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t's a given by now that there is a spiritual world distinct from the physical material world. Every human being on earth knows there is a spiritual world that cannot be understood by the five senses. We all came from that realm and are all going back there after physical death at one time, or the other. There are only two sides of the spiritual divide: heavens which are up and hell fire and hades which are underground. Where any human being will end up will be decided here on earth; you either go to heaven or hell, no middle road or as one man jocularly said, "there is no partial belongation." If you want to go to heaven, there is ONLY ONE WAY-JESUS CHRIST. The road is narrow and hard and only a few find it; but the road to hell has many routes, they are easy, broad and require no sacrifices, no heavy lifting and plenty of people are traveling that road and hell fire is expanding daily (Mathew 7: 13 & 14).

As noted in this column last week, why is Satan still around after the Great Rescuer, Our Lord Jesus Christ defeated him on Calvary? If Satan is dead, why is he still around here instead of where he and his fiendish lawless ones belong permanently: hell and bottomless pit? Because the lease that God Almighty signed with Adam and Eve which Satan stole after he deceived them has not run out. We do not know the number of years Adam and Eve would have stayed on earth to qualify them to eat from the fruit of the Tree life, if they had not been deceived by Satan. As the Almighty God rightly told Adam in Genesis 2: 17 that the day he ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil he would surely die, we knew that no human being has lived up to a day, as far as God is concerned. The oldest human being on earth-Methuselah- lived for 969 years short of 1,000 years which is equal to a day before God (2 Peter 3: 8). Before the total banishment of Satan, his fallen angels and those human beings that have refused to obey God and His commandments to hell fire permanently, God is poaching while Satan too is also poaching the world for those who will go to heaven and hell respectively (Mathew 13: 36-42).

Paradise has been restored by Our Lord Jesus Christ and as He promised those who put their trust and faith in Him, He was going to heaven to prepare a place for us-His followers. He said after the preparations, and the heavenly houses which He called mansions are ready, He promised to come back and take us to the place so that where He is; we will be there also. This is not a vain hope but a living hope and as far as I know, there has not been any out of all the founders of man-made religions or the so-called spiritual masters out there deceiving human beings that have made this promise to their adherents. It is either this Jesus Christ is the real deal or He is a deceiver; He cannot be both. "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am," (John 14: 2-3). These are the promises of Our Lord Jesus Christ and Savior. These promises are either coming to pass or are empty promises; again, they can't be both. Meanwhile, God Almighty is making an appeal to all human beings to come to these mansions-according to the King James Version-and dwell with Him but His door of Eternal Grace will not be perpetually opened. Satan and his fallen spirits know this and those of us who will stake our lives on those promises believe and know this, but many do not believe. But before it's all over, Satan and his fallen angels want to drag as many human beings as they can drag down with them to that horrible place and stench known as hell. The Satanic operation commenced in earnest as soon as Satan deceived our First Parents in Eden

Satan commenced almost immediately to set up a parallel and an opposing system on earth as soon as he stole the power that God gave to our First Parents: Adam and Eve. He organized the world in accordance with his will but diametrically-opposed to God. Hitherto, there was only one way to exercise power-spiritual power-which flowed from the expressed will of God and known by Adam experientially. Satan added four other powers in order to distract the children of Adam and Eve: physical power, intellectual power, economic power and political power. Power is the ability to enforce a will; authority is the legal instrument that gives teeth to power and dominion is power and authority combined without opposition. Adam and Eve lost these three domains of power over the earth but Satan could not exercise all the three domains either, because he stole them. The powers were obtained illegally but no de jure but in de facto and the presence of few children of God who knew how Satan obtained the power and his illegal usurpation of such powers put a limit on Satan's ability to exercise such stolen power in dominion. As long as we the true children of God Almighty are on earth and our eyes have opened to the defeat of Satan on Calvary by Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Satan's power on earth is limited. He can only exercise his stolen powers over the spiritually-ignorant and the incorrigibly-disobedient children of Adam and Eve that are many in the world.

