Weird Stuff in the Bible

Demonology: How a Principality is Established in a Territory
(Or: A Battle for Dominion)
Ephesians 6:12

Introduction
Ever since the Garden of Eden, we have been in a battle for dominion.
The devil seeks dominion over your eternity, but that’s not all. He wants dominion over your personal life, and he wants dominion over physical space on planet earth.
I don’t think most Christians realize that the devil is out to conquer territory. We often talk about the spiritual battle that we’re all in, and that can cause us to think that the physical world doesn’t matter so much.
But if you read your Bible, you’ll see that obviously, this world matters to him. And it matters to God. And so we need to make it matter to us as well.
I mean, as we read scripture, Satan shows up in Ezekiel 28 as the principality of Tyre. He shows up in Isaiah 14 as the principality of Babylon. Daniel 10 tells us about the principalities over Persia and Greece.
And Ephesians 6 tells us that we wrestle against these principalities. But what even is a principality, and how does it come to be in charge of a territory on planet earth?
I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible.
Turn to Ephesians 6, and let’s get weird.
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Recapping last week
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be continuing last week’s study of the hierarchy of demonic spirits in Satan’s Kingdom, and especially we’ll be talking about principality spirits and how they operate.
And especially we should start by recapping last week’s main points, because this is kind of a part 2. I’ll try to explain things in such a way that you can jump in right here if you need to, but I highly encourage you to go back and listen to last week’s episode if you haven’t already.
Last time, we were breaking down:
Ephesians 6:12, which says in the NKJV
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.
What we have described in that verse are four different types of evil in the spiritual realm that we deal with. In my understanding, three of them are types of dark spiritual beings; one of them refers to dark spiritual authority.
So instead of focusing on the English terms- which can change and can be swapped around depending on which translation you read- I elected to teach you the Greek words for these beings. These are words that we don’t always have an English equivalent of, which is why there’s so much variety in how they’re translated.
First was Arche, which was translated principality above, and this refers to a fallen angel or evil spirit who has been placed in command of an entire region. Michael is an archangel and also said to be the principality over Israel, but Michael is a good guy. There are bad ones, too- Molech, Asherah, Artemis- and a lot of today’s lesson will be about how these principalities are given control over a region. So we’ll discuss that today in detail and how my thinking has evolved on this.
Second there was Exousia, or “powers” in that verse. This refers to the legal limits of an Arche’s authority. Legal limits in the spiritual realm. So for example, in Job 1-2, the devil was given authority to destroy all of Job’s possessions, but God said to Satan: “do not harm the man himself.” That meant that Satan had power to attack Job’s property and even Job’s family, but there was a limit. Satan was not allowed to afflict Job’s personal body.
So what we see is that spiritual beings- even Satan- even bad ones- follow the rules. There are legal lines drawn that they aren’t allowed to cross, and they don’t. We might say: but they’re the bad guys. Why do they follow the rules. They are bad, but they seem to be constricted by whatever the rules are. Even Satan himself. So this is the Exousia; it’s the authority and limits of a spiritual being’s power.
Third, we have Kosmokrator. This is a compound word that means “world dominator.” It was translated as “rulers of the darkness of this age” up above. This is more of a mid-level demon that has control or domination in a person or place. In the demonic hierarchy, this is the HR department. If it’s Monday morning and you haven’t even drink your coffee and you’ve already got a demon after you, it’s probably a kosmokrator.
And then fourth, we have the “Pneumatikos,” or spiritual hosts of wickedness. These are the low-level, basic demons. The ones that tempt you, afflict you, cause mental torment, cause sickness, bring conflict to a home, etc. Even though they are low-level, they can cause some pretty significant problems. But as I said above, they can only remain where they have a legal right.
The Pneumatikos try to tempt you to sin. By doing so, they want to tempt you into sin, and through sin they gain legal rights over you. Their goal is to create a legal right for a kosmokrator spirit to take control of you.
As I understand it, this is when you have strongholds in your life. These can be mental issues, physical problems, severe temptations and addictions. Lots of people have spoken of feeling like something comes over them and causes them to sin. I’m not saying anybody with these types of issues is possessed, but I think these are evidences of a Kosmokrator spirit being established and having domination.
So how can their legal rights be revoked? Let me give you three things. One, humility. You must humble yourself before the Lord.
James 4 says
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Pretty much every time the New Testament speaks of battling the devil, it ties in humility.
Two, repentance. You simply say “I repent of that sin that let this spirit into my life.” Go back as far as you can in your memory to the first time you committed that sin, and repent for it and for every sin that proceeded from it. I’ll explain on the next episode why I emphasize going back to the beginning.
I don’t think you necessarily need to cry any tears or get all sad about it. Repentance is mainly about changing your mind. You’re saying, “Lord, at one time or in one moment, I believed it was OK for me to do this and I could get away with it, but now I’m repenting of that action or belief I had I’m doing it your way now, God.” That’s it.
And then third, your will. You have to mean it. You can’t fool God and if you don’t mean it, you won’t fool those spirits. But they gained power over you through sin; you remove their power through repentance. And this will come up again as we continue today.
And, if you have any more questions about spiritual legal rights, I’ll probably go into it one more time next week, because there are some more things I think you need to know.

Establishing a Principality
Now, what I’ve said so far is what I understand from Scripture. I think Scripture is very clear on what Pneumatikos do and what Arche or principalities do. I don’t have a lot of confusion on what the beings on top or the bottom of the demonic totem pole are up to.
Now I’m going to share my understanding of what the Kosmokrators are doing. Again, I don’t have a specific verse that claims this is how it works, I’m just sharing how I see it as I look at Scripture, and you can take what you want from it. I will try to share examples from Scripture as well to back this understanding up.
What a Kosmokrator wants to do is create a legal right for an Arche to come into a region. That’s a key point today. The key point last time was that Pneumatikos spirits try to create a legal right for a Kosmokrator spirit. The key point this time is that Kosmokrator spirits try to create legal rights for an Arche spirit.
By observing what sins tend to dominate an area or who the god is that the people worship, you can get a pretty good idea of who the principality/Arche spirit is over that region.
So it’s not as if a principality rolls in and says, “I’m in charge of North Carolina now” or “I claim Switzerland as my land now, the devil said I can have it.” I don’t think it works that way. And I don’t think that God says “Devil, I have decided to give you South Africa.” I used to basically believe that God just divvied it up and assigned the spirits all their territories. After more study, I do believe God sets the borders, but the spirit in charge of a territory within those borders is up to the people. It’s more of a democratic process. The people choose what principality they’ll have over them by what kind of sins and idolatry or god they exalt.
I’ll give an example of this from Scripture. You’ve probably heard this phrase “Jezebel spirit” before. Now, I don’t know if there is a Jezebel spirit. Lots of solid Bible teachers I’ve listened to talk about it, but there isn’t a Jezebel spirit mentioned in the Scripture; although I’ll admit, I can see the patterns of a Jezebel spirit so I wouldn’t be surprised if there is one. And if there is one, here’s how it operates.
I Kings 16:30-33
30 And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him. 31 And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him. 32 He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. 33 And Ahab made an Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.
Ahab thought he was the top dog, but he was controlled by Jezebel. Ahab was Michael Scott; Jezebel was Toby. She was HR. She actually called the shots.
But also notice: Jezebel is not the principality. Lot’s of people treat the Jezebel spirit like she’s the big bad. Like that Jezebel is trying to take over America. But Jezebel’s actions in the Scripture are always to establish Baal as the principality. So if the Jezebel spirit is real, it’s more of a Kosmokrator. It’s trying to expand the legal rights or Exousia of Baal so that Baal can take dominion over the area.
So Jezebel is not the top dog. Her name even means “Baal is Prince.” (It’s not super clear what her name means but it appears to be something like that.) She wasn’t the top dog. She got eaten by dogs, but she wasn’t the top dog. She was establishing a legal right for Baal- which is Satan- to come in and become the principality over that region.
Jezebel came from Tyre and Sidon; Satan already had dominion over Tyre. Her dad was Ethbaal. Later on, the prophet Ezekiel is going to write a pronouncement against the King of Tyre, which is Ethbaal III. Longtime listeners of this podcast will know that I believe Baal is a name for Satan. If you remember, Ezekiel 28 where Ezekiel addresses the king of Tyre also includes about 10 verses that speak a pronouncement against Satan himself.
Side note for a minute: Why was a pronouncement against Satan given in Ezekiel 28? Perhaps you’ve wondered: why here? Isn’t that kind of random? Ezekiel is going through a list of pronouncements of judgment against various Gentile nations, and then Ezekiel pauses for about 10 verses to rail on Satan right smack in the middle of his prophecy against Tyre and Sidon. Why? I firmly believe that Satan, under the name Baal, had established himself as the principality over Tyre, and that’s why when Ezekiel writes to the king of Tyre in chapter 28, he also can turn in that moment and address Satan, the principality over Tyre. In fact, Ethbaal- which was the name of the king that Ezekiel was writing to- the name Ethbaal means “I’m with Baal.”
Ethbaal was also the name of Jezebel’s daddy. So now let’s go back to Jezebel. I will assume you know Ahab and Jezebel’s story; if not, you can read it from I Kings 16 all the way through II Kings 9. Jezebel is the evil queen. We observe from her stories that she was a very domineering, manipulative, controlling woman. Ahab was kind of a weak, controllable man- and that’s just the way she liked him.
