Angels, Demons & Spiritual Warfare

Throughout the Old and New Testaments, we find glimpses into the spiritual forces that influence the history of the world.

The Old Testament is filled with accounts of battles. But even though most descriptions of wars in the Old Testament highlight human beings that fought with physical weapons, Scripture occasionally pulls back the veil to show us that invisible spiritual battles were also taking place. And in fact, these invisible battles greatly influenced the success or failure of the human armies.

For example, in 2 Kings 6, Elisha was being pursued by the king of Aram. Eventually, the king of Aram caught up to Elisha and surrounded him, and Elisha’s servant became terrified.

“Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" the servant asked. "Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." And Elisha prayed, "O Lord, open his eyes so he may see." Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (2 Kings 6:15-17)

Often, when we think about the activities of angels and demons, we think in terms of our personal lives, our individual lives. But one of the big things we have to remember is that in the Bible, demonic powers especially — and at times angelic powers as well — we learn that they have been assigned dominion or rule over the nations, and so they represent these nations in the court of God. And so, in many respects, we don’t realize this, but the political arena of the world is controlled not by how many people vote for this person or vote for that person or how one monarch receives the right to the throne from his ancestors and those kinds of things. It’s not that way. In reality, behind the scenes, invisible scene, there are these demonic and angelic creatures who are actually in control of the great movements of political entities in the world. [Dr. Richard L. Pratt, Jr.]

In the Old Testament, angels and demons are portrayed sometimes as being a part of or standing behind geopolitical conflict. It seems as if the angels and the demons had a hand in how these events and how these conflicts would play out. For instance, we see in Daniel 10 an instance where Gabriel, an angel, comes to Daniel and says, “I heard your prayer. I left a while ago to come find you, but I was held up with a conflict, including the angel Michael, involving the kings of Persia.” [Dr. Scott Redd]

In the New Testament, spiritual warfare isn’t primarily our own internal struggles against sin, but an ongoing war between God and the evil spiritual powers at work in this world. And the essence of all spiritual warfare in the lives of Christians is that these preternatural forces are in combat with each other, that they influence our world, that demons try to harm our lives and to make us disloyal to God, and that God employs angels to protect us from demonic influence and activities.

The topic of spiritual warfare is very complicated for Christians because it manifests differently for each person. But wherever we are and whatever happens to us, we have to understand that our Lord protects us. We can rely on his power, his strength. We can draw support from him. And this gives us confidence, no matter what spiritual manifestations we encounter. [Rev. Ivan Bespalov, translation]

Christians are assured victory in spiritual war. There’s nothing the demons can do to destroy our salvation, or to shake our inheritance in God’s kingdom. Spiritual war can be disheartening and trying, and even frightening, but because of God’s benevolence, it can never succeed against us in the long run.