Territorial Spirits

A recent Bible Study was on Daniel 10. This bible-book is a rich vein of spiritual truth, yet its mining is not easy. It talks about the prince of Persia and the coming prince of Greece resisting the angels of God. These two individuals, some assume, refer to wicked spiritual entities rather than actual earthly tyrants. I cannot imagine an actual king or prince of Persia withstanding the mighty Gabriel. If this interpretation is correct, a whole can of interesting worms come a-wriggling out:

•             Does each country have its own wicked spiritual being? Less a benevolent guardian, and a more an evil power behind the throne?

•             If they exercised power at the time of Daniel, do they do so still today?

•             What powers do they have?

•             Do they compete with each other?

•             Could they account for the wording of Psalm 83, which reads

God stands in the congregation of the mighty;

He judges among the gods.’?

Even assuming this interpretation of the text is correct, we are not permitted to know the answers to the above questions. There are those in charismatic circles like Peter Wagner, who likes to think he can take on such creatures, and Frank Peretti in This Present Darkness, who also advocates it. If such demons exist, however, why is so little mention made of them in the New Testament? Paul, for example, insists such creatures are real, but fails to associate them with particular territories or nations. 

The problem with this whole approach is that we begin to grow too interested in these beings, giving them glory they do not deserve. I once talked to a Christian in Blackburn who told me there was an ex-workhouse overlooking the town from a hill. It was the haunt of demons, and it ‘exercised a spirit of poverty’ over the borough. I asked him whether he thought the town’s decline had more to do with the fortunes of the cotton industry, but he insisted it was spiritual warfare. It was clear that this gentleman could see no holes in his view, so my comment that the poverty-demons of Africa were far more efficacious that their British counterparts remained inside my head.

Having re-read Daniel, I think the existence of such territorial spirits is likely, though I’d go no further. Don’t pray against them, seek them or spend much longer thinking of them. Rather, think of Christ, before whom these spirits will one day bow.

Image by Dean Moriarty from Pixabay