The spiritual realm

As I write this Christmas is behind us. Our world has moved into a new year. Only a few days ago I saw a house that still had Christmas lights up. As I think of those lights now I remember a visit I had with family just after Christmas. They still had Christmas decorations up even though we had moved into a new year. There remained the last vestiges of Christmas in their home, still being enjoyed for a few last days before being packed away for another year.

This year, for the first time in several years, we had a Christmas tree. We shopped for a new tree and dug out the old ornaments. Christmas came and went. The tree brightened the house and gave joy. It brought smiles to the faces of family and friends. It served its purpose through the holiday but as with all Christmas trees, its time to grace our home came and went and it had to be packed away.

I finally managed to get it and the Christmas decorations packed away but traces of them remained a bit longer in the Christmas cards it took a while to take care of and in the handful of things that lingered out of sight waiting to be discovered for a while longer. Among those missed items were a couple of angel ornaments that managed to find their way into a place where they were missed in the packing away of Christmas.

Those ornaments are a remnant not only of Christmas but of the days, long past, when I collected angels. At one time I had an entire collection of angel figurines, most of them received as gifts. Today those Christmas ornaments are the only things left of that collection. Those gifts were what created my angel collection. At that time I liked angels and one gift at a time, I began to collect angels.

Today, that angel interest and the collection that resulted from that interest is long gone but as with so many other things in life, the remains of that collection still linger. I am reminded of that each time the Christmas decorations are brought out. Each time I looked at those angel ornaments through the Christmas holiday I wondered if I should keep them or part with them. They no longer hold any significance for me beyond the fact that they’ve been on every Christmas tree I’ve had since I’ve been grown. In that time there have been Christmases without a tree but the angel ornaments have remained, with or without a tree.

A few years back I wound up in the possession of a book on angels. I don’t remember how I came to have it but there it was. I never read it but it resided in my house anyway. Where it came from I can’t remember, why it was here I don’t know, but there it was.

I remember a song I used to enjoy many years ago, a song about angels surrounding us. I remember another song about an angel that saved a man from a car accident.

It seems that there are no end to the things that angels show up in. They are very prominent in movies. I recall a book I read in my teens where a little girl showed up in a couple’s yard and they took her in. The implication in that book was that the little girl was an angel. I can’t remember if the book wound up making the girl be an angel or if they only implied that she was but either way the suggestion was there.

And so…there they are…angels in everything.

Only these angels aren’t the angels of Scripture. They’re the sweet faced little girls with wings, the fat faced babies with halos, and the beautiful women guarding children in dangerous situations. They are an ideal, an idol even, but they are not the messengers of the Lord that Scripture speaks of.

Not too far from my house there is a ‘church’ building that has a sign out front, it’s one of those signs where they write the little sayings. This sign regularly gives little bits of insight into life through the words it displays. Right now those words tell of how God is Spirit and must be worshipped in the spirit.

Today that sign is right.

Our Lord is Spirit and it is in the spirit that we connect with him. For those that belong to Him we no longer live dead in human bodies, serving sin and the god of sin, but alive in spirit serving the Lord. That’s a pretty amazing concept that is almost staggering if looked at through nothing more than our human minds. And yet…so much of life is spiritual. It’s an entire…world…that is in and around us that we can’t see, touch, or hear. It is an invisible world to us but it is very much there, whether we acknowledge it or not.

Years and years ago my sister and I used to watch a television program about people that traveled between alternate worlds. These worlds existed all at the same time, there was no time travel, only travel between different places that existed at the exact same time. One existed, invisibly, out of sight, of the other, and there was an unending number of different worlds. The people in this show traveled from one of these worlds to another, each was different, some were of a different era-because time hadn’t passed the same in those worlds, but all coexisted at the same time, out of sight of one another.

It was a strange, yet somehow fascinating, idea. And for a time, I enjoyed watching those shows, seeing where the people would go in each episode, what never before seen dimension they would find.

But it was all for fun. It was a made up show that held no basis in real life. Today we live in a world where most people live as if the earthly life they lead is the only reality, or world, that exists. But there is something more, something deeper, something unseen. Something…paranormal. At least it’s paranormal if put into earthly words or descriptions. It is, however, very normal if looked at through Scripture. Scripture tells us of heavenly realms and of spiritual things. There is no paranormal involved unless looked at strictly through human eyes that see things as either of this world or other worldly. But however we choose to look at it, provided we acknowledge it at all, it is there.

