Lesson 13: The Physicality of the Spiritual

Here we come to one of the more fascinating and detailed stories in the Bible. Gideon’s life is a strange and complex one deserving many hours of attention we don’t have time for. It’s likely you’ve heard of Gideon if you’ve been in Church for any number of years. Most Churchians enjoy concentrating on the miracles and faith aspect of the story which we will touch on as well, but in many ways the most striking part of Gideon’s story are the details about spiritual warfare sprinkled in.

When we meet Gideon we find Israel once more in a state of chaos, and completely at the mercy of her enemies. So much so that Gideon is hiding his family's crops in a winepress so that the Midianites don’t raid his harvest. Their enemies are set on starving them out by stealing every ounce of food, and Israel without the Almighty’s protection is at the Dragon’s mercy.

It’s fascinating to see the different callings of Judges and general men of faith in the Bible. Some like Ehud in the last lesson or Othniel in the one before seem to just act without a set calling from Heaven, or at least without writing down their experience. Despite seeming to act on their own accord God clearly blesses their endeavors. These men are either guided by God to their actions by more subtle means, or thanks to their personal relationships with him understand the Lord’s will enough to risk and act. My guess is this is a bit of both in these cases. Most men will fall into this category. Not everyone gets a personal visit from an Angel let alone The Angel of The Lord.

Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.

And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.”

And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

And the LORD[fn] turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?”

And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”

And the LORD said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”

And he said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me.

Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay till you return.”

So Gideon went into his house and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes from an ephah[fn] of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the terebinth and presented them.

And the angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour the broth over them.” And he did so.

Then the angel of the LORD reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes. And fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the LORD vanished from his sight.

Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the LORD. And Gideon said, “Alas, O Lord GOD! For now I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face.”

But the LORD said to him, “Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.”

Judges 6:11-23

I will leave the identity of The Angel of the Lord for scholars to debate, but we can see that whoever this messenger is seeing him is the same as seeing the face of the Almighty of Heaven’s Armies. An important affair that Gideon is not fully aware of till after he’s asked for multiple signs that this being speaks for God. Now on one hand we can see the problem with excessive confirmation, but on the other we should all be willing to test the spirits that speak to us. Gideon wouldn't have been the first to have a principality of darkness come cloaked as an angel of light.

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

2 Corinthians 11-14

Still, judging by the fact that Gideon’s first reaction is to point out that despite the declaration of the angel in front of him he was no more than a basic farmer in the weakest tribe of Israel shows convincing and confidence was more the needs of Gideon the Benjamite. We can give him some slack as The Angel of the Lord shows a very important aspect of spiritual beings of this caliber. They can take complete human form to the point that normal humans see no difference between them, and the average joe till they reveal themselves. A physical and often seemingly mundane form.

They eat as we see when Abraham is visited.

And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks[fn] of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day.

He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth

and said, “O Lord,[fn] if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant.

Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree,

while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.”

Genesis 18:1-5

They can be touched and interacted with like when Jacob wrestles with an angel.

And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.

When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.

Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.”

Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel,[fn] for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

Genesis 32:22-28

And as brought up in Genesis seem to have the ability to affect the world in a traditional human manner including getting women pregnant as we saw with the creation of the giants.

The Nephilim[fn] were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

Genesis 6: 4

This is a theme continued in the New Testament as well when Mary going to the tomb didn’t realize they were speaking with angels and even Christ himself in the graveyard.

And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.

They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was 

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic,[fn] “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

John 20: 12-16

I bring this all up to lay out another aspect of our fight. We know for a fact that angels and the denizens of the Almighty’s court can take physical form. If that is the case we need to remember those “Sons of God” who made the giants. Fallen angels can take physical form as well, and presumably do an inversion of what these positive examples of physical spirituality can do. We should also point out that not all of those physical forms will be strictly human in nature as we see the description of the Throne Guardians in Isaiah.

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train[fn] of his robe filled the temple.

Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;

the whole earth is full of his glory!”[fn]

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

Isaiah 6: 1-4

If we look at the knowledge we’ve already discussed about mythologies being semi descriptions of the wild actions of fallen  Sons’ of God there is a disturbing connection between these entities, giants, and half human chimera monsters. Almost every mythos known to man have these stories including some in the Bible when we look at this event with the Mighty Men of David.

And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was a valiant man[fn] of Kabzeel, a doer of great deeds. He struck down two lion men of Moab. He also went down and struck down a lion in a pit on a day when snow had fallen.

2 Samuel 23:20

The first response I’ve always heard, almost as if a robot is speaking out of many mouths, is that this is just men with lion shaped helmets or headdresses. People who have never read the story all mysteriously have the same toned answer within a drop of hat. An answer that has no sense of reality. These were the Mighty men of David. Some of these guys had killed hundreds of men in one day all on their own.

