We live in two realities, the natural reality and the spiritual reality. Both have laws created by God which must be respected and obeyed in order to function within each environment harmoniously. For humans who are not born again, they live only in the natural reality without knowing the existence of the spiritual reality. This also applies to born again Christians who live only in the consciousness of the natural world while being ignorant of the power of the spiritual reality. Yet between these two realities, it is the spiritual reality that affects the natural. God patterns the natural world after the spiritual world to reveal His invisible attributes (Romans 1:20). The physical reality is temporal and a shadow of the true spiritual reality, which is eternal and permanent (2 Corinthians 4:18). All the natural reality, which forms the visible natural world around us, were made by the invisible spiritual substances and elements and framed by the Word of God (Hebrews 11:3). Learning to live in both realities harmoniously is the key to walking like Jesus on this earth.
The natural reality consists of past and present experiences, with different memories filling our consciousness as they affect our soul and spirit. The spiritual reality is beyond time yet can fill our consciousness with past, present or future potential experiences. These two worlds interact, as one is a shadow of the other, with the physical being a shadow of the spiritual. We might think that all things in the past are just pure physical and natural but the Bible clearly states that all that is natural is made by the spiritual and invisible forces (Hebrews 11:3). When Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit it was a natural experience but it was also a violation of the spiritual law of God, thus bringing all mankind into the law of sin and death (Romans 5:12-14). Moses had carried his real, physical and natural rod or staff, made from a real natural tree, with him through most of his forty years in the wilderness but when he threw it to the ground, the spiritual world elements and forces caused it to turn into a real natural physical snake (Exodus 4:1-5). Moses’ hands were physically either lifted or weighed down but each time his hands came down, Joshua was losing the battle and each time his hands were lifted up with the rod, Joshua was winning the battle (Exodus 17:9-13). The natural movement of Moses’ hands were not just natural realities, they became spiritual realities under the anointing of God.
Some natural events surpassed even human choices, such that there is nothing in the will of humans that can alter or prevent an event from taking place once it is sealed into dry cement. Before Elisha died, he gave a last prophecy to the king of Israel. Asking him to take a bow and some arrow, he commanded that they be shot against the east window (2 Kings 13:15-16). Having proclaimed that the arrow is the Lord’s deliverance from Syria, he commanded the king of Israel to take the arrows and strike the ground. The king only struck three times and stopped (2 Kings 13:18). He then became angry at the king saying that he should have struck five or six times until the arrows were destroyed (2 Kings 13:19). He then prophesied that the king will only strike Syria three times, and Syria would not be destroyed. What a link between the natural and the spiritual! There was so much free choice involved. The king had a free choice how many times he can strike the arrows. Even after the prophecy, the king of Syria had a free choice as to his own empire and what he did to it. Yet once an event is sealed into dry cement, there was completely nothing that human free will and free choice can do about it. There are some events in the future which are wet cement while others are dry cement (which means that they cannot be changed or altered. A natural and private event under the anointing of the Spirit, became the determining factor for all that occurs in the future between Israel and Syria. Before the prophetic act of striking the arrows occurred it was still subject to human free will but after that it could no longer be changed.
Abraham received many blessings from God through his obedience in leaving Ur and going into the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:1-3). After many wonderful experiences with God and receiving his only child, Isaac, Abraham was tested by God in sacrificing Isaac to God (Genesis 22:1-2). Everything was within the free will and free choice of Abraham. When he obeyed and God provided a ram to replace Isaac, a special blessing was added in that his descendants will possess the gates of his enemies (Genesis 22:17). How could enemies who do not exist yet be completely vanquished for all future events? It is possible when there is a special link between the natural event and the spiritual event. It was not an easy decision for Abraham to offer his only son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. Neither was it easy for Isaac, who at that time would be around his thirties, to voluntarily gave himself as a sacrifice. God sees the hearts of both Abraham and Isaac and gave them permanently the victory over all their enemies. All future free choices of men could not nullify what God had established as a permanent blessing of victory to Abraham’s descendants.