So Tyre and Sidon were already under Satan’s control. Then Ahab King of the Northern half of Israel marries a woman from Sidon. And she immediately tries to spread the Gospel of Baal to this northern tribe of Israel.
I Kings 18:17-19
17 When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” 18 And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals. 19 Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table.”
She starts killing all the prophets of God and setting up shrines of Baal and prophets to Baal. These holy sites- or we might say unholy sites- create legal rights for principalities.
Baal or Satan can’t just take Israel because he wants it. Here’s where I don’t have a clear verse that says this, but I say this based on observing Scriptural patterns. If Satan could just take whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, he’d just do it. But if you remember what I said last time, only two things can give an evil spirit our dominion: God, or human beings (through our sin). When we sin, we surrender our dominion to the devil. (Again, more info on that next time.)
I believe a principality must be granted control of a region through human worship. This is what Kosmokrator spirits are trying to do: build altars, idols and holy sites for these principalities. At some point, the land is corrupted to the extent that it is granted to this principality.
If you remember from before, these things open gates of hell. Points of entry for evil spirits into the world. I spoke about this in episodes 61 through 64 earlier this year. It’s not necessary for you to understand that to understand today’s episode, but I just want you to know that these idols and altars where sacrifices would be made to pagan gods on the high places are not just hunks of stone or wood. These are spiritually powerful objects. I believe they create the legal rights for a principality to be established in a land.
If we go back a bit further in Israel’s history, we’ll see another example in I Kings 11 and 12. I saw this debate break out on Twitter recently between the Calvinists and the non-Calvinists over who split the Kingdom of Israel into two parts. Whether it was God or the people. Now, I’m not even picking a side because I believe in this story, we can see both at work.
I Kings 12:15 says
So the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord
So it sounds like God wanted to do it. The Calvinists were using this as an example of God’s sovereignty. But then the non-Calvinists brought up the previous chapter where it said why God did this.
I Kings 11:31-33
thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I am about to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon and will give you ten tribes 32 (but he shall have one tribe, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel), (and then v33 is the key part) 33 because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites, and they have not walked in my ways, doing what is right in my sight and keeping my statutes and my rules, as David his father did.
God was splitting the Kingdom because the northern tribes were worshipping false gods. By worshipping the false gods, they are establishing a new principality.
You might look at it that God is splitting the Kingdom to save the Southern part. Otherwise the Southern part would have been doomed, too. Splitting it into two parts saved the Southern half of Israel from being given over to these false gods or principalities as well.
So remember what I said before: establishing a principality is more of a democratic process. It depends what the people want. They will get the god they want to worship.
And these Kosmokrator spirits try to establish Principalities. They influence people toward evil. Iniquity. Abomination. Idolatry. Because these things expand the Exousia- or the devil’s legal rights. Evil’s dominion.
So this is how my thinking has evolved a bit throughout this study. In the past, I knew about territorial spirits. I’ve done episodes on territorial spirits. But my assumption was that God determined where all the lines where; which spirits got what, which spirits were assigned where.
That could be the case. But now as I’ve learned more about how man was given dominion of the earth and that we gave up our dominion to the devil- and that the spiritual battle is really a battle for dominion- now I’m coming to understand that it’s probably humans who decide what principality will rule their territory. The principality they worship- the principality they serve- that will be the principality who rules over their land.

Getting Rid of a Principality
So how can you get rid of a principality that has been established over a land? Or if you see a particular type of evil spiritual gaining territory, gaining ground in a region, gaining Exousia, how can you turn the tide back toward godliness and holiness?
Well, let’s observe through Scripture, and I will submit two steps today. If you did listen to episodes 61 through 64, you learned about how Jeroboam changed the religion from worship of Yahweh to worship of his golden calves. It really came down to the altars. He corrupted the altar of God and then built an altar to his false gods. This brought a curse, which is another way of saying, it created a lightning rod for evil spirits to be attracted to this area.
So if we want to cleanse a physical space of any curses, step one is going to be destroying the altars. If you don’t get rid of the altars, idols, pillars, any cursed objects that have been used in the worship of false gods, then it doesn’t matter what else you do; the evil spirits are always going to have a right to come back.
That’s why on past episodes I’ve said to be careful about what you bring home with you if you go on vacation to some exotic place. Lots of people go to like Hawaii and pick up trinkets of little idols and they think it’s just a cute souvenir. The Bible tells us not to mess with such things. This is why God would often tell the Israelites in books like Joshua not to take from the spoil of the peoples they conquered, but to just destroy their possessions.