The first exercise of physical power introduced by Satan saw Cain, who physically overpowered his brother, Abel and then murdered him. Lamech did the same thing too. Political power was next as human beings begun to settle as community of people (Genesis 11: 4). 12: 15). Next was added, economic power (Genesis 12: 16). Later, intellectual power came in and human beings began to relegate spiritual power to the background. Today, many do not believe it exists, yet in the exercise of the rest powers, we come short and start looking for spiritual power, because somehow, the other powers introduced by Satan are inadequate to answer all of our life's needs and the needs of the hereafter. In order to solidify his hold on human beings and remove God Almighty completely from the affairs of human beings, Satan proceeded to erect mimicry of God's kingdom on earth. After all, his initial rebellion in heavens was sparked by his prideful ambition to be like God and what does it mean to be like God? To be worshipped, so all his fallen angels were organized in direct opposetion to God Almighty. Polytheism was introduced and some of these foul and fallen spirits turned themselves into pantheons. Man does not need to worship just One God; there are many gods and goddesses there are, so saying though human beings. Satan began to set up equivalent powers and authorities and that illicit, illegal and ungodly and anti-human kingdom of Satan can be graphically stated below-:

The above represents the organogram of Satan's kingdom in broad terms. Although the duties and functions, including the deployment of foul sprits can overlap at times, because Satan is not as organized as we know, but a phalanx determination to cause evil gives it a veneer of hieratical command. There are intense infightings, much betrayals, constant stabbing of the back, ferocious hatred and eternal vengeance among the ranks of the cadres. There is one objective that binds them all: intense hatred for God Almighty and peevish loath toward His children-human beings; you and me, but in particular born-again Christians.

SATAN: Since God is Triune, Satan too wants to be Triune so he elevated two of his high-ranking fallen spirits: the Beast and the False Prophet (Revelation 20: 10) alongside him to create an unholy trinity. Because Our Lord Jesus Christ is also called the Prince of Peace, Satan too also designated one of his foul spirits known as Beelzebub as prince (Luke 11: 15; Mark 3: 22). Because Satan wanted to make sure all human beings were under him and of course as their Chief Kidnapper, he could secure them very well and none would escape from his lair, two of his high-ranking rebellious spirits: Death and Hades were sent to the Nether Gloom to take charge (Rev 20: 14). The rest fallen angels were divided into four broad ranks as follows on the earth: principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, and spiritual hosts (Ephesians 6: 12).

WHAT OR WHO ARE PRINCIPALITIES? These are foul spirits that govern villages, towns and cities across the world. Remember the ambitions of Satan and his rebellious spirits for the war in heaven was to be worshipped and revered like their Maker, but that ambition was unrealized and they were flushed out of heaven. But having stolen the power, authority and dominion that God gave to Adam and Eve, Satan and his rebellious hordes believed they could at least become gods and goddesses at last on earth. They adopted names through which human beings now worship them as gods; Dagon, the principality of the Philistines (I Samuel 5: 1-12); Asthoretth, the principality of the Sidonians (2 Kings 23: 13); Chemosh, the god of Moab ( I Kings 11: 13); Milcom, the principality of the Ammonites ( I Kings 11: 5); Molech, the god of Ammon ( I Kings 11: 7); Topheth, the god of Hinnom ( Jeremiah 7: 31); Baal-zebub, the god of the Ekronites ( 2 Kings 1: 2); Baal, the chief principality of Samaria (2 Chronicles 23: 17); Ashera, the twin-gods of Samaria brought to Israel by Jezebel, in her capacity as the princess of Ethbaal, king of Sidon and the wife of Ahab, king of Samaria, Northern Israel (I Kings 18:19). Space will not permit us to continue with the principalities of the native lands of Canaan, from Egypt where the Almighty God disgraced their gods: Iris, Ra, Osiris etc. with the plagues; Baal Beor of the Aramites, (2 Peter 2: 15; Revelation 2: 14); Queen of heaven, the principality of fertility that the women of Israel copied from the Canaanites (Jeremiah 7: 18); Nisroch, the god of Assyria (Isaiah 37: 38) and many more.

