By John Fulton

The book of Job is potentially the least read book of the Bible, and likely not the most uplifting at face value. Many Christians have never read it, and almost certainly never heard it preached. For those outside the faith, it is likely unknown. And yet, it contains some of the most profound messaging and meaning the Bible has to offer.  

I will never forget the day that I was reading along, and the following passage jumped up and slapped me across the face: “If He should determine to do so, if He should gather to Himself His spirit and His breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust” (Job 34:14-15, NASB95). 

This passage says something so profound that flies in the face of what many denominations teach. It tells us The Matrix movie series may be closer to reality than many might think. It tells us that if “He,” the God Yahweh, the God of the Bible, the God of the Christians and Jews, was to remove His Spirit from the world, we would all die and disintegrate back into the dust and ash from which we are built. It tells us that if Yahweh were to remove His Spirit from creation; that creation, the cosmos, the entire created order would simply vanish. It tells us that the physical world which seems so real; which seems as real as the Matrix to those trapped in it in the movies; is really just a fantasy realm, a façade that sits on top of the real realm which lies beneath, the spirit realm. It tells us that without the spirit realm to power and energize and willfully manifest it, the physical realm in which we “live” would cease to be and us with it. 

But what does this mean to the average person, to anyone really? We live in the physical world. We see clouds form, hear birds chirping, touch the denim of our jeans, taste the sugar in the cookie, smell the fresh bread baking in the oven. It all seems so real, so tangible. It doesn’t seem like a façade, and yet it is. Underlying it all is the spirit realm that powers the physical world and gives manifestation to it. Without the spirit realm, there is no physical realm. Without God’s spirit, the physical cannot exist. We cannot exist.  

It also means the spirit realm interacts with, engages, and impacts the physical. It means spirit beings such as Yahweh, angels, and demons can interact with the physical realm and influence it. This influence should never be denied although it almost always is, and so often even more so by the Christian church. It means spirit beings such as Yahweh, angels, and demons are as real as you and me and we engage with them constantly. It means humans who are both spirit and flesh can and do interface with the spirit realm perpetually. It means we are interacting with the spirit realm and spirits as well as the physical realm every day as we engage on two planes of existence every moment of our lives. 

We all know we do this, even if we deny the existence of Yahweh and the spirit realm. For we all use phrases like, “Trust your gut,” “there is something not right about them,” “I had this feeling,” and so on.  We have all had those moments where before or the instant we saw someone we had a deep, “irrational”, dislike or love of someone we’d never even seen before. We have all been in places where we felt unwelcome, or creeped out, or unfoundedly peaceful; even though there was nothing unusual about the place as far as we could see. We’ve all had those moments where we just knew that car was going to cut us off, or I need to avoid that guy, or …  We all know that voice that’s popped into our head to suggest we jump off the platform onto the subway tracks, or throw a rock into someone’s house, or do some other act we know is wrong, dangerous, or even guaranteed to kill or severely maim.   

One day in church, I listened in horror as the pastor described these suggestions that pop into our head as our sin nature. But what else should I expect from a Christian church, particularly a Protestant one, in which the denial of the spirit realm and the influence of the spirit is so dominant and overwhelming. A church where the focus is on the physical Jesus, while God, who is spirit, is mentioned only because you kinda have to, and the Holy Spirit is nary to be seen. The pastor had no choice but to proclaim these suggestions as his own thoughts, for the spirit realm and the existence of demons trying to influence us to do that which is harmful was anathema to him.  

The Christian church performs an enormous disservice to humanity and egregious damage to its congregants by denying and not discussing the spirit realm. It fails to explain the reality of this realm and the true presence of demons and angels and the Spirit and God. There are many voices that pop into your head. Your own to start with, but also the voice of God, the voice of His messengers (angels), and the voice of demons. Not every thought you “think” is truly your own. You need to evaluate each and every idea that comes to mind. Then, over time, with training, effort, and God’s help, you can start to break the voices down and identify their origin. You can begin to recognize the voices that are not yours, nor of the good spiritual forces, and you can begin to overcome them, shut them out and shut them up, and take back your life.   