Many times, we read from the Bible of foretold events that seem to have no possible alteration by the free will of men. It is prophesied in the Bible that the Greek Empire will be broken when it is at its strongest (Daniel 8:8). it is a forgone conclusion that Alexander the Great would die young at his prime. And that his empire would be divided into four (Daniel 8:8). We read such stories and wonder about human free will. And what about prophecies regarding Josiah destroying the altar of Jeroboam or Cyrus rebuilding Jerusalem (1 Kings 13:1-2; Isaiah 44:28; 45:1)? Does Josiah not have free will and likewise Cyrus? What about John the Baptist who was named, chosen and anointed from birth (Luke 1:13-17)? Or others like Jeremiah and Paul who were called, chosen and anointed in the womb (Jeremiah 1:5; Galatians 1:15). Knowing the preciousness and honour that God has given to human free will, it is possible that the events will play out as dictated by the power of God rendering it impervious to changes by human free will yet having elements of colorization by the individual human. Samson was chosen from birth to deliver Israel from the Philistines but there was nothing said that he should have been blinded and captured by them before his final suicidal battle with them (Judges 13:4; 16:21, 28-31).
Observing all these, we infer some principles on the dynamics of natural and spiritual realities interacting as follows:
- There are actions that have an impact on both the natural and spiritual world.
- Such events can be as simple as eating fruit from a tree or lifting our hands to making a major sacrifice like Abraham with Isaac.
- There are major cosmic spiritual events that affect all creation in the Universe which have an obvious side effect in the natural. Example the three hours of total darkness over Jerusalem when Jesus died on the cross with earthquake and graves opening at the moment of His death (Matthew 27:45, 51-52).
- There are symbolic natural events which uses God’s prophetic typology; for example, the tearing of the temple veil between the most holy place and the holy place from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38: Luke 23:45). The three sections of the Jewish temple has always symbolised the separation of the most holy from the holy, and it was important that this veil be removed as Jesus literally entered also the most holy place in the Heavenly Temple in heaven.
- It is possible under the direct instruction of God, to have natural events cement an event in the future irrevocably as in the story of Elisha and the king of Israel.
- Some events of significance to God and the Universe passes by unnoticeably to men on earth. Example, in the birth of Jesus, all the hosts of angels in heaven were worshipping and adulating God but on earth it was like a non-event, with men going about their usual business.
- We are living in a continuous flow of events from Adam to the present, filled with some dry cement determinations that cannot be altered by free will. We must respect them and flow around them in carrying out our individual assignments. Example, Israel was blessed by God since Abraham’s time and it was foolish for Balaam to try to curse them (Numbers 12:12).
- Conversely, we must also be sensitive to not associate with or be near anything which the Lord has judged or cursed. To do so would bring the judgments and curse of the Lord into our sphere of existence. Jehoshaphat, though he was a good king but allied with bad people, could not escape the fallout that came from the judgment over Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings 22:3, 44; 2 Chronicles 18:1-3; 19:1-3).
The interactions between the natural and the spiritual do not end with the Bible but still continue as our God is still the same God who divides between the good and the evil in His sight. During the judgment of Babylon in the book of Revelation, a voice from heaven called out saying, “Come out of her, My people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues” (Revelation 18:4). At the end of the age, the angels will be sent forth to separate the wicked from the just (Matthew 13:47). At the harvest time at the end of the age, the reaper angels separate the tares and the wheat and then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of the Father (Matthew 13:39-43). The apostate church will arise before the antichrist is revealed (2 Thessalonians 2:3). There is a fullness of time for all things and we must hear the voice of our Lord Jesus, our Shepherd, so that we are gathered together unto Him in the end times (John 10:27).
The personal application of this truth is to be sensitive to all that is happening in the spiritual world and to know when the two realities of natural and spiritual are intersecting. There are some natural events in each personal life that are a test of cementing blessings in the future. When they are absolutely and clearly God’s word and instructions, we must flow with them and obey God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. Everyone of us must be accountable to God to be in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. There is no place safer than to do God’s perfect Will. The spiritual world creates and frames the natural world by the power of the Word and of the Spirit. Hold fast to the revelations of things in the spiritual and they will, in the fullness of time, start impacting upon the natural world. The future is always in the spirit first and then as it grows to its fullness, will cause the natural order to follow suit. If we flow with the Holy Spirit correctly and in a timely manner, we will catch the waves of the Spirit flowing on the earth now. The spiritual world is always pregnant first, and then it gives birth into the natural earth realm setting the flow of events towards a predetermined future path. Should God instruct things to be done in cementing the things of the future, we must obey and release into the natural what God has determined in the Spirit. Never give up in the Spirit for we are Abraham’ seed who are both blessed above all the earth. Never give up a dream or a vision, or an edifying prophecy that you have correctly received from God; they were given for your predetermined victory. Amen.