Friday, April 20, 2018
Principalities
Ephesians 6:12
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
There are many who are fascinated by the British Royal Family and spend a lot of time following the news of the doings of the various princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, and, of course, Her Majesty the Queen herself. Royal watching heightens during the time of royal weddings. Right now, global attention is on Prince Harry and his American fiancé Megan Markle, this is despite the fact that, in the grand scheme of things, Harry is a pretty minor royal.
When William and Kate got married just about seven years ago the Queen conferred a Dukedom on Prince William of Wales. Prince William, therefore, became His Royal Highness The Duke of Cambridge and Miss Catherine Middleton on marriage became Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge. Royal watchers expect that in a few weeks’ time, on the occasion of their wedding, the Queen will confer a dukedom on Harry, most likely Duke of Sussex.
While these titles today are mostly ceremonial and a statement of rank in the royal family, there was a time when the prince was expected to defend the territory from which such a title is derived, the territory which the prince, or princes, rules over, in other words, their principality.
For those of us who do not live in a country ‘ruled’ by a royal family, we are very unfamiliar with the idea of a principality. However, we do get the idea of a municipality, a political division with a level of local self-government. The municipality often is a town or village or includes a town or village and is often governed by a Mayor.
The Apostle Paul, in describing the nature of the spiritual context in which we live, and in which we fight, chose a governance model similar to the royal model to explain the order and organisation that exists in the enemy camp. We have talked before about the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness and so the language of kingdoms is appropriate.
Paul may have taken the kingdom formulation of principalities directly out of the understanding that was established in the Old Testament. The example of the confrontation in Daniel chapter 10 fits squarely with this concept of an order and hierarchy in the invisible world.
While Daniel prayed and fasted for there weeks God’s angel, bearing the answer to Daniel’s prayer, was delayed by a principality assigned authority over Persia. That principality was determined to deny, or at least delay, the answer to prayer and the deliverance of God’s people. Here is what the angel told Daniel when he finally arrived, “Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia.” Daniel 10:12,13.
As an aside, we like to be singing songs like Ron Kenoly’s War in the heavenlies, but we do not recognise the seriousness of that warfare task. Daniel, as he fasted and prayed for three weeks, was making war in the heavenlies. Here are some of those Kenoly lyrics again. “Making war in the heavenlies / Casting down every high thing / That exalts itself against / The knowledge of Christ / We do not bow our knee / To the prince of the air / For we know the truth / Has set us free
A few years ago when we planted our church in this community we became aware of some characteristics of the community as time went by. One characteristic is that there is a significant number of persons who struggle with sleep. This was not an issue at first, but more and more person after person would show up for prayer or counselling for one issue or the other and it would be revealed that they struggle with sleep. It became evident that persons in the community, especially from families which came here in the 1970’s are affected by a specific ‘spirit’ at work in the community.
Paul revealed the order and structure in the kingdom of darkness, The hierarchy of evil spirits: principalities, then powers, then rulers of the darkness of this age, then spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places/realms.
As we have established, the principality has authority and jurisdiction over an area which could be a whole country or large region. The powers are spiritual agents, demons, given delegated authority to carry out assignments in that specific region, area, or against a specific target. A target could be a community, a family or an individual.
Then there are the rulers of the darkness of the age, another class of demonic forces with larger responsibilities to affect large numbers of persons in a generation or era. The rulers take their orders from he who is described as the god of this age. Their goal is to make it difficult for persons to come to the knowledge of Jesus. See 2 Corinthians 4:4 in context.
All the host of evil spirits have a clear intent to maim, disfigure, steal, kill, destroy as described in John 10:10. Deception is a key tool and they are busy working on a variety of schemes, see 2 Corinthians 2:11, and Ephesians 6:11.
We are up against organised forces and shouldn’t take this lightly.
Think on these things:
- Have you observed any trends in your family that are troubling?
- Do you see anything in your community that would suggest that unnatural forces are at work?
- If you know what issues your church has had to confront the most is there a pattern that you could detect?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that our church would organise for the warfare we are in.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex