FIGHTING IN THE SPIRIT WORLD

What is your understanding of the spirit world? Who resides in the spirit realm? What laws govern this reality? Do you know how to conduct spiritual warfare? These are just a few questions that every Christian should be able to answer unwaveringly in order to effectively conduct spiritual warfare.

The Bible states that God is a Spirit and He can only be worshipped in spirit and in truth.[1] God dwells in the spirit world in a place known as heaven. This is where the city of God is located. Angels are spirit beings created to carry out the work of God in heaven as well as the physical universe in which we reside.[2]

While angels are from the spirit world, they are not ghosts. They are just as solid as you and I, meaning that angel to angel is solid just as flesh to flesh is solid. They were designed to operate in the spirit realm as well as the physical world.[3]

Lucifer is a fallen angel that rebelled against God. He is also known as Satan, the Devil, and that old serpent. He is from the spirit world and so are all the other fallen angels and demons. They have been confined to the earth and its atmosphere and are no longer allowed to roam in the physical universe or heaven.[4] The Bible describes the angels as numerous as the stars, so this rebellion represented one third of a virtually unlimited number.[5]

Fallen angels generally do not possess people as this practice usually falls to demons.[6] There is a specific instance where the Bible informs us that Lucifer entered into Judas Iscariot.[7] But I am getting ahead of myself now. Let me take you back to the largest war ever fought. I am not referring to World War 2. While this was an enormous conflict that affected the whole earth, it was limited to just our planet and is miniscule in comparison to the space war that engulfed the universe when Lucifer and an untold number of angels rebelled against God. This took place prior to the creation of Adam and Eve. We don’t know how long this conflict lasted, but the residual damage from the battles marred and destroyed different planets throughout the universe and the final battle was fought in our solar system.[8]

Michael is an archangel and his forces served with valor, providing security at the trial of Lucifer afterwards. These angelic forces are still in charge of Lucifer, the fallen angels and every evil spirit loose on the earth so that their attacks upon the human race don’t go beyond the parameters set at the trial of Lucifer.

Michael and his forces are in charge of Abraham and his offspring, which also includes the church of Jesus Christ.[9]

Gabriel has been the chief messenger in the New Testament, appearing to Zacharias (the father of John the Baptist) and to a virgin named Mary who would give birth to the Messiah.[10]

There were angels assigned to guard Jesus during His time on earth as the God/man. An elite force of twelve legions were put in charge of His security.

A Roman legion was built upon a century comprised of eighty men. Six centuries of eighty men formed a cohort and ten cohorts made up a legion. The infantry was supported by one hundred twenty horsemen who acted as scouts and dispatch riders. The legion could be further augmented by auxiliaries, cavalry, archers, and slingers. There were also engineers, artillerymen, craftsmen, service and support personnel, and irregular units made up of mercenaries and local militia. In addition, every legion had a large baggage train for the soldiers’ equipment as well as camp followers, servants and slaves. Legions could contain as many as 11,000 fighting men with the inclusion of auxiliaries.

This meant that legions typically numbered anywhere from 5,200 to 6,000 soldiers. If we were to use the number 5,500, we could deduce that Jesus had a personal bodyguard of some 66,000 angels during His earthly ministry.

A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW

Lucifer and the fallen angels were all sentenced to the Lake of Fire for their part in the rebellion.[11] The Devil immediately challenged the ruling and accused God of being unrighteous. His reasoning was simple. How could a loving God cast His created beings into everlasting torment? The insurrection trial was not held in secrecy and God stood accused in front of the angels – holy and unholy. It was a question that had to be addressed or the angels would forever doubt God’s justice and attitude toward those that had rebelled.

Lucifer and his minions would be confined to the earth and its skies while God set about proving the sentence to the Lake of Fire was fair. The measured response from the Godhead was designed to prove their righteousness and remove any doubt introduced by Lucifer.

Since Jesus is also Creator, He was given the task of refurbishing the earth and making it ready for the creation of the human race. Jesus was allotted six days for the refurbishment and creation of Adam and Eve.[12] Jesus had six thousand years to accomplish this task since one day for God is like a thousand years for mankind.[13]

Adam and Eve were ushered in to the beautiful Garden of Eden sometime on the sixth day, and since the next day was a day of rest for the Lord, they enjoyed a beautiful life in paradise for more than a thousand years.[14]

Humanity was created for one reason. Adam and Eve were going to prove God’s righteousness. They were going to live in a perfect world with no evil for a time. Jesus wanted them to fully understand what a great life He had provided for them, asking only for their love and loyalty in return.

The entire garden was theirs to explore and enjoy; however, Jesus specified there was one thing which was off limits. In the middle of the garden was a special tree called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve were allowed to eat the fruit from everything else except this one tree.[15]

Adam and Eve abstained from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil for a thousand years during the day of rest. They did not question why this particular tree existed and were obedient to Jesus’ instructions. Satan and his minions were merely spectators during this time, unable to participate and interact with humanity.

The conditions changed on the eighth day when the prohibitions on Lucifer were removed. He immediately seduced the serpent, convincing the snake to loan out his body, and targeted Eve as the weakest link. He found her alone and Eve did not register surprise that the serpent was talking to her, indicating the animals had the ability to speak before the fall of man.

Eve was blissfully ignorant about Lucifer, the angelic rebellion, and the subsequent war in the universe. Lucifer used the serpent to tell Eve that God was withholding things from her and that she could become divine if she ate from the forbidden fruit. Satan’s words appealed to her intellect. While she had spent time in the presence of Jesus, the Son of God had never personally instructed her about the forbidden tree. Adam related to her what he had been told by Jesus.[16]

Eve looked longingly at the fruit and fell for the lie of becoming like God. She was doomed the moment her teeth bit into the fruit. Adam came along afterwards and Lucifer watched gleefully as she convinced him to join her rebellion. Adam and Eve represented humanity and they had exercised their free will to reject Jesus.

Lucifer had made his point after questioning God’s righteousness. The Godhead had no other choice than to prove themselves, and to do that, they had to set him loose on the earth with his minions. Adam was no longer king of the earth. The lordship transferred to Satan as he became the prince of this world.[17]

It is interesting to note that when Jesus returns to earth as the King of kings and Lord of lords, He is coming to confront the Antichrist and defeat his armed forces. Then Satan will be bound for a thousand years (one day) and Jesus will once again refurbish the earth and set up His glorious millennial kingdom. During this time, those who survived the time of the Antichrist and refused the Mark of the Beast will repopulate the earth. The population will be so vast at the end of the millennium that people are described as the sand of the sea.

Since Lucifer has been bound for a thousand years, the logical assumption is that all fallen angels and demons have also been hindered from attacking people on the earth. None of the people born during the millennium can be saved because there is no sin temptation. They will have a fallen nature and need to be born again, but with Jesus ruling the earth from Jerusalem, sin will be repressed. They have been effectively living with a free will on the earth in which there is no temptation. This is why Satan will be loosed from the bottomless pit. He will provide a temptation in the form of a choice. Just like in the Garden of Eden, the people of the millennium will have to declare their loyalty and choose whom they want to serve.[18]

The Bible says that the majority of the people will choose Lucifer. Thus, when they are cast into the Lake of Fire, they have chosen to sin and reject Jesus. This last act of Satan on earth will forever prove God’s righteous. It is not God’s fault when created beings choose to sin. They deserve to suffer the consequences of their rebellion. They did not have to sin; they chose to embrace iniquity and reject the love of God.[19]

What happen to the rebellious angels and humans? They cannot be allowed to float around in the spirit world for eternity. They also cannot be killed since they were created to live forever. Thus, they have to be confined to a place from which there is no escape. At the same time, they must also make restitution for their grievous sins over eternity.

SHORT SUMMARY

Angels were created with a free will. Lucifer exercised his free will and chose to sin.[20] He then convinced one third of the angels to join his rebellion.[21] God did not have a redemption plan for angels. They were doomed once they exercised their free will and sinned.[22] There was a trial in which Lucifer and the fallen angels were sentenced to the Lake of Fire.[23] Lucifer objected and the sentence was temporarily stayed so that God could prove His righteousness.[24] Lucifer took advantage of this reprieve and insisted on the legal right to challenge any action by God. [25] An example of this is found with Job.[26]

THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT (ROE)

God is omnipotent and there was no way Lucifer could directly challenge God unless He were to limit Himself in His dealing with Lucifer. This must have been discussed after the trial as Lucifer recognized he could not compete with God. No angel has the necessary power to strive against and overcome their Creator.

God resolved to limit Himself in order to give Lucifer a fair chance at challenging people and winning them over to his side. To redeem mankind, God limited Himself to only using humans to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is why there is no event recorded in the Bible of angels preaching. They show up with a message from the Lord, but stop short of presenting the gospel message. Nevertheless, God reserved the right to intervene if Lucifer broke the rules of engagement.

The holy angels that remain cannot be tempted. They chose to stay with God and are now locked in so to speak. They no longer have a free will and this is why they cannot sin. We can see that this is true when examining the story of a Roman centurion named Cornelius.

Cornelius believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He was a praying man who also gave money to Jewish people in need. Although a contemporary of Jesus, he had never heard about the Messiah. His prayers and actions were noticed in heaven and Jesus decided that He wanted the man to be saved. An angel who was undoubtably familiar with the gospel message was dispatched. The angel was immune to any satanic temptation and manipulation, but was limited in what he could share with Cornelius according to the rules of engagement. The angel instructed Cornelius to send servants to an address in the city of Joppa and summon the apostle Peter, who would subsequently tell Cornelius what he needed to know.

Unlike the angel, Peter could be derailed by Satan and his minions and the apostle was unsure at first what to think about the situation. God has not placed any limitations on the Holy Spirit, who instructed Peter to confidently go with the men. Thus, Satan could not lodge an objection to the chain of events not being fair. He had full access to Peter but was rejected as the apostle obeyed the Holy Spirit and went to share the good news of Jesus.[27]

SATAN DEVIATES FROM THE ROE

Lucifer knew there was no redemption plan for angels and he came up with a plan to change that. If human beings could be contaminated in some way that God would reject them, it would open the door to redemption for him. The solution was to pollute the human race and create a hybrid race that was angelic and human. This would effectively force God to come up with a new plan that included angels and give Lucifer a chance to avoid the Lake of Fire. Lucifer knew that there was a spiritual law which restricted angels from intermingling with humanity, but being the father of all lies, he went ahead with the plan.[28]

The Bible records that this took place sometime after Adam and Eve sinned. The details are scarce but we know that once the fallen angels started their hybrid program, the human race became exceedingly wicked and evil thoughts consumed them. At the same time, the fallen angels shared technological information and trained the new offspring in the art of making metal weapons and making genetic changes to animals and vegetation so that the whole earth became corrupted. As a result, God decided to kill every living thing on the surface of the earth with exception of Noah, his wife, three sons, and their wives. These eight people had no corruption in their blood and they were to repopulate the earth again after the worldwide flood killed every living thing.[29] This was actually the second such worldwide flood. The first one took place after Lucifer had been defeated in the space war.[30]

The narrative at the beginning of the Bible is incomplete. Jesus wanted Adam and Eve to know about the refurbishing of the earth and used the term “replenish” to describe the work He had done, but the Son of God did not want them to know anything about Lucifer, the prior kingdom on earth, his rebellion, the space war, or the sentencing to the Lake of Fire. Nor did Jesus want Adam and Eve to know that Lucifer appealed his sentence and subsequent accusation of God being unrighteous. The first humans knew they were specifically created to prove God’s righteousness. When the serpent showed up at the garden, Eve was not aware that she was speaking with Lucifer. She just thought that she was talking to a friendly snake.

Enoch was not born until around 600 years after Eve’s encounter with Lucifer in the Garden of Eden. Just like the apostle John was taken to heaven to be given a revelation, Enoch was taken to heaven on several occasions and given information about the fallen angels, who they were, and how they operated. This was not known by mankind until it was revealed to Enoch. Before his translation, Enoch was commissioned to record everything he had learned from God and preserve it for future generations. It was Noah that brought the writings of Enoch into the ark and this is how his amazing account survived the flood. The Genesis account up to the flood was never merged with Enoch’s account and this is still true today. Nevertheless, snippets of Enoch’s writings have been inserted into the Old and New Testaments.