The ancient mind would’ve had none of these issues with lion headed monster men in the desert. They would have accepted the story on face value which is why the intended meaning of the verse is clear. If these guys had been wearing fancy headdresses that would’ve been what the verse had said. They had killed two of them as well, and seen them up close. You can’t claim that they were making a mistake since they had the bodies right in front of them.

I say all this to remind you that the world is much stranger than you could ever have imagined, and our enemy takes many forms, one pattern of which is a lying angel of light, others are through false enlightenment with drugs, and still others with the wild forms of half human freaks. We can look at Anubis and the depictions of other Egyptian entities to see how far back this goes, and again remember our lesson on the plagues. Pharaoh most likely was the descendant of gods. Fallen dark gods in rebellion to the Almighty. 

The term chimera itself comes from Greek mythology, and even just a cursory glance into that mythos has dozens of monsters made through the machinations of the gods and freaks that created them. Demonology from the Medieval and Renaissance period depicts demons and evil entities as goat headed men, owl headed horrors, and other similar physical manifestations in witchcraft. And finally in the modern day, and age we have the constant manipulation of genetic codes and breeding that led to this little banger of a law that was drafted and then crushed in congress.

S.1800 - Human-Animal Chimera Prohibition Act of 2021

… “§ 1131. Definitions

“In this chapter:

“(1) HUMAN EMBRYO.—The term ‘human embryo’ means an organism of the species Homo sapiens during the earliest stages of development, from 1 cell up to 8 weeks after conception.

“(2) PROHIBITED HUMAN-ANIMAL CHIMERA.—The term ‘prohibited human-animal chimera’ means—

“(A) a human embryo into which a nonhuman cell or cells (or the component parts thereof) have been introduced to render the embryo’s membership in the species Homo sapiens uncertain;

“(B) a human-animal embryo produced by fertilizing a human egg with nonhuman sperm;

“(C) a human-animal embryo produced by fertilizing a nonhuman egg with human sperm;

“(D) an embryo produced by introducing a nonhuman nucleus into a human egg;

“(E) an embryo produced by introducing a human nucleus into a nonhuman egg;

“(F) an embryo containing at least haploid sets of chromosomes from both a human and a nonhuman life form;

“(G) a nonhuman life form engineered such that human gametes develop within the body of a nonhuman life form;

“(H) a nonhuman life form engineered such that it contains a human brain or a brain derived wholly or predominantly from human neural tissues;

“(I) nonhuman life form engineered such that it exhibits human facial features or other bodily morphologies to resemble human features; or

“(J) an embryo produced by mixing human and nonhuman cells, such that—

“(i) human gametes develop within the body of the resultant organism;

“(ii) it contains a human brain or a brain derived wholly or predominantly from human neural tissues; or

“(iii) it exhibits human facial features or other bodily morphologies to resemble human features.

Funny, most cryptid stories involving dog and wolf headed entities with man like bodies mention them smiling like humans. I have rambled considerably, but I want you to be prepared for your enemy no matter what form he takes. Whether it’s through a lying spirit, a physical liar in your presence, or a straight up hellish monster sent to terrify you into submission. God and Jesus Christ’s cross has defeated them all. Prayer, bullets, and pure living is your defense against God’s enemies who target you. Sin breaks your protection from the Lord of Heaven’s armies so as pure living as possible is a necessity. Prayer is your tool against the spirit sent against you in the night.

You will not fear the terror of the night,

nor the arrow that flies by day,

nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,

nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

A thousand may fall at your side,

ten thousand at your right hand,

but it will not come near you.

You will only look with your eyes

and see the recompense of the wicked.

Psalms 91:5-8

And bullets are when things get real. When the physical, whether man or freak or a mix of both, comes after you. 

Blessed be the LORD, my rock,

who trains my hands for war,

and my fingers for battle;

he is my steadfast love and my fortress,

my stronghold and my deliverer,

my shield and he in whom I take refuge,

who subdues peoples under me.

Psalms 144:1-2

Take heart man of God. All these horrors are but shadows waiting for their day of judgment. So I will leave you with a final verse. Do not be afraid, because they are terrified of the power of Christ in you, just don’t forget to deal with your sin, pray, and keep that rifle by your side. David didn’t kill all the enemies of God with just prayer after all, and neither should you expect God to do the same for you.

Question 1: Have you experienced supernatural attacks, phenomena, and so on? What do you wish you had done differently if you have experienced the spiritual realm interacting with the physical world?

Question 3: Have you been around pastors who profess to be Christians, yet are either too terrified or skeptical in nature to ever look into supernatural cases around them? Why do you think so many pastors, priests, and so on look down on miracles and other phenomena and those who profess their experiences?

I live stream every Monday, at 10:00 pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time about each lesson. Click the boat below to watch the previous stream and click here to join the discord if you have any questions:  https://discord.gg/TxarhzeB