These fallen angels, also called gods and goddesses or idols are so ferociously powerful that, apart from the restraining power of their Maker: God Almighty, they could turn the earth upside down in few minutes. They do not inhabit human bodies unlike demons which we shall describe below. These are high-ranking spirits that fought God Almighty and Michael and the loyal angels in heaven (Revelation 12: 7) and lost alongside their master, Satan. They divided the world among themselves and exercise authorities and powers over human beings. The few listed above are still very much around but have changed their names and nomenclature depending on their topoi yet, their modus operandi remain basically the same: perpetual opposition to the plans of God Almighty and His will on earth and in the lives of human beings, provoking God Almighty to jealousy by intimidating human beings to worship them and teaching them to rebel and disobey God Almighty so they and their human worshippers will eventually end up in hell fire. Satan and his fallen spirits know they have been judged already and their eternal destiny is sealed. They know doom, tears, sufferings, wailings, weeping, gnashing of teeth and destruction are theirs in hell fire, but like all sore losers and fallen creatures with no hope and completely futureless, misery indeed loves company. After all, as the famous saying; "He who is down fears no fall," so these foul, dirty, disgusting and malevolent spirits who now style themselves as gods and goddesses love no one; they don't even love themselves. They are miserable and all those who cast their lots with them will share the same fate. This is the meaning of the word: "wickedness."

In my over 50 years sojourn on this temporary planet earth, I have travelled and visited more than 1,000 hamlets, villages, towns and cities in the three Continents of Africa, North America and Europe and have seen in the spirit the presence of these gods, goddesses and idols. Starting from my home town of Owo in Ondo State, Western Nigeria, Africa to Canada, the United States, the UK, Germany and many countries in Africa, and around the world, demon- idols manifest themselves in the affairs of human beings through festivals. There is not a single village, town or city in the world that doesn't celebrate one form of festival or the other. People are told those festivals are innocuous; they are just mere fun and part of people's culture and tradition. Any time you attend such a village, town or city festival, ask knowledgeable people how the festival started. What are the origins of these festivals: from the annual Halloween Festival in the Americas and around the world, Mardi Gras or Season of Carnival celebrated in New Orleans here in the United States and in ten other nations of the world, to the annual spiritual birth in the Ganges River in India and Bangladesh by Hindus, the annual satanic pilgrimage to Our Lady of Guadalupe or Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe and other such celebrations around the world. They all began as idol worshiping but as society modernizes, the idols too also adjust to give human beings the impression these were mere fun but they knew that most people in the world are spiritually-blind. These fallen angles lurk in the background and are running the show, while such satanic celebrations are disguised as culture, customs and traditions, entertainments and fun, but there are certain commonalities in all these idol worshipping festivals and carnivals masquerading as fun and entertainment. I am writing a book already which treats these matters in depth and you can look up your town or city and read the idolatry content and origin of your city, town or village festival.

One of such town festivals I will never forget was during my visit to the sleepy town of Ouidah in Benin Republic, West Africa in the 1990s. For those who may not know, Ouidah is the birthplace of Voodoo worship which is very popular among Africans in the Franco-phone world, and from here the idol worship spread to Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica and other nations in the Caribbean and Latin America. Many Africans in the Diaspora, especially Haitians pay visit to Ouidah regularly because it was the historic town that African slaves would be herded, cleared and then loaded into ships for onward journey to the land of no return during the Middle Passage between 1727 and 1800. But more importantly, the Beninoise- as nationals of Benin Republic are called in French- normally mark an annual festival which brings Africans in the Mother Land and the Diaspora together in remembrance of their forefathers carted away to the Americas during the obnoxious trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. A house was erected at the center of Ouidah Town near the city's central market and inside is a big python and written boldly for anyone to see were the words: "Maison de Diablo," meaning "The House of Satan." The townsfolk treat the house as sacred and I was told that the python is brought out once in a year when the festival is held in his honor during which its priests prophesy and worshippers make requests of the serpent. Of course, this is no ordinary serpent; it is a principality which controls the town. This is the god of the town and Christian missionaries are loathed in that town, although I saw some residents going to worship in the city mosque. Either way, this python is the principality or god of that town.