The full story of the creation of the universe, angels, and the redemption plan for the human race was not completely revealed until the Book of Revelation came into existence. The grand plan of the Godhead for the creation of the universe was never understood by mankind until the twentieth century. The complete dissolvement of the universe, a new universe, the Great White Throne Judgment, and the second return of Jesus is still not understood by many Christians. It is clear that God has purposely closed the minds of His people for a full understanding of His purpose until the end of times as spoken to Daniel by an angel some 2,600 years ago.[31] The great mystery of the entire creation is that God is triune, and when He stood accused by Lucifer, He created the human race, which He knew would fall into sin. When God the Father sent God the Son to be incarnated and live a sinless life, take the sin of humanity upon Himself, and then be judged by the Father and pay for the sins of mankind, that is the greatest mystery in creation.[32] This truth was not known until after the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It is in the first book of Enoch that we are given more details about fallen angels procreating with human women.[33] While Enoch’s writings are not officially included in the Bible and considered canon, his testimony was good enough that Jesus, Peter, and Jude quoted his writings in the New Testament.[34] Here is what the Bible says about Enoch:

“By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” (Hebrews 11:5)

According to Enoch, Lucifer selected two hundred fallen angels to pollute the human race. Their headquarters was on Mount Hermon, located in modern day Syria.[35] During Noah’s flood, the two hundred fallen angels were captured, chained and cast into a prison place called Tartarus. While both hell and Tartarus are located under the surface of the earth, this is a different prison designed especially for fallen angels.[36]

Using the genealogy found in Genesis chapter five, Noah’s flood took place some 1,670 years after Adam and Eve sinned.

DWELLING PLACES OF FALLEN ANGELS

Lucifer and his fallen angels do not dwell on the surface of the earth, but have built habitations high in the atmosphere. This is why Lucifer is referred to as the “prince of the power of the air” by the apostle Paul.[37]

The earth and its atmosphere are a giant prison run by God’s holy angels. Lucifer, the fallen angels and the evil spirits are confined to the earth, where the battle to prove God’s righteousness is fought on a daily basis. They are prohibited from leaving the earth.[38]

Many years ago, I had a vision from the Lord. I was awakened in the middle of the night and taken to a huge cube hovering over the city of Sacramento. I realized that the cube was a city that had been suspended in the air. I was taken to different levels and shown offices and beings working in them. There were elevators between the different floors and the cube was solid as I walked around inside. I sensed strong evil in the cube and I was relieved when I was returned to my bed. What I had saw was very real; it was not a dream and I planned to write down all the details when I got up in the morning. That was a mistake because I could not remember all the details later on. The specifics of who I met and what I was told was gone from my memory.

Sometime later the Holy Spirit pointed out to me, that the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven to the new earth is a cube measuring 1,377 miles in height, width, and depth.  To put that into perspective, it is about the same distance from the California coast to the eastern portion of Colorado. The understanding I was given was that this is normal for angelic cities on the different planets in the universe and this is how Satan and the fallen angels live now. That is why he is called the prince of the power of the air.

Evil spirits, also known as devils or demons, dwell on the surface of the earth. They are Lucifer’s foot soldiers, attacking humans and using their bodies to further the kingdom of Satan.

LUCIFER CHANGED TACTICS

It took Noah a hundred years to complete the construction of the ark during which he also preached repentance and salvation to the people around him. Noah’s family of eight knew a lot about God, possessing the written account of the creation and the books of Enoch. They knew the difference between God and Lucifer, the holy and unholy angels, and about demons.

After the flood, Noah’s three sons began to procreate and there was rapid growth. Noah was 600 years old when he entered the ark and he lived another 350 years after the flood. We can see the population explosion from reading the genealogy of Noah’s sons.[39]

Despite the traumatic global flood and drifting on waters for some two months, Noah’s family did not seem that impressed to teach their offspring about God. Noah went from being a fiery preacher and a man that found grace from God to growing a vineyard and getting drunk.[40]

Logic would dictate that Lucifer was responsible for inspiring Noah to build a vineyard and gradually making him dependent upon alcohol. Noah preached about God, repentance and the coming judgment for 100 years but did not get a single convert outside his family. It is possible that he became discouraged and lost all interest in teaching his offspring about God. None of his sons set up an educational system and it did not take long until the third and fourth generation was ignorant about the flood catastrophe and God. Clearly there was a remnant – not named in the Bible – that kept the written accounts of the creation and life before the flood, including the books of Enoch.

There is no doubt that Lucifer discussed a need with the leadership of fallen angels to create a religious department where they could create different religions that would be taught to the humans by demons. It is estimated there are some 4,200 different religions being practiced by people around the world today.

The war that raged across the universe after Lucifer’s rebellion was not a single battle. It would have been a protracted conflict requiring strategy. Undoubtedly, they had a war department and it would be naive to think that one does not exist on earth to govern the human wars. Demons possessed people and taught them how to fight. It is in the book of Daniel that we are given insight that over each nation is a “prince” (archon in Greek) that is the ruler over the people in nation.[41]

I am sure that evil spirits worked day and night on Noah and his family to make sure that they did not set up an educational system that would teach the new generations about God. Once they began to move away from where Noah lived, they were empty vessels for the demons to influence about false religions and making idols from stone and wood. The tenth chapter of Genesis shows the degeneration of mankind and the rise of Nimrod to become king through violence.

REFLECTIONS

During my 56 years as a disciple of Jesus, my skill level in understanding the Bible has grown over time. In my early years I treated the Bible like a puzzle. I looked at different books, chapters and verses, but it was not until some 20 years ago that I changed my perspective of the Bible. I began to ask the following questions:

• Were there different stages of the creation?

• How could a rebellion and a universal war break out if the creation was initially good?

• What are the dynamics between God and Satan?

• Why did God create the Lake of Fire?

• Why did God create mankind?

• Why did God put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden and instruct Adam not to eat from it?

With the knowledge that a day with the Lord is the equivalent to a thousand years for mankind, a completely new concept came forth. If the refurbishment of the earth and the creation of vegetation, birds, fishes and man took six days (6,000 years), why did God rest on the seventh day? Do you also realize that Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden during this time before Lucifer showed up to tempt them? Once I understood this concept, I began to examine the Book of Revelation where it states that there will be a millennial reign with Christ on the earth in the end times and the Devil will tempt the people born during this period.

