Hidden Thrones (25 page)

         
 “Well, that alone would keep him
out of the White House, and who knows what else he has done over the past
thirty plus years?”

         
A little confused, Emily fixed
her eyes on Frank. “Are you saying Senator Wellsenburg had these people
killed?”

         
Jack quickly interjected, “No,
honey. All Frank is saying is that he probably knew what was going on.”

         
“Listen,” Frank said cautiously,
“we have to be careful. This is a very powerful man and if he finds out we have
proof that will incriminate him or retie him to this case, he will stop at
nothing to shut us all up. He has people everywhere. People that will do
anything he asks.”

          “Where
did Jeff get this report?”

         
“Somebody literally left it at
his door step. Think about it, even then, he had the influence to make that
report disappear.”

         
“Yeah,” Jack said, sitting back
in his seat, “and I know who is opening the doors for him.”

         
Emily’s face became anxious, then
nervous. She glanced at both of them. “You mean Dante Adal?” 

         
Jack reached out, took her hand,
and held it. “Are you sure you want to listen to all this stuff?”

         
Emily pulled her hand back
quickly. “Yes, Jack. I need to know. You said it yourself; you can’t expect me
to walk around in the dark. I’m not happy about it, but it’s real and I love
you and I want to stand with you, and if I’m going to do that I need to be kept
in the loop.”

         
Jack reached out and
 
removed a tiny
 
hair off her face
.
“I’m sorry. You
constantly amaze me. I love you too. We’ll get through this together.”

         
Frank took a long drink from his
water bottle and sat back in his chair. “Since the three of us are sitting
around talking openly about this stuff, I need to know more about this
spiritual realm - demons, angels, princes. Even though I have seen more than I
care to remember, I still don’t fully understand this spiritual world we’re
dealing with.”

         
Emily agreed. “I’m with Frank on
this, Jack. We have had a few nice talks, but I would like to know more too.”

         
“Okay, I think that’s a good
idea. I’m not an expert, but the Bible is, so let’s take a look.” Jack got up
and picked his Bible up off the counter and sat back down. This was a deep
subject and he knew it couldn’t be covered in a few minutes or even in one
session, but he was more than happy to share what the Lord had showed him.

         
“It’s hard to know where to start,
so I guess I’ll start at the beginning. In Ezekiel Chapter 28, the Lord talks
about
the origins of evil and
Lucifer’s rebellion. I’ll read it to you.

          “
You
were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz
and emerald, chrysolite, onyx and jasper, sapphire, turquoise and beryl. Your
settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were
prepared. You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You
were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were
blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found
in you.

         
“
Somewhere in the back annals of time, Lucifer got it
in his heart that he wanted to challenge God for His throne. That was the beginning
of the rebellion in Heaven. He was able to influence one-third of the angels in
Heaven to follow him and rebel against God. He hoped to defeat and overthrow
God and His angels and take over Heaven.

          “A
great battle ensued and Satan and his angels were defeated and cast out.
According to the book of Job, Satan still has access to the throne of God where
he comes to accuse those of us who follow Christ. He is always trying to get
God to focus on all our faults and shortcomings, so He will decide to change His
plan of redemption. Lucifer hates us because God has chosen to love us and that
drives him crazy. Although God allows him to come before Him on occasion, he
can never again enter Heaven.

          The
Apostle Paul calls him the prince and power of the air, meaning his kingdom is
now, this world, and the atmosphere around it.”

         
“I thought Earth belonged to God?”
Emily asked.

         
“The Lord God owns everything and
is ruler over all, but for now He has allowed Satan to have influence over this
earth. Paul tells us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but
against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark
world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Those
heavenly realms he refers to are the created heavens, the supernatural sphere
that surrounds the earth, not the Heaven where God is.”

         
Frank took a moment to digest all
of what Jack had explained. He had seen some of those spiritual forces, so he
knew firsthand they existed, and he knew all too well about this present dark
world. “I can attest to the phrase
dark
world
. The reports we get
in every day at the FBI would blow your mind. It’s like you say in your blog,
Jack. The world is getting darker every day.”

         
Emily jumped in, “That’s because
of the coming Anti-Christ. Right, Jack?”

         
“Yes, that’s true, but I don’t
want us to get off track here. Let’s stay on the spiritual forces of evil in
the heavenly realms part. Satan’s kingdom is set up similar to other kingdoms
in the sense that there are levels of power and authority. There are fallen
angels who the devil put in charge over different regions of the earth. There
are princes over countries and cities all over the world. We don’t know the
number of angels that followed Satan. All we do know is that one-third of all
the angels in Heaven went with him. But, we do have a reference of how great
that number might be.

          “In
the book of Revelation chapter five, verse eleven…” Jack thumbed through his Bible
and found it. “Here it is, ‘
Then I looked and heard the voice of many
angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten
thousand.
’”

         
Emily thought for a moment, then
her eyes widened. “Oh my God! That is awesome, but it also means that if the
two-thirds who stayed with God number is in the hundreds of millions, then the
devil has millions of fallen angels at his command.”

         
Frank looked at Jack and smiled.
“She’s pretty good with numbers.”

