The Spiritual Realm | The Branch

"If you don't feel like you are under any type of spiritual warfare, there's a chance that you're doing nothing for the kingdom of God." - Pastor Matthew Johnson

The episode opens with a question that is equal parts entertaining and oddly fitting for what follows: what is the scariest thing you have ever experienced? Pastor Anthony Lombardi describes standing up from doing sit-ups on his back porch in Lancaster only to find a copperhead snake two and a half feet from where his head had just been. His solution - a bow and arrow followed by a brick dropped from the second story - drew more than a few laughs. Pastor Matthew Johnson recalled a terrifying night in college when two unknown men repeatedly tried to enter his family's home at 2:30 in the morning, ending with one of them tased in the front yard and another found hiding in a plastic playhouse with cocaine on him. Pastor Chris Reed described a canoe trip in high school where two girls in his youth group nearly drowned after their canoe was pulled under a fallen tree.

The stories are gripping. But they serve as a runway into a conversation about something the pastors argue is far more dangerous than any of those moments - and far less visible.

Pastor Anthony opens the main discussion by naming a tension that many Christians feel but rarely address directly. Western culture is deeply materialistic. People trust what they can see, touch, and measure. And while Christians might intellectually affirm that a spiritual realm exists, Pastor Anthony argues that many live as if it does not. The goal of the episode is to change that.

Pastor Chris Reed is candid about his own struggle with this. He acknowledges a personal tendency to drift toward a more materialistic view of faith - one shaped more by the culture he grew up in than by Scripture. But he is clear: Scripture is not born out of a materialistic worldview. It is saturated with the assumption that the physical and spiritual realms are not separate but overlapping, constantly interacting, and equally real.

Pastor Matthew traces the historical roots of the problem. In the mid-twentieth century, a wave of liberal Protestant theology sought to remove the mysterious and unexplainable elements of faith - what Pastor Chris describes as an attempt to strip Scripture of its supernatural worldview. The problem, as Pastor Chris puts it plainly, is that you cannot do that to Scripture. The spiritual realm is not a peripheral detail. It is embedded in the text from the first pages of Genesis to the final visions of Revelation.

The pastors work through what Scripture presents about the spiritual realm with both honesty and care. The picture, they note, is not always neat.

In the Old Testament, the spiritual world intersects with the physical in a variety of ways. The serpent in the garden carries spiritual weight that goes beyond a talking reptile. Satan appears in the book of Job interacting with God within clearly defined parameters. Angels show up as ordinary-looking people - so ordinary that in some cases, people only realized what they had encountered after the angel disappeared. At other times, the response to an angelic appearance was immediate and overwhelming terror. As Pastor Chris observes, every time an angel appears visibly in Scripture, the human response is pure fear. Whatever these beings look like, they do not look earthly.

Then there are the visions - Ezekiel, Isaiah, John in Revelation - where the physical and spiritual blur together into imagery that is rooted in the cultural and architectural language of the ancient world while pointing to something far beyond it.

In the New Testament, the language shifts. Demonic possession and oppression become more prominent. Jesus encounters and liberates people from demonic forces repeatedly throughout the Gospels. Pastor Chris notes that Scripture never gives a clean explanation for how those people ended up in that condition - and he argues that ambiguity alone should make Christians cautious about casually engaging the spiritual realm.

The pastors turn to a question that is increasingly relevant in a culture fascinated by the paranormal: what does a Christian worldview say about ghosts, contacting the dead, and fortune telling?

Pastor Chris points to the story of Saul and Samuel in 1 Samuel 28 - one of the strangest passages in the Old Testament. Saul, having been cut off from God, goes to a medium to call up the prophet Samuel from the dead. Scripture does not seem to treat what appears as a demonic counterfeit. It appears to actually be Samuel. And yet the entire episode is treated as a serious act of disobedience - not because the interaction was impossible, but because Saul was seeking knowledge and guidance from a source outside of God.