Then it dawned upon me that it was a time period of seven days before Lucifer tempted Adam and Eve. It is now six days later from that time – day thirteen if you will – and when you factor in the millennial reign of Christ in the future (one day) with Lucifer showing up at the end, is it possible that God set aside fourteen days to prove His righteousness? It certainly is a plausible theory. Time will tell if it is correct.

I was born and educated before the age of computers. Once the computer age started after 1955, the technology on earth leaped ahead. The Holy Spirit pointed out to me that the technology we have on earth is a crude replica of the things that that exist in the spirit world where heaven exists.

When you examine the different passages in the Bible it tells us that Jesus came down to Mount Sinai in some kind of craft.[42] The prophet Elijah was removed by some kind of flying craft that Elisha described as a “chariot of fire.”[43] The prophet Ezekiel described a craft with wheels that featured a portable throne where Jesus sat.[44] My understanding is that angels travel in space and some travel outside the universe to visit the city of God in heaven.

THE TOWER OF BABEL

With this knowledge, I would like to examine the Tower of Babel. Most people have probably never given much thought to the language that God created for Adam and Eve to speak. That did not change after the flood. Thus, Noah and his descendants spoke the same language as Adam. It must have grieved the Godhead when they saw the backsliding of Noah and his family and how Lucifer’s religious department was able to create one religion after the other, convincing people to worship lifeless idols of wood, stone, gold and silver. The worship of these images was predicated upon lies.

There is no doubt in my mind that Lucifer used demons to entice people to build a tower in the city of Babel. We know from the book of Revelation that Satan will establish a one world government with a despot that he will control. Lucifer must have thought this was the perfect time to implement his plan since there was a common language that everyone spoke, and with the tower in Babel, this would be the city from which he would rule the world.

The Godhead realized that unless the project was halted, the human race would be unmanageable under the control of Satan and their plan for the Messiah would be in jeopardy. Holy angels were dispatched and the masses were divided into groups. Each group was assigned a certain language that was supernaturally uploaded to their soul brains.[45] This is similar to updating the firmware of a router, camera or cell phone.[46] Once the project was finished, angels ferried the different language groups in their craft and scattered them all over the earth.[47] There was no migration; it was a planned distribution according to the will of the Godhead. Since I take the Bible literally, I reject the theory of evolution and its belief that people migrated to different places of the earth. The scattering of humanity was a well-organized event carried out by holy angels.

THE AGE OF PAGANISM

Lucifer and the fallen angels realized that they had been defeated again. But the war was far from over and their next step was to possess mankind with demons and mold them into hardcore pagan worshipers. The generation removed from Babel had full knowledge of what transpired when the holy angels transported them via spacecraft. It is astounding that within three generations the knowledge was lost and replaced with various religions which required blood sacrifices to the demon gods.[48]

The demons made them fanatical to kill those who refused to worship their particular god. Lucifer was not satisfied with animal sacrifices; he wanted human sacrifices and many of the different religions put men, women and children on the altars. The age of paganism has never ended.

THE CALLING OF ABRAHAM

Some 1,900 years after Noah’s flood the Godhead realized that no human had the power to break loose from the worship of demon gods. Another intervention was needed since almost all people were pagan worshipers. The Godhead had no choice but to call a pagan to repent and worship the real God.

The Godhead selected a Chaldean in the city of Ur named Terah. He was not only a pagan, but he also manufactured pagan statuettes and sold them to the public. Terah was from the bloodline of Shem.[49]

My personal belief is that God had called Terah since he decided to leave the city of Ur (located in southern Iraq) and travel to the land of Canaan; however, for some reason, he stopped at the city of Haran.[50] The Godhead did not force Terah out of Haran, but the calling passed to his son, Abram, who was pagan like this father. Jesus was given the task of speaking to Abram and converting him to belief in the real God.[51] The war between God and Lucifer entered a new phase as it became Jesus versus the false deities.

SETTING UP THE BLOODLINE FOR JESUS

Abraham had a manager in the Son of God but he also had an adversary in Satan. The trial of Lucifer and his objection to the Lake of Fire gave him the right to tempt each person that God selects. This is clearly spelled out in the book of Job. There is a courthouse somewhere in the universe, more than likely the same courthouse where Lucifer was tried and sentenced. This is where he goes to receive permission to strike people who are working for Jesus.

Job was a threat to Lucifer. He loved the Godhead and refused to worship idols. He was a preacher of righteousness, and as such, he would lead other people out of idolatry and turn to the living God. Lucifer used a legal trick to get permission to strike Job. He told Jesus that Job only served God because he had been blessed by the Son of God. Lucifer was confident that Job would curse God if his blessings were removed. Jesus was legally bound to allow Lucifer to prove his point. When the first attack on Job did not work, Lucifer returned to the courthouse and demanded a second attempt. This time it would be with Job’s body.[52] However, Job did not break and Lucifer activated three of Job’s friends that subsequently accused Job of pride and sin. These “friends” repeatedly accused Job, trying to break him into confessing that he had been attacked because of sin. Eventually, Lucifer was removed from the situation. Jesus restored Job’s health and gave him a double blessing. The Son of God rebuked Job’s three friends for their lies and instructed them to humble themselves and have Job pray for them.[53]

THE TESTING OF ABRAHAM

There was no logical reason to make Abraham and Sarah wait 25 years for Isaac to be born. So why did they have to wait so long for God’s promise to be fulfilled? Lucifer demanded the right to tempt Abraham and try to destroy him. Jesus was obligated to let Abraham and Sarah travel around the land of Canaan until he was 100 years old and she was 90.

