Mysteries of the Unseen World

Today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. Greer talks about the spiritual realm. Jesus spent his whole ministry casting out demons. We're not talking about like a side kind of element of his ministry. We're talking about one of the major motifs in his life.

And if you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and you believe that he reveals truth, then you don't really have the option to not believe in an active and vibrant spirit world because he very clearly did. Welcome back to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer.

I'm your host, Molly Bitovitch. So when you think about the concept of demons, what first comes to mind? I think a lot of us picture something probably from Hollywood, like the Ghostbusters running around with their vacuum cleaner trap packs or the latest horror film on Netflix. And it just kind of feels, well, a little out there, you know, the stuff of fiction to us. But today, Pastor J.D. shows us that the spirit world is very real and it affects our lives a lot more than we probably think. We're in our final week of teaching here in the book of Ephesians. So grab your Bible, a pen, and a notebook and let's join Pastor J.D.

as we seek to get a clearer picture of the unseen world. Ephesians 6, starting in verse 11, he says, quote, Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and against the authorities and against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly places. Now, this has actually sort of been a confusing verse to me, that verse 12, because Paul certainly did wrestle against flesh and blood.

Right? I mean, he was beaten at least four times, not by a spirit, but by a Roman whip. That's flesh and blood. He was criticized by flesh and blood. He was imprisoned by flesh and blood. He was abandoned by friends of his who were flesh and blood. So he wrestled against flesh and blood.

But what he is saying is that he realizes that he doesn't wrestle only with flesh and blood. Behind that world of flesh and blood, Paul recognized the presence of a powerful and active spirit world. He calls them cosmic powers of darkness, spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places, or spiritual forces of unbelievable power.

In the oppressive governments, in the dysfunctional relationships, in his bouts with loneliness and depression and even sickness, and in his struggle with pride and temptation, there was something he recognized that was larger and much more powerful at work, a world he could not see with his eyes. C.S. Lewis made the statement in his book Screwtape Letters, whose spirit sometimes people think maybe inhabits my body the amount that I quote him.

C.S. Lewis said this, When it comes to devils and demons, there are two equally wrong and equally damaging errors. The first, he said, is to disbelieve in their existence, but the other is to have an unhealthy interest in them. Those are the two errors I'm going to try to address and deal with out of Ephesians 6. Two errors that people in our culture, in our day, two errors they make about the spirit world.

Here they are again, in case you want to jot these down. Number one, failing to recognize that the spirit world is there. That's the first one. Failing to recognize that it's there. And then secondly, engaging the spirit world wrongly. Engaging the spirit world wrongly.

Alright, let's jump into the first one. Number one, failing to recognize the spirit world is there. Now, the Ephesians to whom Paul is writing. They had absolutely no trouble believing in the presence of demons. The Ephesians were a very spiritual and a very superstitious people. If you recall, back when we started this series on Ephesians, I walked you through Acts 19, where Paul first enters into Ephesus. And one of the things that he does when he gets there is he starts to cast out demons.

And I told you there was this local Ghostbusters type squad that thought that this is great. Here's Paul casting out demons. So they would go up to people that they thought had demons and they would say, hey, hey, we adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches to come out of this person. And in one of the greatest scenes in all of the book of Acts, one of the demons that they're trying to cast out actually stops and has a conversation with them.

This is verse 16 of chapter 19 if you want to look at it later. One of the demons says, excuse me, Jesus I know, I know Jesus, and Paul I have heard of. Which I told you, again, makes me laugh every time of wondering, what does that tell us about Paul I've heard of? Like there's some kind of newsletter that's gone out about Paul talking about who's hot and who's not in the Christian world. He's like, you've got to get this cat, Paul. I mean, what we're talking, this guy is.

Jesus I know, right, but Paul I've heard of, but who are you? And it says, verse 16, that the spirit was so ticked off that they were trying to throw him out that he leapt on them, verse 16, and he mastered them so that they fled out naked and wounded. Remember I pointed out, did he really need to say naked and wounded? Because when you're in a fight and somebody beats the clothes off of you, you're wounded in about every possible way. Right, that's a physical wound, that's a psychological wound, it's an emotional wound.

Somebody beats the pants off of you, that's something you're going to be dealing with for a while. Right, so these people, suffice it to say, they're very aware of the spirit world, very aware of the spirit world. Our culture that we live in has the opposite error. We tend to think that educated people don't really believe in the demonic. They don't show up in our microscopes, and we have microscopes that can see down to some of the smallest matter in the universe. We can see electrons through our microscope, and we're scientific people, so hey, we can't see them.

You can't reproduce them in a test tube, so they're not there. They can't be real because we can't see them. So let me explain to you just for a few minutes here why I do, why I do, just almost by way of introduction to this. I'm going to explain to you why I do and why I've come to be convinced of their existence and why I think something that educated people would only not believe in to their peril.

Okay, here is number one. There's no question that the Bible presents them as real with passages like this one. You know, I mean, it's crystal clear that the Bible writers are talking about it as if it's real.

Primarily, for me, it's the life of Jesus. Jesus spent his whole ministry casting out demons. We're not talking about like a side kind of element of his ministry.

We're talking about one of the major motifs in his life. And if demons are not real, then Jesus is reduced to a buffoon, right, or at least a guy who played on people's imaginations or a comic book figure. I trust, at the end of the day, y'all, I trust that Jesus understands the realities of the universe better than I do. And if you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and you believe that he reveals truth, then you don't really have the option to not believe in an active and vibrant spirit world because he very clearly did. And I've taught you before that faith is accepting what I cannot understand based on what I can understand. And if you understand that Jesus is the Son of God, if you understand that Jesus is the revealer of truth, then I can embrace even things I can't see and get my mind around because I trust and I believe in him who raised from the dead and revealed truth to me.

So number one is I believe in it because Jesus believed in it and the Bible clearly teaches it. The second reason I believe in the spirit world, the reason I believe that world is real is number two, we can see the effects of the demonic world in our world. We can see the effects of the demonic world in our world just like people in the 1850s could see the effects of disease before they could see the actual germs. We can see the effects of demons.

You say, well, how so? Well, look at the two names that Satan is called in this passage, one in verse 11, one in verse 12. Verse 11, he's called a schemer and verse 12, he's called a ruler.

Let's look at those one at a time. Schemer, verse 11 means that his role is to deceive. He comes up with schemes of deception.

You say, well, what scheme is he up to? Well, you've got to understand who he is and where he came from. Isaiah 14, verses 12 through 14 describe the genesis or the beginning of Satan, specifically his fall. Satan, evidently, was one of the highest angels, one of the archangels that God had created and many scholars, many commentators believed that he was like the worship pastor. Basically, for lack of better terms, it's not personal, I'm just saying that's what he was, all right? So he was the worship pastor. And one day he decided he didn't want to be that anymore. He wanted to be sitting on the throne.

And so he makes a speech that Isaiah records and maybe this was an internal speech, I don't know, but here's the way it goes. I will ascend to heaven. I will set my throne on high. I will make myself like the most high God.

You go to look at these verses, you'll see five times Satan says, I will. I will because I know better than God. I will because I want to be the point in that God. I will because I want to be in charge. And I'll do what I want to do because I want to be God.

I will. That's why I told you and I tell my children, when you think of sin, sin is the big I problem. That's all it is. S-I-N, take the middle letter of the word sin. It's when I do what I want to do instead of what God wants me to do. And you might think it's relatively harmless because you might not think of yourself as that bad of a person, but when you say I will instead of God's will, at that point you have undergone cosmic treason of the worst possible type.

I will. Sin is the I problem. And so what Satan is scheming is to get people to choose the same path that he chose. To repeat after him, my will be done instead of God, thy will be done.

Or in the words of Frank Sinatra, I did it my way. That is not a song you want to be humming on Judgment Day, I assure you that, okay? He is scheming to get people to do what he did. I went to the New Testament and tried to pull out this week most of the places where it describes how Satan goes about that. In addition to the stories in the Gospels where you've got him possessing people and making them crazy and all kinds of stuff like that, I just went through the epistles mainly and began to pull out what he was up to.

Watch this. John 8 44, Jesus told us that the devil is the father of lies. 1 John 3 10 calls him the father of hatred and murder. 1 Timothy 4 1 says he spends out false doctrines and corrupts existing doctrines. 2 Corinthians 11 14 and 15 says that he imitates religious authorities. He loves to put on pastor clothes. Even giving many of these religious leaders the ability to imitate signs and wonders.

Genesis 3 1-7 shows us that the devil plants doubts in people's minds about the word of God. Which means he teaches at seminary sometimes. He makes people forget about death and impending judgment and he puffs people up with a sense of self-sufficiency. 1 Corinthians 7 5 tells us that he tempts the saints, specifically the saints, with illicit sex. 2 Corinthians 2 11 tells us that he turns unresolved anger into bitterness in the hearts of God's people. 1 Thessalonians 2 18 tells us he puts obstacles in the way of God's missionaries.

Romans 16 verses 17-20 tell us he sows discord and division over doctrine and leadership among God's people. In Matthew 4 we see that he tempts us with power and makes us question God's love for us and question our identity in him. 2 Corinthians 4 4 he blinds the minds of unbelievers. In Ephesians 2 2 he keeps unbelievers attracted to their sins and even ensnares them so they get addicted to their sins and desires. 2 Timothy 2 26 1 Thessalonians 3 5 he attacks faith wherever he finds it. 1 Timothy 3 6 he puffs up Christian leaders with pride so they fall. Then 2 Timothy 2 24 he brings to the minds of unbelievers the pride and the fall of Christians so they won't take the gospel seriously. Y'all see this?