It’s almost enough to make anyone stop in their tracks if they truly think about it. And what it means.

We are surrounded by unseen spirits. We can’t see, hear, or touch these spirits. We can’t feel them. We go about our lives living as if they are not there and yet they very much impact our lives and the earthly world we live in. And most people, even the born again, regenerated, Christians, rarely give them much thought as we go about our daily lives.

When was the last time you stopped to think about the fact that there are unseen spirits around you?

The fact is that very few of us ever give such a concept a second thought and if we do think of it, it’s either a passing thought or it consumes the mind and leads others to believe the person speaking of such things is crazy.

Our modern, enlightened, twentieth century, minds can’t believe that spirits can be real, we, as a whole, can’t grasp the idea that there really could be more to this world than what we see before us.

But Scripture tells us that there is more to this world, and to our lives, than what we see before us. There is a spiritual side of life, an invisible realm of spirits, around us each and every day as we go through living in this earthly world.

But it gets even harder to grasp. That is, if looked at only through our earthly eyes, minds, and hearts.

Because the spiritual realm is of much more importance than the earthly world.

Even as I write this, I think of the many, MANY, people that would disagree with every word I’m writing. I think of the many ‘Church’ services I have sat through, taught and led by professing ‘Christians’, and how many of those calling themselves ‘Christian’ would most likely disagree with me.

But Scripture tells us that this spiritual realm does exist and that it surrounds us.

As I write this there is much disagreement and evil floating in the news and media of our world. There will be a presidential election this year and with that comes the never ending politics that fill every news outlet. States are passing laws that the government does not agree with, they are passing laws that groups of people, businesses, and individuals do not agree with, laws that many others do agree with. These laws are creating strife between people who are taking sides and speaking out for the side they support. There are businesses threatening these states because they do not agree with the laws that are passed. There are businesses that are implementing their own ‘laws’. And people are up in arms over all of it.

These are earthly battles that in an earthly sense are very important. Each of these things has the potential to make America a better or worse place to live. And so the battles rage. Further out there are wars and threats of wars, there are groups of people that are terrorizing other countries, there are attacks on individuals, groups, cities, states, countries…you name it, it’s probably going on somewhere in the world right now. Some kind of battle rages.

And yet Scripture tells us that those aren’t the battles that Christians must fight.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12 ESV

As big as those earthly battles may seem and feel at any given time, there is something much bigger, something much more…sinister…at work that we cannot see with human eyes. And we (Christians) must battle that not in the flesh but in the spirit.

Before I go further I would like to look just a bit deeper at Ephesians 6:12. A slow, close reading of that verse shows us such words as ‘cosmic powers’ and ‘spiritual forces of evil’. Those are terms that could easily be used in some Hollywood produced movie about the forces of good and evil. I don’t know about you, but if I read such words in a movie review I would be thinking about some sort of evil…aliens, maybe…against humans. And Hollywood has produced many movies of that very thing. But who applies ‘cosmic powers’ and ‘spiritual forces of evil’ to our modern earthly lives? Those sort of things simply don’t exist in real life.

But Scripture tells us that they do.

As with so many things we must first erase from our thoughts those things we have been preconditioned to think. Which means we must erase from our minds the things that mainstream media and entertainment have brain washed us into thinking when we see ‘cosmic powers’ (forget about superheroes and aliens) and ‘spiritual forces of evil’ (forget about the bad guy trying to take over the universe).

Only…

There is a bad guy that did want to take over the universe. And he and his henchmen are wrecking as much havoc as they can, restrained only by the hand of God.

Quite a few months back I came across a website that did reviews on popular movies. They compared those movies to Scripture. I only watched a couple of their reviews but found them enlightening. Especially one of them. This particular review was for a movie that I had actually seen a number of years ago. I remembered well the key points that this review pointed out but back when I saw that movie I didn’t know Scripture like I do now and I’m not sure it would have occurred to me even now to compare this movie to Scripture quite the way they did but once I saw the comparison there was no missing it. You see, in this movie there was a bad guy, only this ‘guy’ was something of an alien. He was all powerful and ruled the world. And the side that had possession of this ‘guy’ ruled the universe. There was very definitely a good side and a bad side, there was a ‘cosmic power’ involved, a ‘spiritual forces of evil’ and a good side.

Now this particular review showed that the all-powerful ‘guy’ of this movie, the bad guy, the evil force, had the qualities of God. So in a twisted, evil, sinful way, the makers of this very popular movie actually turned Scripture, twisted it, until God-in the form of this all powerful thing- was evil and the evil (according to Scripture) humans were good and must fight against this evil force that controlled all.

That was a Hollywood movie. This is life. But can you see the comparison? Can you see the evil forces in movies? Can you see the ‘cosmic powers’ in movies? Do you see them in your everyday earthy life? Do you realize that they are there?

We easily relate ‘cosmic powers’ and ‘spiritual forces of evil’ to movies or books but can we relate those same things to life? Scripture was written in a time when there were no movies, although the Lord was well aware of the fact that there would one day be movies.  The Lord was talking about what would take place in our lives, in our world. These ‘cosmic powers’ and ‘spiritual forces of evil’ are very real.

But how often do most people think of these things? And more than that…how many people even realize that these spiritual forces exist?

Back when I watched that show with my sister we had many discussions about that show. We would sometimes talk of what life would be like if those alternate worlds really did exist and whether or not we would give up the world we lived in for another one if given the chance. There are many people today that imagine life with spiritual forces around them, they imagine what life would be like if ‘this’ or ‘that’ happened from whatever movie or book but how many of them understand that there really is a spiritual battle raging around them. A spiritual battle where the prize isn’t ruling the earth, going to some far off place, or winning the game, the battle is for life. There is an evil battle waging in the spirit, a battle between evil and Good, a battle between Light and darkness.

But how many people think of that? And how many people even realize that it’s happening?

I grew up going to ‘church’ and I can’t recall a single person ever teaching that there is a spiritual world surrounding our earthly one. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I missed those teachings. Or maybe they never happened. I remember hearing of ‘guardian angels’, I remember hearing of how people are in heaven when they die, despite the fact that they very likely were not, I remember hearing of how a person can simply secure their place in heaven by saying the magical prayer of salvation and then need never wonder if they will go to heaven again…no matter what they do or how they live their life. But I don’t remember being taught that there is a spiritual realm around us.

A while back I read something-I don’t remember where- that spoke of how people in times past were aware of this spiritual side of life, that they understood that spirits surround us. I don’t recall exactly what that article spoke of but I do recall it saying that our ancestors better understood that there is a spiritual side of life, spirits that surround us every day.

What is the difference? Why did they understand something that has all but been lost in our modern world?

A few days ago my husband and I were watching something online where someone went out and asked evolutionists a question. It was a simple question and yet it was one that the evolutionists could not answer. If evolution is real, give me one example that I can actually see evolution happening. Now, I’m not going to get into that, or how the video turned out, other than to say the evolutionists could not give a single example.

But as I think back on that I think of how science has taught people to believe in evolution. The evolutionists that were questioned in the video mostly believed in evolution simply because it was taught to them by the ‘experts’. One even said that the theory of evolution had been proven. I asked my husband if that person hadn’t just contradicted themselves. Doesn’t theory mean…an idea…an understanding? And if something is proven isn’t it more than and idea or theory? I didn’t bother to look up the answer, and I’m not going to do so now, because I simply am not that interested, but…if the theory of evolution had been proven, would it be a theory?

But what I did clearly see in that video, beyond the fact that the evolutionists could give no examples of evolution actually happening, was that science had ‘taught’ the evolutionists the belief that they held.

Science has taught us many other things also. I was once fascinated with the nineteenth century, and still enjoy that era, as a result I often look at life and see it in a way that pits our modern world against the nineteenth century. I see the improvements…how would I manage without my washing machine…and the problems…where have the morals gone?

Through an understanding of what life was like during the nineteenth century I can compare my modern life to the lives of people in those days.

Science has given us many things today that simply did not exist in the nineteenth century. Today we understand all the finer points of human conception, so much so that babies are now made in little glass dishes in laboratories and put into a woman at just the right moment so the baby will implant and begin to grow. Science gave us that. Science also gave us the ability to remove a baby from its mothers body long before it can live on its own. Science is a mixed blessing. Because of science my daughter had heart surgery that would not have been available in the nineteenth century. Because of science people are electrocuted in their own homes by their modern conviences.