         
“Unfortunately,” he said smiling.
“Okay, let’s all take a deep breath. The Lord is all powerful and completely in
control, and his presence is everywhere. Remember that the devil can only be in
one place at a time. He is not God. The Lord said, ‘I am with you always, even until
the end of time.’ He will never leave us alone or abandon us. He just proved that
to me again yesterday. God has His people all over the world. We are not alone.
He doesn’t expect us to take on all the forces of darkness, only what He puts
in our path.”

         
Frank glanced at Jack and said,
“I think He has given us a wide path.”

         
Jack nodded, “Not everyone is
called to this ministry. If this is our calling then we must be obedient. I
will admit it’s not something I prayed for, but it is what we’ve been given. It
is a true privilege to serve the Lord in this way.”

         
“How about a cup of coffee?” Fran
proposed. “I think I need a shot of caffeine to keep up with all this, and I
still have an hour drive back to D.C.”

         
Emily immediately jumped up and
headed for the Keurig. Feeling like a poor host, Jack stood up. “You don’t have
to do that, Emily. Let me take care of it.”

         
She laughed. “I can’t help it!
It’s what I do. Really, it’s fine. I need to move around a little bit anyway. I
get antsy when we talk about this stuff. Would you like a cup, Jack?”

         
“Why not? I have a lot of writing
to do tonight. I feel like I need to put some of what we are talking about on
my blog tonight. You two have inspired me with these great questions.”

         
“Well, I’ve got another one for
you,” Emily had something in her mind that had always bothered her. It was
about a friend that she hadn’t seen in years.

         
“I have a question. What do you
think about this? I had a friend at college who said she had a spirit guide
that she communicated with who helped her make decisions and achieve a higher
level of conscious awareness. I realize now that this so called spirit guide
was not from God, but how do you explain this? Was she losing it, making it up,
or what? Do you think this spirit was a demon?”

         
“The short answer is yes. A spirit
guide is a term used by the Western tradition of Spiritualist churches. Mediums
and psychics describe an entity that remains a disembodied
 
spirit
 
in order to act as a
 
guide
 
or protector to a living human being.
Evil spirits or demons are always impersonating deceased loved ones or
masquerading as angels of light. They go searching for people who aren’t
familiar with what the Bible has to say about the afterlife. They convince them
that they are good and helpful entities, when in fact their one and only purpose
is to lead them down a dead-end road and away from the truth. They may disguise
themselves as departed loved ones, aliens, or in your friend’s case, spiritual
guides.” 

         
Emily handed Frank his coffee. He
took a sip and smiled in approval. “Okay, we’ve had a number of conversations
concerning all we have seen lately, but we never talked about this. Were the
beings we have seen demons or angels?”

         
“We don’t have the time for me to
get into the difference between angels and evil spirits or demons, but I will
say this, all but one of the manifestations we have seen so far were demons.”

         
Frank’s eyes widened and his
heart rate went up. “Dante Adal. You’re saying he is a fallen angel.”

         
“I believe so. Angels can take
the form of men, but they don’t possess people. They don’t enter living humans
and walk around. That’s the difference. Angels have a form, demon spirits
don’t,” Jack explained.

          Before
ending the conversation, Jack added, “It’s getting late but I’ll share one more
thing with you. I don’t want to completely freak you out, but this is a true story
and a great example of what we’re talking about.

          “I
remember an incident a few years ago that happened in a church where I was
asked to speak. It was half an hour or so before the morning service and the
pastor was showing me around and introducing me to several members of his
congregation that helped serve at Sunday service. He took me downstairs where
they usually held their Sunday school classes. There were several teachers
there busy preparing the rooms for the children. The pastor introduced me to
this nice lady who had been one of his teachers for over twenty years. I
remember it like it was yesterday. She was divorced, attractive, and nicely
dressed, about medium height with brown hair. As I approached her, I felt
something wasn’t right. I didn’t want to say anything at first, thinking it was
just me. I mean, after all, I was an invited guest and didn’t want to go super
spiritual on everyone. When I reached out to shake her hand, I felt it again,
only stronger. I felt the Lord wanted me to pray for her so I asked her if that
would be all right. She smiled and agreed.

          “I
invited the pastor to join me and we gently laid our hands on her shoulder and
began to pray. As soon as we did, her face went blank, her eyes grew wide, and
a voice came out of her that wasn’t hers.”

          Emily
sat back in her chair and crossed her legs, but never took her eyes off Jack,
her heart racing. Frank’s eyes widened as he unconsciously tapped on his
shoulder holster under his jacket and said, “That must have blown you away,
man. What did it say?”

          “I
must admit I didn’t expect that, and neither did the pastor. The other three
ladies that were there immediately stopped what they were doing. I glanced over
at them and they each had a look of complete terror on their faces. The voice
was grave and low, and had a measure of authority when it spoke. It said, ‘You
can’t make me leave her. I was invited to come in.’

          “The
pastor and I looked at each other and then back at the woman. Then all of a
sudden she jumped backward and her face abruptly changed from the sweet woman I
first saw to an ugly, disfigured, tortured soul. I took a step towards her and
the demon spoke again. ‘I am an unclean spirit and this is my house now!’