If you’re at a pawn shop or if you’re going by one of those new age shops and see something that catches your attention, just be careful what you’re thinking about bringing into your home. If it’s a cursed object, you could be bringing an object that gives legal rights for demons to enter in. Better to be safe than sorry. You don’t want to be roommates with a demon. They aren’t doing half the dishes and they aren’t paying half the rent, so don’t give them any of your space.
I Corinthians 11:20 says
what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.
So back to what I was saying about legal rights. I’m not advocating property destruction. If it’s not your property, I’m not advocating you trespass and destroy someone else’s possessions. Depending on where you’re listening from, you might be in a situation like the first century church that had to live amongst altars to Zeus and the best they could do was sanctify their own property and try to live uncorrupted by the evils around them. So just try to share the Gospel and change your culture.
But ultimately, the reality we have to recognize is that until the altars and places of wickedness are destroyed, the enemy is gonna worm his way back in. And this is what we observe in the books like I and II Kings or I and II Chronicles. It goes through this history of all the various kings of Israel, and it will remark on whether they were a good king or bad king, and it will remark on whether they left the high places or destroyed the high places.
Most of the time, the kings did not destroy the high places. Even many of the good kings. It might list a bunch of good things they did, but then it might say, “but he did not destroy the high places.” Here’s a good example.
II Kings 15:3-4
3 And he (King Azariah) did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. 4 Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places.
This is a recurring theme. What did it mean? That perhaps the king made some good reforms and brought back some worship of God and kicked out some prophets of Baal. They did good, but they left the high places of worship to unholy spirits. And by doing this, it left a legal right for those evil spirits to return and cause problems in the next generation. If you don’t destroy the high places, the devil will keep his foot in the door and come back later.
HR is watching. They know all the rules and regulations. And they’re looking for a loophole or entryway to come back and harass you later. So the first step in cleansing the land is getting rid of the high places.
I’ll give you the second step in just a minute. Real quick, let me just remind you to subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already. Next week I’m going to talk about why sin creates legal rights for spirits to oppress you. I’ve been talking about this, but there’s another level deeper I could go and probably should have already gone on this subject. So just to make sure I cover my bases, that’s what I’ll be talking about next time. So make sure you’re subscribed so you can get it.

National Repentance
So if we want to reclaim our dominion that the enemy stole, the first step was getting rid of the high places. The second step in cleansing the land is repentance on behalf of the sins committed there. Intercessory prayer warriors who will rise up and repent before the Lord for the sins that have been committed in that land.
I can give you three excellent examples of this, and it’ll be easy to remember because they’re all 9s. Daniel 9, Ezra 9 and Nehemiah 9. All three of these books contain epic prayers of national repentance. They can show you how it’s done. They don’t make excuses. They own up to the sins of their ancestors. Here’s a snippet:
Daniel 9:3-7
3 Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. 4 I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. 6 We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. 7 To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you.
I love how Daniel just tells it like it is, doesn’t make excuses, and humbles himself on behalf of his people, and acknowledges his nation’s sins honestly. Not very long after this prayer, the Israelites are allowed to return to their land that they had been outcast from.
Now perhaps you’re wondering: Daniel was a good guy. He didn’t do any of that stuff that he’s repenting for. In fact, most of the people that Daniel is repenting for are dead and gone. So how can his prayers of repentance mean anything? He didn’t do it, and the people who did are long dead.
Well, here’s what’s going on. We carry spiritual authority. I plan to do some episodes about this later this year. And in certain situations, we can repent on behalf of others. A husband can repent on behalf of his wife and kids. An Israelite can repent on behalf of Israel.
I don’t totally understand it. It doesn’t make sense to my individualistic mindset. It doesn’t seem fair that one person might have to pay a price for someone else’s sins and need to repent on behalf of them to appease God’s wrath.
Doesn’t make sense in my western individualistic paradigm. But it makes Biblical sense, because this is how we see things operating in Scripture. People repenting on others behalf. And frankly, God didn’t ask Luke Taylor what I thought was fair when He designed the universe.
Plus, if I’m being fair to the Bible, my whole entire faith is based on a God who became a man and paid the price for everyone else’s sins on a cross while praying for his enemies who nailed Him to it. And that same God tells me to pick up my cross and follow Him.
So if we’re going to live by Biblical precedent, then we need to recognize that this is how God operates. Even if it sounds weird to us.
Maybe you didn’t build the high places, but perhaps you’re the one God is calling upon to tear them down.
Remember: the Bible is not weird. WE are weird, because we don’t understand about how principalities can be established over a nation, that we might grow up in a spiritually dark environment that we didn’t create, and how we might have to fix it by repenting on behalf of sins that we never committed. But now we do. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.