Yes, all of those things, and much more, are controlled and used by the Lord. I’m not debating that. What I’m saying is that science has brought us much but it has also taken much from us. Because of science we now know how to preserve food so that it can be kept of shelves for years. As a result we have grocery stores filled with foods that are shelf stable and easy to prepare. The flip side of that is that few people today preserve food the way our ancestors did and so food preservation in the home is becoming a lost art.

There is an up side to science and a down side.

Science has taught us that everything in life is measurable. We can see it. We can test it. We can come up with a theory and prove it or disprove it. We can ‘know’ if something exists by using science to prove it. If it can’t be measured, or proven, than science says it isn’t real. Science says if you can see it, smell it, taste it, study it, than it is real and if you can’t, then it’s not real.

And so science has essentially disproven the belief in anything spiritual.

In our modern world we have the knowledge to prove whether or not God exists. We can ‘prove’ there is no spiritual realm because science cannot see, taste, hear, touch, study, observe, measure, or anything else, that spiritual world. And since science can’t prove the spiritual is real…it must not be real. Those that believe in the Lord on faith are ridiculed and seen as ignorant.

I remember hearing something years back about college professors teaching their students that God is something that poor people need because their lives are without hope of anything better, therefore the poor people put their hope in a God and something better once their lives are no more. Apparently those same professors also teach that the educated (college) and therefore the not poor people do not need God because they have education and money.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools… Romans 1:22 ESV

This is what science has done to us. I don’t know what the statistics are for those with a college education today but I’m guessing that if you compared the number of college educated individuals today to those of the nineteenth century, you would find that there are many more college educated people today than in the 1800’s. I also assume that the further back in time you go the lower the percentage of college educated people you would find.

Not only that but I’m guessing that if you compared those with high school diplomas today to those with high school diplomas in past times, say prior to the mid 1900’s, you would find that the numbers drop off drastically. And if you were to go far enough back in time you would find that there were no high school diplomas or college educations.

With education man learns to lean more on his own understanding and less on the Lord and His teachings.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.… Proverbs 3:5-6

And with education man become wiser to the ideas of the world and becomes fools to the ways of the Lord (Romans 1:22). In our scientifically enlightened world there is no room for spiritual realms, at least not outside of Hollywood and the book market. It’s funny though, how people will accept the idea of ghosts but not of demons. And still, most of science would disregard even the ghosts that people will accept.

A couple of years ago someone I know visited some historic site that they found out after they visited was rumored to be haunted. This person sent me pictures of this supposedly haunted place. I was supposed to see ghosts in the pictures. Eventually that same person asked me what I believe about ghosts and whether or not ghosts are real.

I was on a medical trip/vacation one year and found myself in a town that offered ‘ghost tours’. There were busses offering, for a fee, to take people around to the haunted places. Tourists of types were taking those tours. I wonder how many people would have believed that the Lord has surrounded us by a spiritual world?

But that thought process isn’t restricted to those that enjoy ‘ghost’ hunting. There are preachers, supposedly ‘Christians’, by their admissions anyway, that can’t explain, or don’t believe in, demons or angels. And there are others that promote the worship of angels more than they promote the worship of Christ. I can remember being told, in a ‘church’, that we should pray for angels to guide and guard us, to protect us from all harm.

I can’t help thinking that the teaching of praying to angels, that is, to my way of thinking, worshipping angels, is no more Scriptural than the belief that angels and demons do not exist. Scripture tells us of angels and demons. They have a place in Scripture. And they have a place in the Lords creation, in our world. The Lord uses these beings for His purposes just as He uses all other things for His purposes.

There was a time when people understood that there was more going on than just what we can see with our eyes, and prove with science. Scripture tells us Christ and the apostles casting demons out of people before witnesses. It tells us of people that were brought back to life after they had died. We are even told of magicians that performed wonders before witnesses. These witnesses, whether they could…tap into…the spiritual themselves had to understand that there was more happening than just what they could see and touch. They may not have understood it but they knew it was there.

Now, I’ll admit that those people actually saw things of a spiritual nature. How could you deny the existence of demons after you saw one cast out of someone? So it might be said that in biblical times demons were scientifically proven.

But if that’s the case when did the proof disappear? With the last apostle? I don’t know the answers to those questions. I also don’t know how to explain the people that strongly believe in demons and angels today and believe they can cast out demons in our modern world. I do know they are under a delusion.

