The Devils Organizational Chart

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.² By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³ and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. ⁴ Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. ⁵ They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶ We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. First John 4:1-6 (ESV)

John tells us here to test the spirits; we must know where the spirit we are dealing with comes from, God or evil. Those are the only two choices; there is nothing in between. Thankfully, the test is not complicated, “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³ and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. John 4:1-6 (ESV) 

As I read these verses, I can’t help but realize, once again, how important it is to pay attention to what folks are teaching. Theology and doctrine are important, and their importance can’t be minimized. In their rush for unity, many overlooked what folks are teaching and, in that, they are violating what the Apostle Paul command us to do, to test the spirits.

We know that the Adversary is a lair (John 8:44) and a deceiver (Revelation 12:9). He hates God and he hates us. Satan must be particularly upset in regard to the gospel. He was convinced that he was actually killing Jesus, not realizing that killing Jesus was God’s main plan to redeem his people. First Corinthians 2:6-8 tells us,

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. ⁷ But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. ⁸ None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (ESV)

I want you to understand that as you look at a false teacher, or a false prophet, etc. they may present the true gospel, but if you look deeper, they will ALWAYS end up perverting it. That’s how you know! So, this force us to look closely! It is like a singer who has one good Christian song, but the rest of the album is promoting the devil’s agenda. It is sickening to hear how many Christians will characterize that performer as a believer. The devil does not present himself fully evil; how can he effectively deceive anybody if he does so?  

As we discussed before, the gods that were placed in charge over the 70 nations in Genesis 10, betrayed God (Deuteronomy 32 and Psalm 82). We will not go back to discuss that, but will move forward. The Apostle Paul tell us in Ephesians 6:12,

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (ESV)

Beloved, the entire secular world is ruled by the devil who is the god of this world, (2 Corinthians 4:4). Ephesians 6:12 gives us the organization of the devil’s government. As previously discussed, Genesis 10 gave us the table of nations. God divided the world in 70 nations; Israel was not around yet. Today, there are about 195 nations in the world. Where are these 195 nations located?

• 54 countries are in Africa
• 48 in Asia
• 44 in Europe
• 33 in Latin America and the Caribbean
• 14 in Oceania
• 2 in Northern America^[1]

With a little patience, all of these nations can be traced back to the 70 original nations. This is significant because God placed gods in charge of these nations. God divided the world in 70 nations after flood of Noah. However, the people kept sinning, so God divorced the world. In Deuteronomy 32 Moses describes the betrayal of the gods and the nations against God. This is particularly important; Moses described these betrayal’s including Israel’s in a song. After Moses presented this song to the Israelites, he died that same day. I guess the devil did not like that song too much as he fought for Moses’ soul against the Archangel Michael (Jude 1:9). 

In Psalm 82, written by Psalmist Asaph, God declared that these gods will die like mere humans (Psalm 82:6-7). We need to understand that this world is still under the rulership of Satan and his gods. This demonic government has Satan at the top, the gods, the fallen angels and the demons at the bottom. It is of vital importance that we understand this so that we are able to understand proper spiritual warfare. Let’s go back to Ephesian 6:12 and let’s look through these key words in the original language:

