The Supernatural

Posted On October 25, 2020

“By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

Hebrews 11:3 NIV

“Even though as Christians we affirm the reality of the spiritual realm, sometimes we succomb to the naturalistic assumption that what we see is real and what we don’t see isn’t. Many people conclude that God can’t be real because we can’t see Him. And Heaven can’t be real because we can’t see it. But we must recognize our blindness.”

Randy Alcorn, Seeing the Unseen

This week I want to take a look into the supernatural world. This isn’t some make-believe, faraway realm. It’s real and it’s all around us. We can’t see this world, but God doesn’t leave us completely in the dark:

” . . . ‘What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived’ — the things God has prepared for those who love him — these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.”

1 Corinthians 2:9-10 NIV

Sensing the Supernatural

Christian author Anthony DeStefano wrote a book called The Invisible World which describes the spiritual realities that surround us. Even though we cannot see them with our eyes, we can sense them with what he calls “the haunt detector.” This is the feeling we get when something mysterious, supernatural, or eerie is happening. As the author explains:

” . . . out of nowhere a tingle will suddenly run up your spine, telling you that something more is going on than meets the eye. Something that transcends understanding. What is it? No one really knows. But it invariably triggers a feeling deep in your soul — a feeling of desire, of yearning, of hope; hope that there is something special about life; that there is some hidden meaning and purpose to all the suffering we have to go through; that there is something beyone science, beyond the senses — something invisible yet totally real.”

Anthony DeStefano, The Invisible World

Mr. DeStefano points out that we need to be careful when trying to understand such feelings. Not everything is a miraculous event. As he explains, “it’s extremely difficult for us to tell what’s natural, what’s supernatural, what’s legitimately from God, what’s from the devil, and what’s just plain old human imagination.” He warns that we should not become fixated on the supernatural, but we also cannot reject it. The truth is that there is more than meets the eye. We cannot see God, but He exists. We cannot see our immortal souls, but we have them. Angels and demons exist whether we can see them or not. Everything he discusses in his book is based on Scripture, Christian teachings, and common sense. While we should, of course, be cautious when dealing with spiritual matters, we cannot deny that the spiritual realm exists. That’s just as dangerous. Because the spiritual realm is invisible to us, it is difficult to understand, but it’s important to try. Believing only in what we can see is the opposite of faith.

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

Hebrews 11:6 NIV

In The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, the demon Screwtape teaches his apprentice about an effective tactic he once employed to keep an atheist from beginning to believe in God. When the man’s thoughts started to move in the direction of faith, rather than argue the point, Screwtape instead suggested that the man go have some lunch. As soon as the man was out on the street in the middle of ordinary, everyday life, Screwtape knew he had won the battle: “whatever odd ideas might come into a man’s head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of ‘real life’ . . . was enough to show him that all ‘that sort of thing’ just couldn’t be true.” As Anthony DeStefano points out:

“We face the same danger. Because we’re so familiar with desks and chairs and pots and pans and cell phones and video games, it can be a real challenge for us to think about spiritual matters. Our haunt detectors can become so dulled and rusty from disuse that they hardly register any kind of invisible activity except the most extraordinary. The end result is that, although we may not become full-fledged atheists, we can actually begin behaving as if we were. Without even realizing it, a giant gap can form between what we profess to believe and how we go about acting in our everyday lives.”

Anthony DeStefano, The Invisible World

I can relate. When I get busy dealing with daily life — checking work emails, washing the dishes, doing the laundry, feeding the cat, scrubbing the toilet, and doing everything else that screams for my attention — it’s really hard to make spiritual matters a priority. But that’s the dangerous part . . . because pretty soon I stop making God a priority, and that’s when doubts can start to creep in.

“Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes.”

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Matthew 6:33 instructs us to seek God’s kingdom above everything else. The truth is that there is another world all around us. We can’t see it, but it’s there. It’s a world full of wonder and a world in which we’re never truly alone.

Angels and Demons

“Christ is the exact likeness of the unseen God. He existed before God made anything at all, and, in fact, Christ himself is the Creator who made everything in heaven and earth, the things we can see and the things we can’t; the spirit world with its kings and kingdoms, its rulers and authorities; all were made by Christ for his own use and glory.”

Colossians 1:15-16 TLB

Before our Creator made us, He made the angels. Who, or what, are they? Anthony DeStefano explains:

” . . . angels are not a small, unimportant part of Christianity. They’re an essential part. And not only of Christianity, but of all the major religions of the world. . . . They teach that angels are invisible spirits that were made by God either before or together with the material universe. They teach that although angels are invisible, God allows them — on very rare occasions — to manifest themselves to human beings in a visible way. They teach that angels have intellect and free will, and that when they were created, they were able to choose whether to serve God or turn against him.”

Anthony DeStefano, The Invisible World

He also explains that there are “multitudes” of angels, and they have amazing powers far beyond what we humans possess. Because they are pure spirits, they don’t move and think like we do. They can be anywhere in an instant and they can know things without having to process them first. As pure spirits, they are immortal. Basically, in Mr. DeStefano’s words, they are “pretty extraordinary creatures.” They have their own society and live their own lives, but God also sends them to help us in various ways: as messengers, ministering spirits, and personal guardians, to name a few. They help us stay on the path God wants us on — the path to heaven. They can influence our behavior in a positive way by communicating directly with the spirit part of our nature, that is, with our souls. They are all around us, doing God’s work.

“Praise the Lord, you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word.
Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts,
you his servants who do his will.”

Psalm 103:20-21 NIV

Angels are certainly amazing! I’m really glad they’re on our side . . . except not all of them are. And this is the scary part. It’s the part we don’t like to think about, the part that sounds like a horror movie, the part we think can’t be real. And that’s just the way they like it. C. S. Lewis explains in the preface to The Screwtape Letters: “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors . . . .”

So who, or what, are these demons? Recall that the angels, like us, were created to have free will and to choose whether or not to serve God. The Bible talks about a powerful struggle that erupted between the angels. Apparently, one of the mightiest angels chose to rebel against God, and he convinced others to follow him.

“Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.”

Revelation 12:7-9 NIV

Satan and his followers rejected God’s kingdom and God’s plan for mankind. They chose to leave heaven and go somewhere away from God. They chose to go to hell, a place of neverending darkness and torment. Why would they do this? Anthony DeStefano explains: “Satan and his band of rebel conspirators fell from God’s grace because of the sin of pride. They were blinded by their own greatness.” They didn’t want to serve God, so they left. Since God is love and light and truth, then turning away from God means turning to hate and darkness and lies. Satan and his demons are full of everything contrary to God’s goodness. They are full of evil. And they hate us. They hate us because God loves us, and they want to hurt God by turning us against Him. Since they are fallen angels, they have all the powers that angels have. But intstead of using them to help us, they use them to lead us astray. And, like the angels, they are all around us. So, yeah, that’s pretty scary stuff. It’s not fun to think about, but we can’t just dismiss it as fantasy. If angels are real, and Christian doctrine teaches that they are, then so are demons. But they are no match for God!

“As powerful as the evil one is to tempt us, God is infinitely more powerful to deliver us and has in Christ given us all the resources we need to live godly lives. . . . God is the reason we should be holy. But He’s also the empowerment for our holiness.”

Randy Alcorn, Seeing the Unseen

Spiritual Warfare

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

Ephesians 6:12 NIV

There is a battle going on all around us, one that we can’t see. It’s a battle for souls. I’m not trying to be overly dramatic, and we don’t need to panic, but I think we need to be aware of it. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, sin and death have been defeated. This means God’s gift of eternal life in heaven is available to all of us. God wants us all to live with Him forever, but He won’t force us. We are all free to choose to accept His gift or to reject it. This is where Satan and his demons focus their attack. They try to influence our decision. They can’t override our free will, but they can try to persuade us to reject God. Anthony DeStefano describes how they usually go about doing this:

“In the movie The Exorcist, an older priest sums up the nature of diabolical warfare by warning his younger protégé: the attack will be psychological. This perfectly describes the method the devil and his demons use when trying to tempt human beings. Everything is done in the mind. . . . They don’t normally show themselves to us at all. The reason is that they don’t want to scare the daylights out of us. That’s not their objective. If they appeared to us in that manner, they would be revealing themselves plainly to us — and we would know for sure that they exist. The end result of this ‘unmasking’ would be that our faith in all spiritual realities — including God — would most likely increase. And that’s the last thing that demons want.”