But when did people go from understanding that there is more to life than what they see to what we have today? And even that may not be a fair question because so many different people believe so many different things.

I do know that when I look at any given circumstance through my human eyes it may not make much sense but when I look at the same circumstance through Scripture, and my understanding of Scripture, then it makes so much more sense. Life when looked at through Scripture, without the addition of human ideas, makes much more sense. It’s like having a written script for they why’s and whatfore’s of life.

But those same Scriptures teach us that there is a spiritual side to life that we cannot see, touch, taste, feel, or measure. Science cannot observe it. Human eyes cannot see it. It exists around us, and in us, without us being able to see it.

In this spiritual world demons and angels are very real. Good verses evil isn’t something that exists only in movies and books. ‘Cosmic powers’ do exist. But how many people today realize that? How many people realize that there is a spiritual battle raging inside them? That there is a battle between light and darkness, between evil and good, within them.

Supposedly there are those that are ‘enlightened’ or educated enough to ‘know’ that demons and angels do not exist. They have learned that these are myths left over from past times when people did not know any better. But now we have science to teach us differently. Or so some would have us to believe.

I recently read something that spoke of how people today want to be ‘Christians’ but they want to be ‘Christians’ their way. They want their sinning to be condoned so they change Scripture to support the things they believe in. There is a book being sold as I write this, a book being used in ‘church’ services, that promotes the worshipping of the creation rather than the creator, and it condones sexual sin. And that book is being sold as a Bible.

A number of months ago someone said that Christians should buy up Bibles now because in the future the unadulterated Scriptures will no longer be available. The only Bibles being sold will eventually be those that promote the thoughts and beliefs of those in our country that do not follow the true Scriptures. At the time I brushed the thought aside. It could happen I supposed but I didn’t see it happening any time soon.

Since then I have come across more and more things that makes what that woman said sound more and more plausible. There are versions of the Bible that are even changing their wording to more accurately match the beliefs of modern people.

I don’t know about you but I don’t want Scripture being changed to match modern people. Scripture is unchangeable. Scripture is the word of God and should be kept that way. I don’t want the word of men. I get that every day just living in this fallen world.

But as I write this I think of what that woman said, of how she believed we should buy up Bibles today because someday we may not be able to get unadulterated versions, and I think of the spiritual world that surrounds us.

Was there a time when people, even the unregenerate and reprobates, did not doubt that there was a spiritual world? Was there a time when people in general understood that there was more going on than what was before them?

That’s another question that I do not know the answer too. I read somewhere that people did, at one time, understand that there was a spiritual world surrounding them, but I don’t know if that’s true or not.

I do recall having read that one day people will consider believing in a Spiritual world as nothing but baggage from times past, that our youth will see it as holdovers from beliefs no longer relevant, and with those thoughts the belief in spiritual things will be no more.

I would have to look at that much the way I look at the thought that we might one day have no access to Scripture as it was written. The Lord will preserve His word and He will preserve His people. It may be that there will come a day that we can’t simply walk into a store and buy an unadulterated Bible. There may also come a day when we can’t find true believers in Christ-and I must admit that it’s already very hard to find those believers-but I don’t believe that there will ever come a day when either the Scriptures or the believers do not exist.

About a year ago a friend questioned me on the reformed believers in the past. I was asked where those believers were prior to Martin Luther. I studied on that, wrote about it, and eventually gained a deeper and better understanding of where those believers were. I can well imagine a day when true believers, truly born again, regenerated believers, might be out of sight of the rest of the world. But I do not believe that they will ever not be there. And so long as there are truly born again, regenerated, believers there will always be people that believe in a spiritual world.

But as I write this I think of the youth that will supposedly give up a belief in spiritual things, that will see them as baggage from times past, and I think of all the spiritual things they do believe in. I know someone whose nine year old asked for a Ojai board for Christmas. This little girl’s mother refused to let her have one but her grandmother got her one anyway. To this child, it was a game. To others it is a dip into the occult.