1. Wrestle: This is the Greek word pálē; meaning “A struggle or hand–to–hand combat. It was used of the wrestling of athletes and hand–to–hand combat of soldiers.^[2] Let me emphasis that this definition is not describing a sport. The ultimate goal here is to kill your opponent. That is why is describing Gladiator’s type of comeback and soldiers in comeback. This is not a game; this is a real, violent and brutal fight. It is a spiritual fight; however, it does make contact in our dimension of life through sickness, calamities and all kinds of psychological and emotional traumas.
2. Rulers: This is the Greek word archḗ; meaning, “the beginning of something, as the beginning of a line, road, and so forth.”^[3] The Rulers are the first in the line of authority; these are the gods; only Satan is above them.
3. Authorities: This is simply defining the nature of Satan’s government. This is the Greek word exousia;meaning “liberty of doing as one pleases; the right to exercise power or “the power of rule or government,” the power of one whose will, and commands must be obeyed by others.”^[4] We hear a lot about authority; “I take authority” they like to say in the charismatic movement. However, this definition is describing the authority that Satan and his followers have over the secular world. The secular system is not ours; it was not given to us.  The Bible clearly identified Satan as the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4 / Matt. 4:8-10). 
4. These are the Cosmic Powers: This is the devil organizational chart. (1)The devil is the Archon: A chief, a prince. The devil is also Arche: A rule, sovereignty (Dominion); beginning. He started this whole rebellion against God. The devil is also Kosmokrator: A ruler of this world. The context (“not against flesh and blood”) shows that no earthly potentates are indicated, but spirit powers, who, under the permissive will of God, and in consequence of human sin, exercise satanic and therefore antagonistic authority over the world in its present condition of spiritual darkness and alienation from God. (2) Politarches: A ruler of a city” (polis, “a city,” archo, “to rule). There were gods in charge of the 70 nations in Genesis 10. The Bible do not say how many gods were they. Politarches specifically indicates a ruler of a city. Every city on earth has a god in charge under the leadership of Satan. (3) Architríklinos; A ruler, governor, or the master of a feast, the person who had the direction of the entertainment, arrangement of the guests, and so forth (John 2:8-9). The architríklinos, was required to remain strictly sober at all times as he directed the affairs of the feast, tasted the wine first lest the drunken guests thought they were drinking wine while they were drinking water. The Greeks called such a ruler sumposíarchos (the ruler of a sumpósion [4849], a drinking party or symposium) or trapezopoiós (the one who makes or arranges a trápeza [5132], a table or tables for eating).^[5] As you can see, these particular rulers are spread all over the world as they are in charge of entertainment: Drinking, eating and partying. 

Thanks to global recession, the value of the worldwide entertainment and media market is projected to fall to two trillion U.S. dollars for the year 2020. However, the forecast for 2021 suggests revenue will once more rise to 2.1 trillion U.S. dollars, as in 2019. Further growth is forecast for the following years. In the United States the entertainment and media market was worth an estimated 678 billion U.S. dollars in 2018 and was expected to grow to over 720 billion U.S. dollars by 2020.^[6]

Think about this for a minute, it will take about 330 billion dollars to eradicate hunger around the world; however, we spend 2.1 TRILLION dollars in entertainment. In 2018 the USA alone spend 760 billion dollars in entertainment; more than twice of what is needed to eradicate hunger around the world. This numbers tell you who the gods of this world are.

5. Darkness: This is the Greek word skótos; meaning, Darkness; with a focus on spiritual darkness, implying ignorance or error (John 3:19; Rom. 2:19); eternal misery and damnation (Matt. 8:12; 2 Pet. 2:17; Jude 1:13); sin and misery (Matt. 4:16; Luke 1:79; Acts 26:18; 1 Thess. 5:4; 1 Pet. 2:9), as well as persons in such a state (Eph. 5:8); the works of darkness, such works as are usually practiced by men in darkness or secretly (Rom. 13:12; Eph. 5:11 [cf. 1 Cor. 4:5; 1 John 1:6]). The infernal spirits as the opposite of Christ, the sun or light of righteousness (Luke 22:53).^[7] When we talk about Spiritual Forces of Evil; spiritual is the Greek word, πνευματικός “belonging to a spirit, or a being higher than man but inferior to God.^[8] Paul is very clear that the spirit that he is talking about here is evil. Based on this definition we are talking about demons here. These are demons operating in people. These are the lowest rank in the devil’s organizational chart. 

In our next article we will address the two very important questions for this session: #1. What are demons and #2: Where they come from?

To be continue… 

^[1] https://www.worldometers.info/geography/how-many-countries-are-there-in-the-world/

^[2] Spiros Zodhiates, The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2000).

^[3] Spiros Zodhiates, The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2000).

^[4] W. E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger, and William White Jr., Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville, TN: T. Nelson, 1996), 45.

^[5] W. E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger, and William White Jr., Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville, TN: T. Nelson, 1996), 540–541.

^[6] https://www.statista.com/statistics/237749/value-of-the-global-entertainment-and-media-market/

^[7] Spiros Zodhiates, The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2000).

^[8] James Strong, Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon (Woodside Bible Fellowship, 1995).