Demonic Rules
of the Unseen World

What I Mean by “Spiritual Laws”

When I talk about “spiritual laws” or demons having “legal rights,” I want to make an important distinction at the outset. The Bible does not give us a textbook explaining all the mechanics of the unseen world. Its primary purpose is something much larger: the story of mankind’s fall through sin and God’s plan to restore us through Jesus Christ.

Because of that, Scripture doesn’t stop along the way and give us a systematic manual explaining every law governing the unseen realm. But it gives us pieces. And when those pieces are placed together, I believe a remarkable pattern begins to emerge.

Over more than a decade of applying these biblical principles and observing what happened repeatedly in people’s lives, I began seeing the same cause-and-effect patterns over and over again. Much like we recognize an unseen physical law such as gravity because the same action consistently produces the same result, these repeated spiritual patterns caused me to ask whether there were underlying laws governing the unseen realm as well.

That is where my use of the term “spiritual laws” comes from.

Sin can provide grounds for spiritual authority.

God Has Ultimate Authority Over the Unseen Realm

The first principle is authority. Jesus says in Matthew 28:18, “All authority… in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.”

If Jesus possesses all authority in heaven and earth, then no spiritual being—including Satan or a demon—possesses independent authority outside of His sovereignty. That doesn’t mean Satan has no power. Scripture clearly portrays him as having tremendous power. But power and authority are two different things.

A police officer may possess a weapon, physical strength and the power to restrain someone. But his authority to use that power is governed by law. He cannot legally walk into someone’s house and arrest him simply because he wants to. There must be grounds giving him the authority to act. I believe Scripture reveals something similar in the spiritual realm.

Ephesians 6:12 says, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, authorities… and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

So Scripture portrays an organized unseen realm involving rulers and authorities. The question that fascinated me was: What determines the limits of their authority?

Satan Is the Accuser

One of the most important clues comes from Revelation 12:10: Satan is “the accuser of the brethren, and he accuses them day and night before God.”

What can Satan legitimately accuse us of? Sin. When we violate God’s law, there is something to accuse us of. This is where what I call a “legal right” begins to emerge. The phrase “legal right” is my terminology; I’m not suggesting that Scripture uses that exact phrase to describe demonic activity. I use it to describe what appears to happen when an accusation has legitimate grounds behind it.

Job 1:1–12 provides an interesting picture of this. God describes Job as “blameless and upright.” Yet being blameless does not mean Job had never sinned. Job wasn’t sinless like Jesus. Immediately before God calls him blameless, Job 1:4–5 tells us that Job had a regular practice of dealing with sin through sacrifice. After his children held their feasts, Job would consecrate them and offer burnt offerings because, he said, “It may be that my children have sinned.”

This distinction between sinless and blameless is important. Under the Old Testament sacrificial system, sin was dealt with through sacrifice, with the blood providing atonement for sin. The person had sinned, but once that sin had been dealt with through the means God provided, the sin was atoned for, and the person could stand before God as blameless. Job wasn’t sinless; rather, it seems he continually dealt with sin through the sacrificial system God had provided.

Now Satan’s response becomes especially interesting. Satan essentially complains that he cannot touch Job because God has placed a hedge around him. If Satan’s role is that of accuser, but Job is standing before God as blameless, Satan has nothing upon which to base an accusation. In the framework I have come to understand, the sin has been dealt with, the grounds for accusation have been removed, and therefore Satan does not have the authority to attack him. The hedge around Job is the result.

Sin and Its Consequences

Another pattern appears throughout Scripture: sin can have consequences that manifest physically.

Deuteronomy 28:58–61 describes sickness and disease coming as consequences of disobedience to God. Micah 6:13 makes the connection even more directly: “So also I will make you sick… because of your sins.”

David describes the same pattern in Psalm 32. The NLT makes the sequence especially clear: “When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away…” Then David says, “Finally, I confessed all my sins to you…” and God healed him—an inference from the sequence David describes. When David refused to confess his sin, he was sick. When he confessed his sin, he was healed.

We find a similar connection in John 5:1–14. Jesus encounters a man at the pool of Bethesda who had been lame for thirty-eight years and heals him. Later, Jesus finds him in the temple and says, “Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” The passage seems to indicate that a particular sin in the man’s life—potentially going back to the beginning of his thirty-eight-year lameness—was connected to what had happened to him. Jesus heals him and then warns him not to return to that sin because something even worse could happen.

Paul gives us another direct example in 1 Corinthians 11:27–30. Some of the believers were sinning in their treatment of one another surrounding the Lord’s Supper. Paul then says, “That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number… have died.” Again, Scripture directly connects sinful behavior with weakness, sickness and even death.

