The Structure of Satan’s Kingdom (Part 5)

Ephesians chapter 2—and these words are addressed to Christians—

“And you God made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins... [Now he describes how people live before they are converted and come to serve God.] In which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. [Who is the prince of the power of the air? Satan, that’s right.] The spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.”

What is the word that describes the sons of disobedience? Rebels, that’s right. Anyone who is in rebellion against God automatically comes under the control of Satan. You understand? It is not enough to go to church and sing hymns. You have to lay down your rebellion against God and submit yourself to Jesus. That’s when the change comes. Lots of churchgoers are still rebels. And as rebels they are actually being controlled by Satan. Now Paul goes on saying in verse 3:

“Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves.”

Any of us who disagree here? One thing I know, I certainly did. I have no doubts about where I was before the Lord found me. I was a rebel and in the kingdom of rebels. I did not know it. I thought I was very clever, very successful. I thought I had all the answers to everything. Until I started to read the Bible, and then I discovered I did not. I cannot go into that but I just want to say, Paul said, “We apostles, including I, Paul, we were all in that category, rebels being manipulated by Satan through spiritual power which we did not understand. We did not know who was pulling the strings. We just moved as our strings were pulled.”

“Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.”

Notice it is not only the desires of the flesh, but our minds are alienated and at enmity with God until we surrender. The intellectuals are some of God’s most fervent enemies. And then he says:

“We were by nature the children of wrath, just as others.”

So that’s a description of a lower stratum of Satan’s kingdom. Humanity on earth. All human rebels, regardless of their race or their denominational label. Unless they are truly submitted to Jesus Christ, God’s appointed ruler, are rebels; and Satan, by spiritual power, controls them.

Now there is a very interesting phrase there. He says, “He is the ruler of the power in the realm of authority of the air.” I cannot dwell on this, but there are two main Greek words for air. One is aer, from which we get the word air; the other is the word aither, from which we get the word ether. Now I am are not concerned with the words that come from them, but the fact is that aer is the lower air contiguous with the earth’s surface; aither is the higher, rarer air. Which word do you think is used here? The lower air. In other words, Satan rules the surface of the earth. That’s his realm. There’s a lot of interesting speculations, because when Jesus comes it says we will be caught up to meet Him in the air. Which air? The lower air. However, we cannot go into all of that; there’s a lot we could theorize about that but we will restrain ourselves.

I just want to give you one remarkable picture of Satan which you may have never noticed in the book of Job, chapter 41. Now the whole of this chapter deals with a creature named leviathan, which is some kind of marine monster. We don’t know very much about the leviathan but do you think that the Bible, which is so economical, would devote 34 verses just to a marine monster? No. The truth is, leviathan is a type or a picture of Satan. You can study this carefully and see this. I only want to point out to you the closing statement, in Job 41:34:

“He beholds every high thing. He is extremely proud and he is king over all the children of pride.”

That’s Satan. Wherever pride enters the human heart, for that’s the influence that caused Satan to rebel against God, pride brings us under the control of Satan. It doesn’t matter whether we are Pentecostals, Baptists, Catholics, that’s not the issue. The issue is, what’s our heart attitude toward God. And unless we have a heart that is truly submitted and surrendered to God through Jesus Christ, we can use all sorts of nice religious language, and lay claim to all sorts of titles, but the fact is that we are under the kingdom of leviathan. Because he is king over all the children of pride.

How many sermons do you hear against pride? You don’t need to answer that. Basically, I think the church today is majoring on minors. I know when I was a pastor years ago I used to be right down on people’s smoking. I was terrible. The problem was we would not have people in our congregation at that time that smoked. But we did not say anything about people that quarreled with their wives. And I felt such a hypocrite that I told a young man that he could not be a member because he smoked. And I knew there were people in the congregation that were very wrong in their attitude and relationships to their wives or to their husbands. See, things like smoking, drinking and drunkenness are just little branches on the tree. But you know what the root is? Rebellion. And the Gospel of Matthew, in introducing the Gospel, causes John the Baptist to say:

“Now also the ax is laid to the root of the tree.”

That’s right. That’s what we should be aiming at.

I want to give you just a little closing summation of Satan’s ambitions, his purposes. He has very definite purposes. He has two main ambitions: to dominate the whole human race. You remember one of the phrases used in Ephesians 6:12: “The world dominators of this present darkness.” And his second purpose is to receive worship. We need to understand this. You see, he laid claim to equality with God, but was disqualified. But he has not given up the claim. And there is one way he can still assert the claim. What is that? By receiving worship. Because worship is due only to God. So whenever Satan receives worship, he is saying, “There you are, you see. I am still god.” And when you really analyze anything Satan does, his ultimate purpose is to receive the worship of the whole human race. And in my judgment, from a prophetic perspective, he is very near to achieving his ambition.

Satan and his angels in the heavenlies were, I believe, the gods of paganism. All gods recognized and worshiped by all pagan societies and races are just different ways of describing Satan and his angels. Zeus, Hermes, Poseidon—all the Greek gods that I used to know so much about, and care so little about now—are just different labels for satanic angels. And as you look through all the cultures of human race you see different titles, but the same beings. And when they worship, what are they worshiping? Satan and his angels.

And there is one particular way that fallen man has to relate to a satanic kingdom. The generic word is witchcraft, which is prevalent in all pagan societies under different forms. You can hardly go to any major section of the human race which still has some kind of pagan background without encountering a person who is called the witch doctor. You will find a different name in different languages but the same person. The witch doctor, in a certain sense, is Satan’s priest. He is the one who enables people to get in touch with Satan’s kingdom. Why do they want that? Two main reasons: first of all, they are terribly afraid of the disasters that Satan would bring upon them; and most of their sacrifices and their rites are to propitiate these very cruel and temperamental beings. And secondly, they want power and witchcraft is a means to power. I tell people in foreign mission fields: Don’t ever go to Africa or India and tell people that Satan is not real. They all know he is. Demons are real. They know them well. What you have to tell them is demons are real, but Jesus is real, and He has defeated the demons. And He gives us power to defeat them. So ultimately witchcraft as a religious practice is an expression of man’s rebellion against God. Witchcraft is the natural religion of fallen man and it permeates the whole human race. It is not something very strange or unusual.

And the last thing I want to say, and it is important in our days, is: Witchcraft is making a determined come-back. It is like where Christianity came, these satanic beings were forced back, but they were never totally defeated. And now they are saying, “It is our turn. We are coming back.”