He is a schemer. And I would say you probably can see the effects of these things in your own life. I know I certainly can in mine. Some of you this is exactly where you are right now. That's what's behind your confusion. That's what's behind the temptations. That is what is behind some of you. Your depression and your despair.

And just because you can't see it at work doesn't mean that it's not there. Here's the second word that's used to describe him. Verse 12 ruler. Ruler or authority or spiritual forces which means that he controls many of the world's systems. Now there's a question among theologians.

I'll let you in on this because I think it's actually kind of important. Verse 12 they wonder whether or not that when Paul says domains and powers and authorities. Whether or not Paul is referring to actual earthly authorities like Caesar. Or if it's a reference to something above that that is unseen that you know then just you know is not really talking about the presidencies and the rulers of the people in our world. And you've got theologians on both sides but there's many other commentators myself among them although I'm not an authority on Ephesians at all. That think that Paul actually left that deliberately ambiguous because he's talking about both of them. What he's showing you is that behind the Caesars of this world there is another authority structure that is at work in and through the existing earthly power structures. Making them his, making them accomplish his will and that he is dominating the direction of the most powerful institutions on earth. You say that's a little like gloom and doomish.

Yeah I realize. But let me show you another conversation Jesus had that's just absolutely fascinating. The temptation. Satan takes Jesus high up on a mountain shows him all the kingdoms of the world. Says you bow down to me I'll give you these. But here's what's amazing to me is the logic that Satan uses.

Listen to this. It's Luke 4 6. To you I will give all this authority and their glory.

For it has been delivered to me and I will give it to whom I will. And here's the thing y'all. Jesus doesn't dispute that.

He's like no man shut up. He acknowledges that that is true. Now it's true that Satan's authority is a derivative and a temporary authority. He couldn't have any authority if God wasn't temporarily tolerating it.

But the fact remains that for now he's the predominant influence and he is the ruler. Or check out the scene in Daniel 10. This is one of my favorite places in the Bible and most confusing.

Daniel the prophet of Daniel and the lions in vain. He's praying and in the midst of his prayer an angel shows up. And the angel is so large and so glorious that Daniel falls down like he's going to die. Which by the way the little picture that we have of angels is kind of chubby with little white satin robes and harps.

Not at all true. I've never seen an angel but I can tell you that's not true because here's why. Every time somebody in the Bible sees an angel the angel's first words are don't die. Don't die. I know you think you're going to die but you're not. And that's what the angel does here with Daniel.

She puts his hand on his shoulder and says fear not. Fear not. Now watch this. For from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God your words have been heard.

And I've come because of your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days. Okay so Daniel starts praying a month ago. And the angel gets dispatched to go and deal with Daniel and help him out in his prayer. But en route somehow he gets tied up with the prince of Persia.

And they're duking it out and they're wrestling it out and there's all kinds of stuff going on. And he says I got held up for 21 days. So I had to you know call my buddy Michael who's the archangel and he's got a lot of like people.

So he rolls up. He came to help me because I was stuck there with the king of Persia. Now I got to return to fight against the prince of Persia. I just had to get away for a little bit come talk to you and then I got to go back. And when I go out the prince of Greece will come. What are you talking about?

Every once in a while you get this little glimpse of some stuff going on in the background. You're like what in the world? Suffice it to say Satan is the ruler and he's the power behind this world. He is the dominating influence. The world governments are his governments. It's Wall Street is his Wall Street. It's entertainment is his entertainment. It's record companies are his record companies. It's newspapers are his newspapers.

It's educational system is his educational system. And if you want to exceed in those arenas he's going to bombard you with enticement to play by his rules. That certainly does not mean you should not be there and should not be active because we're to be there showing the subversive revolutionary kingdom of Jesus in those. But what that means is that because they are so influenced he is going to always bombard you to play by his rules.

And I would tell you that whether you're religious or not whether you are spiritual or not you can see unmistakable evidence of his work in and through human history and that he has indeed ruled it. You look at certain chapters of human history and you're like how could that have happened? Like take for example the Holocaust. Have you ever talked to a German person about the Holocaust? They're immediately hit with a mortified embarrassment.

Have you ever talked to them about this? Because they can't understand how that could have happened in their country. We're not talking about an afternoon where everybody got ticked off and went out and did some racist things. We're talking about years of scheming and planning the complete annihilation of a certain type of person. It was not only justified by philosophers and ratified by government leaders. It was backed by religious leaders in Germany at the time. And you get away from that and they look back on it from 40, 50 years later and they're like I don't know how that could have happened. The Bible says well I can tell you how it happened. There was an enemy whose goal was to kill, to steal, and to destroy that was taking some of the natural weaknesses of mankind and was amplifying them and pouring nitrous on them until it turned into utter annihilation. Or take another one, child pornography. We're talking about something beyond aberrant desires.