Lucifer tried to have Abraham killed with a famine in the land of Canaan. They sought refuge in Egypt and Sarah’s beauty caused her to be brought to Pharaoh’s palace with obvious sexual intentions. Jesus intervened and forced Pharaoh to return Sarah to Abraham and send them out of Egypt.[54]

Lucifer then began working on Sarah, using her advanced age to attack her mind with thoughts that she would never conceive. Just like Eve, she bit into the lie and told Abraham to impregnate her slave girl, Hagar, and in this way, fulfil the promise of a child. Ishmael was born as a result. This desperate plan conceived in the flesh would go on to backfire greatly, causing heartache for them and succeeding generations. In the meantime, Lucifer had not counted on the forgiveness that Jesus bestowed upon Abraham and Sarah and in due time she conceived and gave birth to Isaac.[55]

Abraham also struggled with lying. It came naturally to him and the Bible records how his mouth often got him into trouble. Prior to Isaac’s birth, Abraham visited the city of Gerar and lied to its king. It was necessary for Jesus to intervene in order to save Sarah from being violated by King Abimelech.[56]

Lucifer was not done with Abraham. He wanted to discredit the man and destroy his name and reputation. Sarah died at the age of 127. Abraham’s libido was still strong and he married a woman named Keturah with whom he had six sons. He also had children from a number of concubines. He was quite the busy man in the 38 years after Sarah’s death. Sadly, before he died at the age of 175, he drove Keturah, her children, along with the concubines and their children eastward out of the land of Canaan.[57]

Jewish history claims that Keturah, the concubines and all their children ended up in what is today India. The legend states that the children of Abraham became the founders of the Brahma caste in India.

SUMMARY OF ABRAHAM

The reason that I have detailed the life of Abraham is to show that the man selected by the Godhead to be the founder of the bloodline of Jesus was compromised by Lucifer. Yet, the Son of God did not abandon him. It was Abraham’s faith in God that saved him. That certainly didn’t make him the poster boy of righteousness.[58] There are no perfect people on earth. Everyone is a sinner who has fallen short of God’s standard. Not a single person in the past was perfect. No such person exists today.[59] Despite the onslaught of Lucifer and his minions, it is only the redemption plan of Jesus that makes it possible for the Godhead to use sinful men.[60]

In order to understand the battle for humanity, it is important to grasp that the Godhead operated exclusively with Abraham and his descendants. The only exceptions were Job and the wise men from Chaldea that arrived two years after the incarnation of Jesus. It was not until the Son of God came to earth as the Redeemer that all nations were able to embrace this redemption and be saved. For some 2,000 years the knowledge of God was limited to the people that followed after the Creator. There was a remnant such as Job and those that adhered to the star gospel, but the majority of the earth’s population embraced idolatry and they and their descendants were abandoned by the Godhead and they went to hell when they died. God communicated through prophets from the twelve tribes of Jacob who resided in the Middle East. No prophets were sent elsewhere and this is evident in the civilizations that sprang up on other continents.

THE LONG ROAD TO THE COMING OF JESUS

Time is not of essence in the spirit world since no one ages. The time from Abraham until the incarnation of Jesus was around two thousand years or two days in the spirit world. For the offspring of Abraham, it was a brutal period with heavy losses. I would estimate that only a small percentage of the people of Israel were saved during this time period. The rest embraced idolatry and died in their sins.[61]

The Holy Spirit did not dwell in the Old Testament believers, which made them weaker to resist the Devil. They could be anointed like Samson, but since the Holy Spirit was not dwelling in them as with New Testament believers, it was more difficult to oppose and withstand spiritual evil.

People living during the Old Testament period were limited in knowledge. Abraham only had access to what was written in the book of Genesis up to his time and the books of Enoch. God imparted more knowledge with each succeeding generation and the Israelites experienced a huge leap forward when Moses received the Torah or Pentateuch. Intercessory prayer was unknown to the masses. They simply cried out to God for help. Jesus had to repeatedly intervene with holy angels to stop Lucifer from totally destroying the offspring of Abraham.

ISAAC

The same demons that influenced Abraham to lie transferred to Isaac at his father’s death. He lied when asked if Rebecca was his wife, repeating his father’s invention that she was his sister.[62]

God blessed Isaac with wealth and an abundance of herds of cattle and sheep but he did not rule his family well. Isaac favored Esau while Rebecca favored Jacob. The Bible does not record that Isaac was a man of prayer. He did nothing to further the work of God in his lifetime. Isaac achieved nothing and was merely a “caretaker” of the faith.[63]

JACOB

Jacob certainly lived up to his name which means “swindler” or “supplanter.” He was a liar just like his father and grandfather. He was filled with his selfish desires and in this state he certainly had no intention of working for God. He met his match after cheating Esau out of his birthright and being exiled. Uncle Laban was a pagan worshiper and a shrewd liar. Jacob fell in love with Laban’s daughter, Rachel, but during the wedding festivity, Laban cunningly sent in her veiled older sister and Jacob discovered the swap too late after the marriage was consummated.

Jesus clearly stated that marriage was to be between a man and a woman.[64] Polygamy was another way for Lucifer to pollute the human race because men are allured by the idea of more than one wife. Jacob took Rachel as a second wife and then Lucifer added two slave women from Rachel and Leah.[65]

Laban owned house gods to whom he prayed. All his children, including Rachel and Leah, worshiped these pagan demon statues.[66] This is not the background of a godly family, but one of a polygamous, demon infested household that God would choose to use to produce the twelve tribes of Israel.

Jacob would go on to have several encounters with Jesus. The first encounter was in a dream and he was given the same promise that had been committed to his father and grandfather. The pledge Jacob made when he woke up was not very spiritual when he promised to stay faithful to the God of his fathers, but only if God took care of him and met his needs.[67]

Jacob did not pursue God; rather, it was Jesus that continually pursued Jacob. On his return to Canaan, the Son of God wrestled with Jacob one night. Jacob asked for a blessing, but never fully committed himself to serving the God of his fathers.[68]

Later, Jesus called Jacob to Bethel. Confronted with the holiness of God, Jacob ordered his family and slaves to get rid of all idols and travel with him to Bethel to worship. Curiously, Jacob did not destroy the different pagan statues, but hid them in the ground.[69]

Jacob never had a good understanding about God and what had happened in the past. He was not a praying man and was only concerned about riches. As a result, ten of his sons turned out to be scoundrels. They refused to tolerate the God-given dreams of their younger brother, Joseph, and sold him to slave traders bound for Egypt.

Lucifer and his band of fallen angels and demons had polluted Jacob’ family to the point that no one was seeking God, showing any interest in the Scriptures, or trying to help people to get out of idolatry. It was Jesus who repeatedly contacted Jacob and pulled him along. Satan must have thought there was no way God could use this dysfunctional family to be part of the bloodline of the Messiah. But God had a plan. Never mind that it didn’t make sense, His resolve to see it through would persistently confound Lucifer in his attempt to obstruct the Godhead.[70] Joseph would become a shining light from this cesspool.