Anthony DeStefano, The Invisible World

Satan and his demons want us to turn away from God and live forever in torment and darkness. They can’t defeat God, so they want to try to hurt Him by making us suffer. I realize how all this sounds. It sounds like fiction. But Anthony DeStefano is not some kind of religious nut. He is a rational person, living an ordinary life, and so am I. So is everyone I know. I have never “seen” a demon or an angel (at least not that I know of), and I have never talked to anyone who has. I don’t know if I’ve ever been tempted by a demon or influenced by an angel. So how do I know any of this is really true?

The answer is: the same way that I know God exists and the same way I know that Jesus died and rose again — because the Bible and Christian doctrine tell me so, and because I have faith. I don’t normally spend a lot of time thinking about angels or demons, and I don’t think we need to dwell on them too much. But I don’t think we should discount them altogether. Anthony DeStefano recalls a dinner he had with a couple of friends, one a pastor and one an atheist: “The pastor asked my atheist friend if he ever wondered about the existence of God. My atheist friend responded: ‘No, I’m not a very spiritual person.’ To which the pastor shot back: ‘Well, you’ve got no choice; it’s a spiritual world.'” Whether we choose to believe it or not, the supernatural world exists. It’s an amazing, frightening, and wondrous place, and I believe we need to think about it sometimes. But more than anything else, we need to stay focused on God. Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and He’ll take care of everything else.

“The truth is, according to the Bible, we don’t automatically go to Heaven. In fact, Hell — not Heaven — is our default destination. Unless our sin problem is solved once and for all, we can’t enter Heaven. That’s the bad news. But once that’s straight in our minds, we’re ready to hear the good news of Jesus Christ: Jesus took upon Himself, on the cross, the Hell we deserve so that we could experience for eternity the Heaven we don’t deserve!”

Randy Alcorn, Seeing the Unseen

Our Greatest Weapon

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —
and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God”

Ephesians 2:8 NIV

God saved us through His Son, and His grace continues to deliver us. Anthony DeStefano talks about the power of grace to defend us in this spiritual battle:

“Grace is, in its very essence, a gift — a gift that God continues to pour out in a million different ways. And the reason he continues to pour it out is because we continue to need it. After all, we still have free will. We still have the power to reject God if we want, and the devil knows it. As Saint Peter said, Satan is always prowling about the world, looking for souls to devour. How does grace help us to keep from being devoured? It’s purpose is to transform our lives so that we can function at an entirely new level — a much higher level. It’s not really natural at all, but supernatural. In other words, grace involves the elevation of our natural abilities so that we can act more in accordance with the way God wants us to act.”

Anthony DeStefano, The Invisible World

God doesn’t just help us from afar. His Spirit actually lives inside us, giving us His supernatural power to fight temptation and to live the way He wants us to live. He gives us whatever help we need to be successful in this battle. In fact, His Spirit works to transform us into the image of Christ. So as long as we stay connected to God, the devil doesn’t stand a chance!

“What, then, shall we say in response to these things?
If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Romans 8:31 NIV

This week’s Scripture readings focus on the supernatural world and on God’s grace. There is a printer-friendly pdf version below the image. We’ve discussed a lot of incredible and frightening things. So what’s the bottom line? Should we be afraid? In the words of Paul, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:37-39 NIV). Amen.

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

2 Corinthians 4:18 NIV

References:

• Alcorn, Randy. Seeing the Unseen, Expanded Edition: A 90-Day Devotional to Set Your Mind on Eternity. Multnomah, 2017.
• DeStefano, Anthony. The Invisible World: Understanding Angels, Demons, and the Spiritual Realities That Surround Us. Kindle ed., Doubleday, 2011.
• Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters & Screwtape Proposes a Toast. The Macmillan Company, 1971.

Images:

• Eclipse featured image by ipicgr from Pixabay
• Creation image by beate bachmann from Pixabay
• Sky image by Rondell Melling from Pixabay
• Cloudscape image by Pexels from Pixabay
• Star Rotation image by Pexels from Pixabay
• Sky Rays image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
• Lights image by kytalpa from Pixabay