Wouldn't you agree? And I've even known of people who were in that for a while then after they got out they almost look back on it and say the same kind of thing. Like I'm not even sure what was happening. I don't understand how I could have gotten into that. The Bible will tell you why. Because you have an enemy who is scheming to kill and pervert and twist and destroy. He amplifies evil and persuades us to do the most vile things.

Can't you see that? Can't you see that there's something greater at work in the world than just human dysfunction or bad parenting? I mean seriously, even if you don't consider yourself religious and even if you're like I don't believe in this stuff, look at human history. Can't you see that there's something beyond just human dysfunction?

Our culture doesn't recognize the reality of the spirit world. I will point out though that interestingly to me the idea of evil has made a comeback in our century. You see at the beginning of the 20th century the idea was that evil could all be explained by psychological and sociological and biological factors.

And the idea was if you could change those factors, give people better homes, better education, change your economic status, then everything would just self-correct. And then we live to the bloodiest century of mankind. And a lot of people coming out the other side are like, wait a minute, where does all that come from? The Bible has an answer. It comes from an enemy whose role is to kill, to steal, and to destroy.

I've got an Andrew Delbanco, a self-described secular liberal at Columbia University, recently wrote a book called The Death of Satan. And it got a lot of interest and attention. He opens the book, the first lines in these books are these very poignant lines, listen to this. The gulf has opened in our culture between the visibility of evil and our intellectual resources for coping with it. The evil that was always there is still there. But since we have gotten rid of the idea of sin and sinners, and we've gotten rid of the idea of original sin, and we've gotten rid of the idea of the devil, and we've gotten rid of the idea of all the transcendent aspects of evil, now we're absolutely astounded by the fact that there is clearly something beyond what we can manage or control here, but we have no way of dealing with it anymore. Delbanco says he thinks the best place in modern literature where this is evident is in the novel that later became a movie, The Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal Lecter, Anthony Hopkins, is an incredibly evil man, and Jodie Foster, who plays Officer Starling, at one point is listening to the things that Anthony Hopkins or Hannibal Lecter is saying, and she interrupts with them. She says, wait, what could have made you like this?

What happened to you? And Delbanco notes in his book, he said, those are such modern questions she is asking. They assume that we're only wrestling with flesh and blood. She's like, what biological thing caused this? What psychological thing?

Did your parents not potty train you right? Is that what's going on here? And Hannibal looks back at her.

Do you remember this thing? Hannibal looks back at her and says, Why? Nothing has happened to me, Officer Starling. I haven't. You can't reduce me to a set of influences. You've given up good and evil for behaviorism, Officer Starling. You've got everybody in moral dignity pants. Oh, it's never anybody's fault, is it?

Look at me, Officer Starling. Can't you stand to say that even I am evil? Delbanco makes the comment in the book, he says, these words are the epitome of the modern horror and dilemma. The horror of knowing that we cannot answer the monster's question. So maybe you are not religious at all. But I'm just telling you, most of us can see things that are going on in the world that are beyond biological abnormalities. And I would even argue one step further that most of you, practically speaking, can see the effects of the spirit world on your own life and in your own family. Don't fail to recognize that the spiritual world is there. It's all around you.

That is the first error people make about this unseen realm. Join us tomorrow on Summit Life for the conclusion of this message titled Mysteries of the Unseen World. If you've missed any part of our study in Ephesians this month, you can catch up any time by visiting us online at J.D. Greer dot com to help you gain greater clarity into the mystery of God's love.

We've created an exclusive new resource based on our current study here on the program. It's a personal Bible study called Mystery and Clarity. The Book of Ephesians, the interactive questions and insightful commentaries will help you walk verse by verse through the Book of Ephesians. Plus, we've included a scripture memory component in this resource to help solidify these truths in your heart. As we said back in January, we wanted to make committing scripture to memory a priority this year. And one of the best ways to allow scripture to speak into our lives minute by minute is to commit it to memory so that we can dwell on it constantly.

So jump back on board and let's commit God's word to our heart here in 2021. We'd love for you to request a copy of the Ephesians Bible study today when you donate to support this ministry at the suggested level of twenty five dollars or more. This is the final week to reserve your copy, so don't wait. You can also help us continue reaching your fellow listeners by joining the team of gospel partners who make this ministry possible. Give today and be sure to ask for your copy titled Mystery and Clarity.

The Book of Ephesians. Call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220 or go online to J.D. Greer dot com. I'm Molly Bidevich inviting you to join us tomorrow when we continue this message on spiritual warfare. Listen Wednesday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.