JOSEPH

Only a few men had understood the battle in the spirit world up to this point in history. Enoch left behind written accounts of what he saw when he was taken to heaven.[71] Noah became the first evangelist to preach repentance. Even though it never rained, he believed God’s warning and built an ark while simultaneously crying out for people to seek the Lord. Unfortunately, the only converts were his immediate family.[72]

Joseph was the first child that Rachel had with Jacob.[73] As such, he was dressed in special clothing that set him apart from his siblings and they hated him for it.[74] In reading the Bible, it is possible to see that Joseph was selected by the Godhead to be the leader of his family. The sons of Jacob would become the foundation for the future nation of Israel. While his brothers were trained in agriculture, Jacob made Joseph his personal inspector of the family business. Two dreams from the Godhead shaped Joseph as a 17-year-old boy and these would sustain him when he was sold as a slave in Egypt.

The Bible does not tell us what kind of education Joseph received, but it is obvious that when he was a slave and ran the household of Potiphar, he was able to read and write and do arithmetic. This prepared him for his next assignment of running the main prison in Egypt.[75] Jesus elevated him to become the prime minister of Egypt after thirteen years as a slave.[76]

Lucifer and his minions could see there was an anointing upon Joseph as a child. Demons were instructed to possess his half-brothers and make them hate him to the point that they were ready to kill him. It was the Holy Spirit that moved upon Judah to spare him and sell him into slavery instead. Holy angels guided a caravan of merchants to come by at the right moment and buy Joseph. Once they had taken him to Egypt, angels moved upon a high-ranking Egyptian army officer to purchase Joseph from the slave market.[77]

Lucifer and the fallen angels did not like what they were seeing. They had witnessed holy angels working things out to bring Joseph to Egypt. Since Lucifer and his minions cannot see into the future, and while they did not know the Godhead’s intention, they knew there was a divine plan being played out. Demons were dispatched to Potiphar’s house to entice his wife to start lusting after Joseph. They figured that once Potiphar discovered his wife’s infidelity, he would kill Joseph and the Godhead’s plan would be obstructed. The Holy Spirit moved upon Potiphar to put Joseph in prison and Lucifer and his minions were held back by God’s angels.

The Godhead intervened again years later with troubling dreams given to Pharaoh that could not be interpreted in the normal manner by the Egyptians. Pharaoh was informed about a prisoner’s uncanny ability to interpret dreams. The Holy Spirit gave Joseph the interpretation and Pharaoh was very impressed to the point that Joseph was elevated to prime minister. The Godhead then ordered holy angels to set up seven years of bountiful harvest which were to be followed by a seven-year famine.[78] The famine had two purposes for the Godhead. To validate that Pharaoh had made the right decision by putting Joseph in charge and forcing the family of Jacob to come to Egypt where they could be kept safely for the next 430 years to grow in number and become a nation. Joseph would later tell his brothers that God had sent him to Egypt and they were all pawns in the hands of God.[79]

SUMMARY OF JOSEPH

There are no derogatory remarks about Joseph in the Bible. He was obviously not sin free, but he was faithful and carried out what God wanted him to do. He was not resentful toward his brothers, choosing to forgive and love them despite their cruelty toward him. But the most important takeaway is that the entire operation was done supernaturally by Jesus, holy angels, and the Holy Spirit because there were no human intercessors available. Lucifer’s only chance was to try and deceive Joseph into disobedience and that utterly failed despite his best attempts.

MOSES

The Bible is totally silent on the 430 years that the twelve tribes spent in Egypt. By the time Moses was born, the family had grown to a nation with 600,000 men, a lot more if you factor in the women and the children.[80] The Israelites were greatly favored at the time of Joseph but 430 years later the pharaoh had enslaved them. The Hebrews went from landholders to slaves and life was no longer good in Egypt.[81] The suffering of the Israelites motivated them to cry out to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and this invitation was what the Godhead had been waiting for to intervene. The plan was not to give the Hebrews respite from the oppression of the Egyptians, but to relocate them to the land of Canaan and that necessitated a leader.

The Hebrews did not have an educational system, so the Godhead decided before the foundation of the world that their deliverer would be educated as a prince of the Egyptian court. He would learn reading and writing, mathematics, history, how to rule a nation and how to conduct warfare. When Moses was born to a family from the tribe of Levi, angels ensured he was not killed and was eventually adopted by the king’s daughter and taken to the palace.[82]

Lucifer had witnessed what had taken place centuries earlier with Joseph. While he didn’t know the plan, he knew the Godhead was at work. As such, he personally arrived to lead the attack on Moses. He had been told that Moses – now a 40-year adult – was well educated and the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He was slated to become the next king when his step-grandfather died.

Lucifer must have whipped his minions into a frenzy and told them that they needed to create a situation that would remove Moses from the line of succession. A plan was hatched to entice Moses to travel north and visit Goshen to see how the Hebrews fared. Then he would see an Egyptian guard in the process of killing a Hebrew. Predictably, Moses was furious and his emotions got the better of him so that he accidentally killed the taskmaster. After it was over, Moses looked around and no one had seemingly seen what occurred, so he buried the Egyptian.

The next day demons worked on two Hebrew slaves to fight one another. Moses intervened and was insolently told to back off. The men rudely asked what gave a prince of Egypt the right to judge them? Did he intend to kill them just like the taskmaster? Demons of fear attacked Moses and he fled to the desert. Lucifer congratulated the demons on a job well done for outmaneuvering the Godhead.[83]

The Godhead already knew the chain of events from the foundation of the world because they possess the ability to do a virtual time run of the entire creation. This is necessary because humanity has been endowed with a free will, and while the Godhead can’t predict our choices, they can see what will happen by “fast forwarding” through our linear timeline. This is why they had already prepared a priest of Midian named Reuel – or Jethro as he was also known – to play host to Moses. Reuel was a shepherd and he offered Moses a job and provided Zipporah to be his wife. Moses was a refugee with no place to go and the situation was favorable. He took the job and married the woman with no clue that the Godhead had selected him to be the future deliverer of the Hebrews in Egypt.[84]

To make sure that Lucifer would not pursue Moses, Jesus assigned a powerful detachment of holy angels to guard Moses. He had been a prince of Egypt for forty years (one hour), the next phase as a shepherd would also be forty years (one hour). Moses left Egypt as a crown prince and military officer and now he was to be humbled for the future service in the Kingdom of God.