SATANIC POWERS: These are also known as demons in ordinary language as we know them in the world today. Some commentators refer to principalities as demon-gods, which is okay but demons are slightly lower than idols and principalities. Unlike principalities which cannot inhabit human bodies, demons crave and love to live inside human bodies (Mathew 8: 31; Luke 4: 41). Unlike principalities which have their geographical turfs and are worshipped by ignorant human beings, demons have a higher-ranking principality that they report to and he is Beelzebub, the prince of demons (Mathew 12: 24). Beelzebub is more of a chief of staff to Satan, he directs and organizes the schedules of each demon and places them on assignments. When a demon is having difficulty in its place of assignment, he contacts Beelzebub, either for more reinforcement or entering into an alliance with principality or a group of principalities to ensure a particular mission is accomplished (Daniel 10: 13). Demons have names and have characteristics (Luke 8: 30). Unlike principalities which guard their turfs jealously and will fight to finish protecting their geographical locations and freeing human beings from their hands will require struggles, at times physical death (Mathew 8: 34); demons, on the other hand, prefer to inhabit human flesh, and if given more opportunities, they can control the human soul, and further encroachment may lead to total control of the human flesh-body, soul and spirit. These are called demonic oppression, repression and possession (Mark 5: 16-18). Christians cannot be demonically-possessed; that is complete encroachment on body, soul and spirit, but can be demonically-oppressed and repressed. Demons don't normally like to possess human spirit but their target is the soul but when a human being offers his/her spirit, that is a bonus. Because this area is vast and elaborate, we will devote a whole essay to it in a fortnight in this column after we deal with Satan and principalities next week.

How do demons operate? What are the signs to look for in a person having a demon? Who can be possessed? What counter-measures can human beings take to thwart their diabolic activities? Why do they crave human flesh? How and through what means do they find their ways into human bodies? Are all demons of the same strength and power? What are their relationships to principalities and other cadres of Satan's kingdom? How many demons are out there? These and many more are questions the Holy Bible provided answers and we shall reveal them in a fortnight.

RULERS OF DARKNESS: Apostle Paul identified these groups of fallen angels on his way to the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12: 2) and upon his return, he was able to identify these groups of fallen angels (Ephesians 6: 12). For those who have been given the Grace of God Almighty to see a scintilla of heaven by Our Lord Jesus Christ, you will see these hordes of fallen angels. They occupy the realm known as the supernatural world; of course all satanic angels are in the supernatural world-that realm above the natural and lesser than the spiritual world. People confuse both, but they are different. The expression "rulers of darkness" to describe these groups of fallen spirits was used once in the entire Bible by Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6: 12 referenced above. Apostle Paul called them; "rulers of the darkness of this world," which the Greek Translation for the word: "rulers" means "pneumatika" which means two of the following (1) belonging to a spirit, or a being higher than man but inferior to God ; (2) pertaining to the wind or breath; windy, exposed to the wind, blowing…" If we go by what Apostle Paul had earlier said about these groups of fallen spirits in the same Ephesians as"…ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient," (Ephesians 2: 2), it means these sets of foul spirits work closely with Satan himself and under them are foul spirits like the great harlot (Revelation 17: 1), Jezebel-not the princess of Sidon married to Ahab-there is a foul spirit known as Jezebel (Rev 2: 20).

