Selah2020: Pause and Reflect

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], April 2021]

Is There a Spirit Realm and Should I Be Scared of It?

Spirituality and spirits are fairly accepted within our culture, in fact you could say we’re obsessed with it! But what does the Bible say about it, and should we be scared?

On Sunday morning, in our final part of the ‘Alternative Facts’ teaching series, I shared with you the idea of there being a spiritual realm, that there’s actually something more to this world that we saw see and measure, that science can teach us about.

I guess that for the majority of us we’re kind of ok with the idea of spirituality and a spiritual realm. Our culture is obsessed with it; with horoscopes in newspapers and horror films, and the interest in new age and ghosts and stuff like that. But the Bible tells us something quite different to maybe what we accept culturally about spirituality and the spiritual world.

For a start, it’s quite clear that it’s not something that we should dabble with; that there is not a passive spirituality that is neither good or evil, but that there is a war going on between good and evil, between God and Satan. That’s a pretty scary concept.

Possibly the reason that we don’t want to accept that is because it’s scary enough watching a horror film, let alone believing that you are living in one. So most of the time we just shut our eyes to any thought that there’s something more out there. There’s enough, I guess, to deal with in this material world without putting on top of it the problems of a spiritual one. Actually we can get just scared. There’s things out there; things that go bump in the night, that make life scary and I’d rather not know about it, thank you very much. Ignorance is bliss.

There is a story told in 2 Kings about the prophet Elisha. Elisha through his prophetic words was giving Israel an edge over the armies of the king of Aram, and the king of Aram got word of this, that Elisha knew what was happening in their secret meetings and war councils. He sends out a task force of heavily armed and trained soldiers to capture Elisha. Elisha with his servant was in the city of Dothan and they went to bed one night and little did they know that during the night this task force, this army, turned up and surrounded the city.

When Elisha’s servant got up in the morning and looked out of the window he got somewhat of a shock and he went to Elisha and reported this terrible sight and the fact that they were about to be captured and killed. Elisha says these words: “Don’t be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are against us”. Then he prayed that his servant’s eyes would be opened, that he might see the reality around them.

After Elisha prayed that prayer his servant’s eyes were opened and he saw on all the hills horses and chariots and soldiers of fire – God’s army surrounding this force of the king of Aram. Elisha wanted his servant to know that with God on their side it didn’t really matter who was against them. In the spiritual realm there was an army backing them up and supporting them.

John, one of the disciples of Jesus, in one of his latter letters wrote these words when talking about the dark spiritual forces in this world. He said: “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world”.

The idea of spirituality and spiritual realms and forces of darkness and this warfare is really a scary thing to contemplate. Yet, if you are a child of God, not only do you have authority because of what Jesus has done on the cross, defeating those powers and principalities that we talked about on Sunday, but also you have God within you, you have God surrounding you, you have God before you and behind you, walking beside you, hemming you in. God is far more powerful and far greater than anything that Satan can throw at us.

So do not fear.

.
[1] YouTube link: Is There a Spirit Realm?
Bible references: 2Kings 6 v8-23, John 4 v4
 

Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.