Given the history of what had transpired, Lucifer instructed his minions to keep an eye on Moses since Godhead had a weird knack for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. More or less, Lucifer would not rest until Moses died of old age. Four decades later Lucifer was greeted with the news that Jesus had just flown from heaven and met Moses in the desert. The messenger told him that the Son of God was commissioning Moses to return to Egypt and free the Hebrews.[85]

Lucifer immediately dispatched powerful demons to intimidate Moses and convince him that he was not the right man for the job. Their attack was so swift and severe that they persuaded Moses to believe that the Hebrews would not accept the fact that he had met Jesus; furthermore, he was not a good speaker. The swift thought attacks on his mind led Moses to believe that he couldn’t do the job. Holy angels drove off the demons and Jesus broke the trance when He angrily rebuked His chosen deliverer. Moses needed to make a choice. Should he give in to fear and unbelief or answer the call and obey God?

By now Lucifer realized that a major undertaking of God was in the works and he set up temporary headquarters over Egypt and brought in a sizeable amount of fallen angels and millions of demons. Lucifer asked his government council who they had in Egypt that could be used to block Moses. He was told that there were two Luciferian priests named Jannes and Jambres who were possessed by powerful demons. These Egyptian men could be used to offset anything that Moses did. The struggle in the spirit world was about to play out in the physical realm.[86]

THE PLAGUES

This spiritual battle was covered by what I’m going to call the Universe Television Network (UTN) and broadcast live to every holy angel civilization in the universe as the Godhead continues to prove their righteousness.

When it came to delivering the Hebrews from Egypt, the Godhead could have used the same tactic as when they scattered the people from Babel and flew them all over the earth. It would have been an easy operation to have holy angels transport the Hebrews to the land of Canaan. But since the Godhead had limited itself after the trial of Lucifer, they had to use human beings in any operation. This would give Lucifer a chance to seduce or derail the humans working with holy angels.

The first round did not go well for Moses and Aaron. They went to the palace and asked to speak with Pharaoh. They demanded that he let the Hebrew slaves go to worship the Lord in the wilderness. Lucifer watched as his demons spoke through Pharaoh, denying any existence of this Hebrew God and he certainly was not about to let them go. Moses and Aaron left dejected. Afterwards, Lucifer instructed the demons to move upon Pharaoh to make fresh hell for the Hebrews. They were to continue making bricks, but now they had to get the straw themselves while still maintaining the same level of production. The first round was a win for Pharaoh.

The Hebrew elders went to Pharaoh to complain about the new punitive program and were harshly told to shut up, leave and go back to work! They met Moses and Aaron on their way from the palace and told the two men that they had made matters worse. They wanted Moses and Aaron to stop before it became even worse. Lucifer was ecstatic! Whatever Jesus was trying to accomplish had been seemingly obstructed.[87]

The next round took place in the palace when Aaron cast down his rod in front of Pharaoh and it became a serpent. Pharaoh was not impressed and he called upon his own sorcerers to do the same. Jannes and Jambres arrived with a group of magicians and the demons used supernatural power to also turn their staffs into serpents. Holy angels were present and they caused Aaron’s rod/snake to devour the snakes of the magicians. Jesus hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he refused to let the Hebrews go.[88] The second round ended in a draw.

Aaron next stretched out his rod and the waters of the Nile turned to blood. Jannes and Jambres were able to match the supernatural event and Pharaoh’s heart hardened again and the third round ended in another draw.[89]

Aaron stretched out his rod over the streams, rivers, and ponds in Egypt and supernaturally millions of frogs came forth. Jannes and Jambres were once again able to match this supernatural event and the fourth round ended in a draw.[90]

If Moses, Aaron, Pharaoh, Jannes and Jambres could have seen into the spirit world, they would have witnessed holy angels go into action every time Aaron raised his rod. Fallen angels used their supernatural power to duplicate what the holy angels had done. Demons numerous like flies trying to attack Moses and Aaron. Other demons ministering to Pharaoh and his staff, urging them not to yield. The Holy Spirit was simultaneously hardening Pharaoh’s heart not to give in to the demands of Moses. Since there were no intercessors among the Hebrews, Jesus directed the entire operation, while Lucifer rallied his forces.

When round five was about to start, Jesus ordered holy angels to incapacitate Lucifer’s fallen angels in and around Egypt. Jesus had given Lucifer every opportunity to derail the project, now he was to be removed as Jesus was ready to crush Pharaoh and devastate Egypt agriculturally. Moses and Aaron needed to be involved to fulfil the rules of engagement. Lucifer still could target the two men and try to make them lose confidence in Jesus. It was the job of the Holy Spirit to strengthen Moses and Aaron.

For the fifth round, holy angels created lice that covered animals and humans alike. This time Jannes and Jambres could not match this power and they confessed God was involved and it was a victory for the Godhead.[91]

The sixth round saw holy angels create billions of flies that swarmed all of Egypt except in Goshen where the Hebrews lived. This was a second victory for the Godhead.[92]

The seventh round targeted all the cattle in Egypt with an exception being made for the cattle belonging to the Hebrews in Goshen. This was the third consecutive victory for the Godhead.[93]

The eighth round saw holy angels crushingly strike every Egyptian man, woman, and beast with painful boils and inflammation. The difference between the Hebrews and the Egyptians continued as the Israelites were not affected at all by this plague and it was a fourth victory for the Godhead.[94]

Round nine was holy angels using hail and fire to destroy what remained of the Egyptian livestock and target their crops as well. Goshen was again exempted and this marked the fifth unobstructed victory for the Godhead.[95]

For round ten the holy angels produced locusts that swarmed over Egypt to eat the surviving remnant of plant matter that had survived the hail and fire, going so far as to eat the leaves from the trees. Goshen and its Hebrew inhabitants were once again exempted. This was the sixth victory for the Godhead.[96]

For the eleventh round, holy angels blocked the sun’s light for three days so that Egypt was in darkness for 96 consecutive hours. But once again the land of Goshen was spared. This was a seventh straight victory for the Godhead.[97]

The final plague would be so severe that it would literally break Pharaoh’s willpower.  It involved the killing of every first-born child and the first born of livestock. Jesus told Moses the Hebrews would not get automatic protection this time. They would have to kill an unblemished lamb and use its blood to paint the doorframes of their homes. Then they were to roast the lamb and eat it. When the angel of death passed over Egypt at midnight, it would kill the first-born child and animal of every unmarked house. This devastating angel strike saw Pharaoh presumably lose a son and it broke him emotionally to the point that he ordered Moses to hastily lead his people out of Egypt.[98]

GETTING OUT OF EGYPT

If Moses would have tried to figure out how to get more than three million people out of Egypt, plus livestock and other supplies, it would have been a logistical nightmare. If people walked fifteen abreast, they would make a line of thirty-eight miles. With livestock and supply wagons, the entire line would have been some forty miles long.