These groups of fallen spirits are specifically trained by Satan to teach human beings how to conduct astral projection and other abominable things forbidden by God. Solomon wrote much about them in Ecclesiastes and many children of God with God's Grace have also encountered these fallen spirits. We have plenty to talk about them in this column in subsequent articles. SPIRITUAL HOSTS: These are the final sets of fallen creatures in Satan's totemic darkened world. Hosts as we know are people or things that serve as receivers or managers of somebody or something on behalf of the true owners. In the Bible, God Almighty refers to some of His created things on earth as hosts (Nehemiah 9: 6). Among some of these hosts on earth are the sun, moon, stars etc. which God created for signs, seasons and weather and lights. However, there are angels in charge of these elemental forces in heaven and they report periodically to God Almighty when summoned to the Throne of Our Great and Awesome God in the third heaven (I Kings 22: 19; 2 Chronicles 18: 18).

What Satan did after he and his rebellious hordes were flushed out of heavens and they succeeded in stealing the power, authority and dominion that God Almighty gave to Adam and Eve was set up a parallel host of heaven on earth against that of God and moved human beings to start worshipping those elemental forces: sun, moon, the stars, the great sea monsters, nature and mountains, and fertility of the earth etc. God Almighty warned the Israelites on these abominations which the Canaanites were steeped into in Deuteronomy 4: 19 thus: "And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven." Satan appointed some of his fallen angels to these "host of heaven" and taught human beings to worship them. Do you recognize any religion in the world today that faces a particular direction when worshipping their god? Can you recognize any religion that has to wait on the moon before its adherents commence their so-called annual fasting? Do you know of any religion that worships the sun and moon while worshippers are being deceived they are serving the True God?

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK: We zero in on Satan and principalities and their origins next week. Did Satan just divide the geographical landscape of the earth among the principalities like that without the knowledge of the Almighty God? No, it wasn't all that cut and dry; human beings invited these fallen angels and you will be amazed at how all these polytheistic culture began and perhaps, that may set your mind thinking about the real story and origin behind your village, town and city festivals you relish and religiously participate in and think you are carrying out traditional duties, customs and preserving your cultural heritage.

WORLD PROPHECY: This is huge! Something of global importance, an earth-shattering event and a cosmic occurrence is in the offing in the world. I don't know what it is but the Holy Bible has predicted it and we shall all see it with our very eyes soon. This event is part of end-time prophecy and it's about to take place very, very soon in the next 12 to 24 months. I don't know what it is; I repeat again, I wasn't shown what it is but again, it's HUGE. The whole world will be shocked; from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun; from the East to the West; from the South to the North, the planet earth is about to witness a catastrophic event. The Divine Hand of God Almighty, the Creator of the heavens and the universe, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is about to intervene in the affairs of humanity. The world media, the commentariat, the scientists, the astrologers, the men and women of earthly wisdom and their ilk will be talking their heads out but will not be able to explain but those who know the True God will be unshaken and unperturbed. What is it? I wasn't shown but was only told (Luke 21:11 & 25).

ISSUE OF THE WEEK: When the affairs of human beings come full circle, those with the Spirit of God know that the affairs of human beings are not just cut and dry but the Spiritual world controls events down here. This is why those of us who knew the beginning of News Watch magazine in Nigeria and the tragic death of its founder, Dele Giwa in the hands of that evil bastard/murderer, Gen Ibrahim Babangida in 1986 would not be shocked at what is currently playing out in the Nigerian court room. I doubt if there is any nation in the world where a people suffers more from collective human amnesia than Nigerians. Messrs. Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese and Yakubu Muhammad knew in their hearts that they betrayed Dele Giwa and they are paying for that betrayal right now in the hands of Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim. How could Ray Ekpu, a journalist of more than 50 years' experience be arguing about the ownership of News Watch with a "boy" like Jimoh Ibrahim who was in the secondary school in 1984 when Dele Giwa pioneered News Watch? How could Ray, Yakubu, and Dan descend so low to lose their professional competences and respect to such a disgraceful level that they could not run News Watch and had to invite Ibrahim to rescue the foundering publishing outfit and now Ibrahim is rubbing sand in their faces? What happened to all the millions of Naira they collected from Ibrahim Babangida, the murderer, who killed their friend? What happened to all the millions of Naira pumped into News Watch by Mr. Mike Adenuga, Babangida's boy throughout the 1980s and 1990s? What did they do with the shares of Dele Giwa, the man who conceived the News Watch project and how much did they pay Dele's children and his family? Death is not the period of life; it is indeed the beginning of eternity.