This is not to say every sinful idea or despicable act that comes into the mind of man is the voice of dark spirits or demons; for there are surely terrible and evil people in the world, and we all have our bad moments. But it does mean you should test the voice and understand that it’s not necessarily your own, either. When you’re trying to eat better and lose weight, the demons will constantly seek to get you to think of your favorite sugary treat or work to convince you you’re too tired for that walk. They will goad you to get angry and attack someone who is annoying you. They deeply desire to drive you back to past sins and so often attack when you are at your weakest. When you succumb to their suggestion, don’t be ashamed; we are not made of steel with an unbending will and an all powerful spirit. Pick yourself up, cry and feel sad if that is where you find yourself; but keep seeking the good, keep pursuing God, and over time, you’ll find they don’t win 9 out of 10 times, but 5 out of 10 and then 2 out of 10.   

Now, assuredly, you’ll never get to them winning 0 out of 10 times; for as the Apostle John says, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8, NASB95). This side of eternity, reaching the place of never sinning is not the goal, and is not possible. Should we then say since we can never reach a sinless place that we shouldn’t bother trying to improve or fight? No, may it never be. For in so doing we deny the other half of the spirit realm. We deny the Holy Spirit that God sent to help us. We deny the angels who help us as well and speak into us the wisdom of God and the power of God to do good.   

The point of this article is not to enter into some great exposé on the spirit realm and the workings of angels and demons. It’s not to enter into some deep discussion on the Holy Spirit and its workings. The point is to highlight a very simple point: the spirit realm is real. There are angels, they talk to you, and you interact with them. There are demons, they talk to you, and you interact with them. The Holy Spirit is real, and it talks with you, and you interact with it. The Yahweh God is real, and He talks with you, and you interact with Him.  

Now, how they talk with you will vary by person and the first step is simply to acknowledge that they do. For my wife, she describes it as actual voices (not audible), but thoughts with words that pop up out of nowhere. For me, God never talks in words, it’s always as impressions or “knowings” I couldn’t possibly know and yet any impression with a specific feel to it always comes to pass and I know its source. The demons come in voices (thoughts) for me or as intense desires. It’s generally how I immediately know the difference. If it came in words, it’s not of God; if it came as an impression of a certain flavor, it is. How they work with you will vary and after acknowledging they do, you can start to be free of their influence as you learn to differentiate between thoughts that are your own, thoughts which are from God and His messengers, and thoughts that are from the dark spiritual realm. 

Before concluding, a few lose ends need to be tied up. First, we must return to the statement in Job in which it was said if God removes His Spirit that we will cease to exist. Many churches claim the lost don’t have the Spirit of God. For these churches, their goal is to convert these unbelievers to the faith so they might receive the Holy Spirit. But clearly this is wrong. If they didn’t have God’s Spirit to some degree, they simply would not exist, they would vanish. The goal, therefore, is not to get “unbelievers” to receive the Holy Spirit, but to help them understand the promptings and communications the Spirit is already having with them. There is no such thing as a person who doesn’t believe in God. We all know Him, some of us just hate and deny Him, or hate and aggressively seek to destroy His plans in this world and align ourselves with demons. As the prophets Joel and Jeremiah explain and Peter confirms in the Acts, God has poured out His Spirit on all mankind and written His law upon our hearts. If we understand the spirit realm is real and the spirit of God is within us all, we can help “unbelievers” understand where these strange promptings, senses, feelings, impressions, … originate from. This is not to say there are not special manifestations of the Spirit for specific purposes, as clearly the breadth of the Bible shows, but to emphasize we all have the Spirit to some degree and the key is to help people understand it so the degree might increase. 

Secondly, it’s important to understand we are spirit beings. When we interact with another, our spirit interacts with their spirit and the spiritual conversation that takes place doesn’t always say the same things as the physical one. We all know this occurs, for we’ve all met the person who seems so nice and yet we feel icky around them. We’ve all asked someone what’s really going on and they say, “Nothing.” Yet as our spirit talks with theirs, we know that’s not true. When you have this feeling that something doesn’t jive with what your physical senses or the conversation is telling you, remember, the spirit realm is real, and your spirit is interacting with theirs. 

