The Heavenly Realms
I have entitled this book "The Heavenly Realms" because that is the term Scripture uses. The alternative term - "the spirit world" has slightly pagan overtones and hints at dualism as if God and Satan were part of the same realm. No! They are the "heavenly realms" and are controlled from the throne room of Heaven!
The book starts with an article on The Ascension of Jesus Christ and it is important that you start the book here as this gives us our place in respect to the heavenly realities and without this it's all either mystifying or terrifying.
Next we move onto showing the Christian's victory over evil. This starts with Demons Defeated – a study in spiritual warfare (read this in "page view" as the table at the end is quite wide) that is quite comprehensive. Then Satan - The Doomed Angel tackles his origins, destiny, nature and activities. Then Spiritual Discernment looks at how we can tell the difference between God and the Devil. This is followed by The Occult - What's Wrong With Exploring The Other Side? Which shows the bible's view of occult activities.
Chapters 6-11 focus on the invisible realm with articles on Eternity, The Kingdom of God., Heaven, Hell and Judgement, and the Parousia. We then move on to how this concerns the individual Christian in chapters 11-13. The inner man may seem a strange topic for a book like this unless we realise that the inner man is a spiritual being and our eternal identity and the "part of us" that participates in these realities most fully. In The Spirit shows how our inner man can best relate to the spiritual realm through the Holy Spirit.
Then in chapters 14-16 we have a couple of articles focussing on areas of conflicting understanding amongst Christians. Clare G. Weakley’s article on Are The Gifts Of The Holy Spirit For Today? is very well written and is Peter Jones’ Spirit Wars In The Third Millennium which looks at the rise of paganism. Finally the book concludes with a handy little bible study on Angels.
Now obviously this book does not cover everything about the Heavenly Realms – that would be a very ambitious task. However it does give an introduction to the topic and cover some of the main issues for our Christian lives. May you be blessed as you read it.
Yours in Christ Jesus,
John Edmiston