No evil would go unpunished, either in the here now, or in the hereafter, to paraphrase Dele Giwa and those who embrace evil will not go un-punished too. Dele Giwa is gone but as long as a nation known as Nigeria endures, his name can never be forgotten but Ibrahim Babangida who ordered his murder will suffer more severely in the hereafter and his children and grandchildren too will never go unpunished. As for Ray, Yakubu and Dan, they are watching their professional lives literally wasting away right before their eyes. They gave a lot to the noble profession of journalism but in the dusk of their professional lives, they have become nobodies. This is sad! They should not have ended their illustrious professional careers this way, but it was their own making. The tragic professional lives of Ray, Yakubu and Dan are lessons for all saboteurs and traitors that it is not how long we live in this transient earthly existence, but the principles we cherished, the ideals we lived by and our individual integrity of purpose. As the late Dr Martin Luther King Jr. once said, a life that is worth living is a life lived for a meaningful purpose and a mission. The Babangida that Ray, Dan and Yakubu were so awed of; a mortal soul like every human being they so revered and couldn't stand up to his bully was later disgraced and humiliated out of office in 1993. Today, Babangida too is an unknown quantity. And we don't know yet how this evil man will end his life but we should weep for Ray, Dan and Yakubu.

What is so powerful about money that it turns men and women initially destined for greatness into the limbo of forgotten things? Why do people of little minds so despise honor and scoff at wisdom because of filthy lucre? Why is integrity such in short supply among little men and women in Nigeria? Why do people in that part of the world only live for the moment and morality sinks to the bottom in their affairs? Why don't our people fortunate to occupy leadership positions to live for ideals that are greater than selves and shine through human history long after they are out of this temporary abode prefer to fritter such opportunities? If there is any publishing outfit in Nigeria that has the potentials to be evergreen and turn into an icon, that should have been News Watch, but these despicable characters succumbed to intimidation and the easy way and denied themselves and their descendants' enviable and positive mentions in history. News Watch was primed to outlive the ogre known as IBB and glow but unable to see beyond the darkling glass of the 1980s and 1990s, the trios of Ray, Yakubu and Dan succumbed to expediency and cowardice. Great men and women of history in any professional field never avoid the heavy lifting of heroism, nor shy from paying the price of principles because of the immortal pearl of nobility. How much did Mike Adenuga, Jubril Aminu and other Babangida toadies pay for the integrity and ideological suicides of Ray, Yakubu and Dan that they mortgage their place in Nigerian journalism history? Pity indeed! After all, what is the worth of a man, if history cannot judge you that you are a person who stood for something or as MKL said; "If a human being hasn't discovered something worthwhile to die for, he/she is not fit to live."

FROM MY MAILBAG THIS WEEK

"Hello brother-in-Christ, I am really enjoying your writings; ride on, the Lord is with you. Thank you" ----Mr. Jimi Klementi. Mansfield, TX USA.

Thanks for the encouragement as usual my fellow brother-in-Christ

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Thanks so much and may the Holy Spirit continue to illuminate you more and more. Regards, ----David Mac-Cyprian, Madrid, Spain

Thanks

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Dr Fayemiwo is author, publisher and CEO, Alternative Lifestyle Communication, DBA is an adjunct lecturer in African History & Media Studies at the City Colleges of Chicago in Illinois, USA.