Third, being spiritual beings, we require spiritual food and sustenance just as we do physical food and water. That spiritual sustenance comes from two sources, either Yahweh and His spirit, or demons; and the demons are all too willing to offer energy to power our spirit. But their sustenance comes at a price. They can and will give power to you, and all too many tired people accept, but you must give them access to your physical body, which they lack. They’ll power you, but they want to experience flesh in the process. This is why they drive so many to drinking, sexual excess, gluttony, and every form of evil imaginable. Never deny that such an exchange exists. Many whose acts make no logical sense are so driven by their hatred and anger towards God that they willingly accept power from demons who gladly drive them even further away from God, enjoying the fruits of the flesh they could not otherwise, and driving their human partner to all kinds of terrible deeds. 

Finally, it’s important to understand that if you reject the reality of the spirit realm, the Bible cannot be understood. The Bible is not just a story of God interacting with man, but a story of a spiritual interplay going on between God, the spirits that stayed loyal to Him, and the spirits that tried to and are still engaged in a coup and rebellion. Much of what is going on now and what God is allowing to occur is about them — angels and demons — as much as it’s about us. To deny the reality of the spirit realm is to void the Bible of meaning and is the reason why it says such things as, “The angels are watching.” 

To conclude, the point of this article was to highlight that the spirit realm is real. It’s to point out that we are spirit as well as flesh and that we interact with spirits all the time and they with us, including the spiritual half of all humans. Just like the people around you, some spirits seek to influence you to do good, some to do bad. Some seek to help you know Yahweh, some seek to take you away from Him or to destroy you if you don’t. If you don’t know or don’t acknowledge the reality of this realm, and the Church won’t teach you about it, you will never be able to understand yourself and the forces that seek to shape you, guide you, or use you. You’ll deny promptings and impressions from the spirit that are telling you what the physical can’t; promptings that will help you find a great friend or avoid a terrible fate.  

Yes, the spirit realm is real. Not all voices in your head are your own. Your struggles are not against, although they may involve, flesh and blood, but against spiritual powers and dominions. You need the spirit of God and His spirit servants and fellow travelers in the physical realm to stand fast against the darkness. Take courage, for God has the ultimate victory over them.  He sees you, and as He did with Job; either in this life or when the next comes, He will reward you and you will know true joy. Understand that as He did with Job, He will sometimes allow the evil to attack you so that His purpose may advance. But in the end, the reward and joy will be inexpressible. You will be angry, frustrated, sad, tired, lost, demoralized when these moments happen and just like Job, you will not understand what is going on. This is natural, read how he feels in the book named after him; I dare anyone to not see themselves at times. Yes, take heart, be strong, hope in Yahweh, for in the end He will not fail you and all the demons and those who sided with them will spend eternity in the lake of fire where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay!”  

I should end by saying, this is no academic article for me. It is very real, and deeply personal. I know that what I have written is real and that Yahweh, the Holy Spirit, angels, demons, and the spirit half of humans and humans powering themselves with demons is all VERY real. I’ve had those moments where God sent an angel, and I felt a presence, and it hugged me, and I felt overwhelmed with joy. I’ve had moments in those kinds of encounters as well when God was very clear to me that He loved me, which seemed so strange and almost unbelievable for I am all too familiar with my faults and failings. I have also had those moments when demons were clearly engaged in driving me to sin, or destroying my life, or raining down misery. I can easily look back on my life, thanks to God’s help and revelation, and see how those demons drove and aided the course of my life to bad ends. I know they are all real. I know God’s fire is burning around me to cleanse me, and it is not fun. Yet, the beauty and joy and peace that awaits, that He gave me a glimpse of, is wonderful beyond words. Take courage from this article. Take it to heart, use it to examine your day and your thoughts and those weird moments that come, and see if you too don’t also come to say, “The Spirit Realm is Real, angels are real, demons are real, humans having spirits is real, God is real, and I must do all I can to know Him, and know Him better.” Be strong, and let your heart take courage. Trust in the Yahweh!    

Other Articles by John Fulton

• Easter or Resurrection Sunday? Does it Matter?
• The God Who Didn’t Need to Die but Did Anyway
• Can Man Be Righteous Before God
• The Sin of the Church
• What is Salvation?

Other Articles about the Spiritual Reality

• Victory in Christ Over Spiritual Enemies by Jenny Fulton
• What is Life? What is Death? Are Zombies Real? by John Fulton
• The Devil Within Us by John Fulton
• The Spiritual Reality by Jenny Fulton
• A Complicated, Connected Combination of Mind, Body, and Spirit by Jenny Fulton

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*Cover Image by Karen .T on Pixabay