I’ve heard of others that are into things like witchcraft. Movies about witches and spells can easily be found. The New Age Movement supposedly is filled with all sorts of things that dip into spiritual…or demonic…things. My mother once had a doctor whose office was filled with rocks. I only accompanied my mother to see this doctor once. It was after hours so my mother was the only patient in the office. I had a baby at the time and my baby became fussy while we were there. To keep the baby happy I walked up and down the halls of the doctor’s office, getting a good look at areas I wouldn’t have otherwise seen. I saw into the exam rooms, into the lab room, into the doctor’s private office area. And what I saw was rooms filled with rocks of all shapes and sizes. But it wasn’t the rocks that were disturbing but the posters and charts for how those rocks held magical healing powers.

There was, it would seem, some sort of spiritual life to these rocks.

And so we have people, college educated doctor’s even, believing that rocks have healing powers, powers that must be tapped into and channeled, and we have people going on ghost hunts all in a time when many people would say there is no spiritual world. Or maybe they wouldn’t say that. Maybe many of them would simply say there is not Christ and therefore nothing spiritual where He is concerned but maybe they believe in rock spirits.

It’s enough to make my head spin. Ghosts are okay, even socially acceptable, but Christ is not. Rock spirits can be used in modern medicine but prayer to the Lord is useless. Or something like that.

This past winter I found myself in a home with people that hold no belief in the Lord. I deeply love these people. I understand their lack of belief and they understand that I believe. I have never before felt the spiritual battle that takes place between those that belong to Christ and those that are unregenerate. I felt it in those days with people that I love and that I know love me. And yet, despite that love, there was a battle raging between us. It wasn’t so much with us but between us. They seemed to attack everything that was Christ without actually attacking it. I know that sounds weird but that’s how it was. There was just this underlying tension that I don’t think they were ever aware of but I felt keenly.

It was an invisible battle between my spirit and theirs. It was their love of this fallen earth and the sins it offers and my love of Christ. It was there. It was tangible. And yet, I’m not at all sure that they ever felt it.

My husband speaks often of how the Lord seems to use parents to restrain sin in children until those children reach a certain age and then the sin in them takes over and they go the way of their sin.

Those children are a joy to their parents but they can become what creates and unseen spiritual battle in the home, or elsewhere, to the born again, regenerated, parent. Christ told us that He would divide families, that our enemies would be those of our own homes.

They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” Luke 12:53 ESV

In its own way that very battle that crops up between parents and children is an example of the unseen spiritual battle. At least it is when the parents are born again. At some point their children begin to chaff and pull against the very beliefs that the parents hold. I was once told that it is the non-Christian parents that raise Christian kids, and the Christian parents that raise non-Christian kids. Now I was told this by a non-Christian but I understood the point that they were making. My mother used to talk of how it’s always the preachers kids that go wild. I understand that thinking too.

But I have to admit that I understand something else too. It isn’t the parent’s faith or their lack of faith that draws a child to Christ or pushes them away, it’s the Lord (John 6:44). Scripture tells us that they either belong to Christ or they don’t and that their salvation was determined before the foundation of the earth.

Scripture also tells us that children are set against parents. So a child that chaffs against what their parents believe are only doing what the Lord had planned for them to do.

But still…it creates an unseen battle. I would assume those grown, or close to it, children wish their parents could understand them, could accept and support their interests, and I know the born again parents wish their children could believe exactly the way they do.

Love between the parent and child creates that longing and their internal spirits create the battles that keep them apart even when they are together.

And that was what I experienced last winter while staying with family. There, while in the midst of people I love, raged an unseen battle between their spirits and mine. They could not be interested in the things that matter most to me and I could not be interested in the things that matter most to them. I understood that. I understood that they stand for one thing while I stand for another but I knew that they did not understand. And so the battle raged. An unseen, spiritual battle.

It was a battle that existed in a realm that they did not understand and would probably have denied existed.

As I think back on that visit, I think of those people in times past. Did they, even the lost, understand that there was more happening around them than what they could see? Did they somehow, without all our modern day indoctrination, know and understand that there was a spiritual realm to life even if they couldn’t see it, couldn’t understand it?

Or did they simply not believe it was there?

I don’t know the answers to those questions either.

What I do know is that there is a spiritual realm and that there is a battle that rages in that realm. Angels are real and so are demons but the Lord controls them all. That spiritual realm is there to set those belonging to Christ free and to imprison those that don’t belong to him.

It is a real thing that exists all around us, and even inside of us, every single day. Our Lord works in that spiritual place because He is spirit. He works in our spirits because it is our spirits that will live in eternity and it is eternity that the Lord is concerned with.