That is the heart of the issue. The scriptural warning against mediums, necromancers, and fortune tellers is not primarily a warning that these things never work. It is a warning that seeking wisdom and guidance from any source other than God is dangerous. Pastor Matthew adds a pointed example from Acts 16, where Paul casts a demon out of a slave girl who had been used by her masters to tell fortunes - and the text makes clear that the information she was providing was accurate. The demonic realm can be genuinely powerful. That is precisely why entering it uninvited is so dangerous. As Pastor Matthew puts it, when a person opens themselves up to those forces, they do not know what they are actually inviting in.

As the conversation moves into spiritual warfare, Pastor Chris lays out a framework drawn directly from Scripture: every Christian faces three distinct but interconnected enemies - the flesh, the devil, and the world.

The flesh is the sinful nature inside every person that bends toward temptation and resists the will of God. Pastor Matthew reflects on studying Romans years ago and being struck by the way Paul describes sin - not simply as something people do, but as a force embedded in human nature that wars against the spirit. The devil, along with the broader demonic realm, works primarily through deception and manipulation. Pastor Matthew is careful to note that demonic forces do not have unlimited power. The book of Job shows Satan operating within parameters set by God. But what they can consistently do is deceive, manipulate, and exploit the vulnerabilities that already exist in a person's flesh. The world - the collective current of human culture running in opposition to God - provides the environment in which the flesh and the demonic find constant reinforcement.

Pastor Chris uses the image of a fighter in a mismatched MMA bout who wins not through power but through repeatedly targeting the same vulnerable spot until his opponent collapses. That, he argues, is how the enemy operates. He identifies the flesh's specific weaknesses and keeps hitting them.

The pastors are clear that the way Christians fight spiritual battles looks nothing like a Hollywood film. There is no dramatic confrontation, no sensational moment of crisis. The battle is fought in the ordinary, consistent, daily decisions of the Christian life.
Pastor Matthew describes the difference between a foothold and a stronghold using a childhood memory of his brothers trying to slam a door shut while he got his foot in it. A foothold is where the enemy gets access. A stronghold is where he gains control. Disobedience opens the door. Obedience keeps it shut.

The practical tools the pastors point to are not new or complicated - prayer, Scripture, fasting, worship, and genuine community with other believers. Pastor Matthew reflects on what Jesus says to the disciples after they fail to cast out a demon: some only come out through prayer and fasting. His reading of that passage is not that a Christian needs to fast for days before confronting demonic forces. It is that a Christian should already be prayed up, already fasted up, already living in a posture of ongoing spiritual preparation. The discipline is not reactive. It is proactive.

Pastor Chris frames it with a military analogy. A soldier who does not believe he will ever see combat might not take his training very seriously. But a soldier who knows he is being shipped into active combat will absorb everything he can. The Christian who genuinely understands that spiritual warfare is real - and ongoing - will approach prayer, Scripture, and community not as religious obligations but as essential preparation.

Near the close of the episode, Pastor Matthew makes a personal and sobering observation. He and Pastor Anthony both experienced some of the most intense spiritual warfare of their lives during the past year - and he traces it directly to the opening of The Tree Church's Logan campus. When Christians take ground for the kingdom of God, the enemy responds. Pastor Matthew is not sharing this to frighten anyone away from obedience. He is sharing it as a reality check - and as evidence that the battle is real.

His challenge is direct: if a person feels no spiritual resistance at all, it may be worth asking whether they are doing anything for the kingdom of God. The enemy has little reason to oppose a Christian who is entirely ineffective. But for the Christian who is stepping forward in obedience, who is pursuing God and taking ground, the opposition will come - and the spirit of God who lives inside every believer is greater than any force that comes against them.

Pastor Chris closes with a book recommendation that fits the conversation well - C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. Written from the perspective of a senior demon instructing a junior one, it offers an imaginative and deeply insightful look at the subtle ways the demonic works in everyday life. The pastors note that readers need to remember the enemy is the protagonist of that book - or the whole thing will be confusing.

The Tree Church meets every Sunday at 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM at our Lancaster and Logan, Ohio campuses.

If you are searching for a church in Lancaster or a church in Logan where Scripture is taught with depth and honesty, we would love for you to join us.

Find out more at www.thetreechurch.com.