Persia. But this super-angel had other angels that were responsible for different areas within the kingdom of Persia.

This is no theory for me because I've seen in many instances and cases how this principle works. For instance, let's suppose that there were major cities in the empire of Persia, which there were. I think there was one sub-angel over each major city. As I travel from city to city and place to place, I've learned that to be effective in ministry in a certain city, very often, I have to identify the particular satanic power that's at work in that city. And it's different from city to city to city. Again, there were a lot of different nationalities in the Persian empire. My observation is that many times there's a particular satanic king over a particular racial group. Taking the United States, which is made up of many different racial groups and where I've lived now for more than twenty years, my clear impression is that different racial groups have different satanic powers over them. In dealing with those racial groups spiritually, it becomes important to identify the power that's over them.

My name is Cesar and I'm A Voice in the desert

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