Jesus told Moses that on the tenth day the people were to secure a one-year-old male lamb without blemish and slaughter it on the fourteenth day of the month, using its blood to paint the doorposts of their houses. That evening they were to eat of the lamb fully dressed. That timeline gave the Hebrews four days to pack up and be ready to walk out of Egypt.[99] On top of that, the killing of the first-born took place at midnight, which means that Pharaoh ordered them out while it was still dark.[100]

Goshen is around 900 square miles. The distance from the north end to the south was less than 40 miles. My understanding is that Jesus cleared the air of fallen angels over Goshen and subdued every demon on the ground. Holy angels stood by, and the moment Pharaoh issued the decree for the Hebrews to leave, angels helped them to leave in an orderly fashion, beginning with the farms closest to the border of Egypt, and then merging them into a column that moved toward the border.

The average walking speed of a person is 2.5 to 4 miles per hour. I believe that Jesus led them in a south-easterly direction that put them into the Sinai Peninsula to quickly get them out of Egypt. He then led them south on the east side of the Red Sea passing Succoth, continuing to the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula and then turning north, passing Migdol and then to Pihahiroth, where they were to camp.[101]

The Bible clearly states that Jesus led them through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea, but the text does not explicitly state that they stopped in front of the “Red Sea,” it just states “the sea.” The area today is known as the straits of Tiran, a series of narrow sea passages between the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas which connect the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. Thus, the crossing took place somewhere through the Gulf of Aqaba and God brought the Hebrews into what is today Saudi Arabia.

CROSSING THE SEA

The Godhead wanted to get rid of Pharaoh and Jesus purposely led the Hebrews to the sea that separated the Sinai Peninsula from Saudi Arabia. Moses had not been told by Jesus where he was leading them; he was only told to get them out of Egypt. The entire project was done supernaturally and there was an intense battle in the spirit world as Lucifer resisted the project from its inception. It is noteworthy to point out that the Bible does not declare if there were any human intercessors, so we can conclude it was a project that was ramrodded through by the Godhead.

There was a supernatural light in the night sky on the first night when the Hebrews departed from Egypt called a “pillar of fire.” During the day it became a “pillar of cloud.” The night light was so bright that it brightened the way for the caravan of Hebrews.[102]

Lucifer and his war staff of fallen angels had not been able to derail Moses and Aaron. Their demon army successfully convinced many of the Hebrews not to leave Egypt, but the Holy Spirit had squashed this rebellion.[103]

When Lucifer saw that the Hebrews had been led to the tip of the Sinai Peninsula in the wilderness area, he felt this was another opportunity to derail the project. With Pharaoh and his army of 600 chariots, there would be a slaughter of the Hebrews, and the survivors would be taken back as slaves to Egypt. But Jesus ordered the pillar of cloud moved to create a buffer zone that the Egyptian army could not penetrate. The angel in charge of the cloud made it black on the side of the Egyptians and light on the Hebrew side.[104]

Jesus ordered additional holy angels to clear the skies of Lucifer and his fallen angels. Other angels paralyzed the demons in the crossing area on both sides of the sea. Special combat engineer angels arrived with their equipment, and the moment Jesus told Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea, they started a strong east wind that blew all night. Moses and the people could not see that the angels created two parallel forcefield walls that created a corridor through the sea. The water in the corridor was pumped out and other angels used huge drying machines to ensure that the sea bottom was sufficiently dry and hard enough for the Hebrews to walk upon.

By daybreak the corridor through the sea was ready and Jesus told Moses to have the people walk through the corridor. Even Moses must have been in awe to walk between vertical walls of water. Jesus gave the order when the last row of Hebrews was halfway across for the angel to remove the pillar of cloud and allow the Egyptians to see the escaping Hebrews. Pharaoh immediately ordered his chariots to move forward into the corridor. The Gulf of Aqaba reaches depths of 6,000 feet, so it is not impossible to imagine walls of water that stood hundreds of feet tall. Once Pharaoh and his army entered the corridor and reached the kill zone, Jesus ordered angels to start removing wheels from the chariots. Pharaoh realized that the God of the Hebrews was fighting his army and there was nothing he could except retreat. It was too late! The last Hebrew reached the far shore and Moses was ordered to stretch out his hand over the sea. This was the signal an angel was waiting for and he immediately turned off the forcefields and water with enormous power filled the corridor.  Pharaoh and his soldiers did not have a chance and quickly drowned.[105]

This amazing miracle caused the Hebrews to fear God and believe that He was real, but fact of the matter is that miracles don’t produce faith. The adults (20 years and up) who crossed the sea ended up dying in the wilderness because of their unbelief. Just two men from the older generation – Joshua and Caleb – were allowed to enter the Promised Land.[106]

SUMMARY OF CROSSING THE SEA

This was an engineering feat that mankind was incapable of carrying out at that time and not even today. The exodus was carried out with technology that only exists in the spirit world. Most people don’t realize that angels are real and they live in a world that was created for them by Jesus with a technology that is far beyond what we know. To put it into perspective, we have access to technology today that people in the days of Moses would have called supernatural.

Scoffers and the majority of theologians over the centuries do not believe that the crossing of the sea took place. They don’t even believe that the Hebrews were in Egypt. I believe every word in my King James Bible. If God said it, I believe it and that settles it for me. I have presented my case supported with biblical citations. There is no middle ground. It is up to you what you do with it.

To be continued…

From the Desk of John S. Torell