Scripture Also Connects Physical Affliction to Satan and Unclean Spirits

Satan and unclean spirits can also produce physical affliction. Luke 13:10–16 provides one of the clearest examples. A woman had been bent over and unable to straighten herself for eighteen years. After healing her, Jesus describes her as “a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years.” Jesus specifically attributed her physical affliction to Satan.

We see a similar pattern in Matthew 17:14–18, where a boy suffering seizures is healed when Jesus rebukes and casts out a demon.

This doesn’t mean every sickness or persistent problem has a spiritual root. Some clearly have natural causes. But Scripture establishes an important point: physical conditions can have a spiritual source, and that source is often tied to Satan and the demonic realm.

Acts 10:38 makes that connection especially interesting. It says God “anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power,” and Jesus went about “healing all who were oppressed by the devil.”

Matthew 8:16–17 connects healing with one of the prophecies focused on Jesus. It says Jesus “cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill,” and Matthew says this fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy that He “took our illnesses and carried away our diseases.”

Isaiah 53:4–5 points back to the underlying work of Christ: “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried… He was pierced through for our transgressions… and by His wounds we are healed.”

But I want to make an important distinction here. I am not saying that God creates evil spirits or sends them to harm us. The oppression comes from Satan and the demonic realm. What I am saying is that, within the framework we’re looking at, our sin can open the door by giving Satan grounds to accuse us and demonic spirits authority to oppress us. God remains sovereign over the unseen realm, but that does not make Him the source of the evil. And in His sovereignty, God can even use what the enemy intends for harm to move us toward repentance and ultimately to freedom.

So How Is the Accusation Removed?

How can you remove Satan’s authority against us? This is where confession, repentance and forgiveness become extremely important.

1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

James 5:14–16 connects this directly to sickness and healing: “If anyone is sick… If he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him… Therefore, confess your sins… that you may be healed.”

That brings us to what I believe is one of the most important clusters of passages for understanding the concept of a spiritual “legal right”: Acts 3:19 together with Colossians 2:13–15. I will italicize the key words throughout this cluster so you can better see the pattern…

Acts 3:19 says, “Repent… that your sins may be wiped out, so times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”

The Greek word translated “wiped out” carries the sense of erasing or obliterating something. Significantly, it’s the same Greek word used in Colossians 2:14 for “canceling.”

Now follow the progression in Colossians 2:13–15.

Colossians 2:13: “He made us alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our sins…”

How did He forgive?

Colossians 2:14: by “canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands…”

And what happens when those legal demands are canceled?

Colossians 2:15: “He disarmed the rulers and authorities…by triumphing over them…”

Compare that with Ephesians 6:12: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, authorities… and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

Put Acts 3:19 and Colossians 2:13–15 together and a remarkable progression emerges. Sins are forgiven by being canceled. They are canceled by being wiped out. They are wiped out through repentance. And when the record of debt is canceled, its legal demands are removed, which in turn disarms the rulers and authorities. Once their authority to oppress is removed, that oppression in the form of afflictions can end—and we experience what Acts 3:19 describes as “times of refreshing… from the Lord.”

This is the biblical framework behind what I call a demonic “legal right”: sin creates a legal demand that permits spiritual oppression; repentance removes the sin and cancels that legal demand; the rulers and authorities are then disarmed. When that legal right is broken and the spiritual oppression connected to it leaves, healing can take place—and the freedom and restoration that follow are part of what I understand as the “times of refreshing” that come from the Lord.

Revelation 12:10 completes the picture. Satan is “the accuser of the brethren,” accusing us before God. The thing he can accuse us of is sin. When that sin is repented of and wiped from the record, his ability to accuse us is removed.

How the Framework Came Together

I am not claiming that the Bible explicitly lays out every detail of what I call spiritual laws. It doesn’t. Instead, Scripture gives us a series of remarkably consistent data points.

Jesus possesses all authority. There are rulers and authorities operating in the unseen realm. Satan is an accuser. Sin provides grounds for accusation. Scripture repeatedly connects sin with consequences, including sickness and physical affliction. Some physical afflictions are explicitly attributed to Satan or unclean spirits. Confession and repentance bring forgiveness and cleansing. And Colossians 2:13–15 describes a sin that carries “legal demands” being canceled, followed immediately by the rulers and authorities being disarmed. When they are disarmed, the spiritual oppression they had authority to bring can stop, bringing the healing, freedom and “times of refreshing” described in Acts 3:19.

When I began applying these pieces together in people’s lives, I started seeing consistent outcomes. Over more than a decade, I’ve seen the same basic patterns repeatedly. When the underlying spiritual issue is identified and properly addressed, problems that sometimes persisted for years can change dramatically.

Those consistent outcomes reinforced what I was already seeing in Scripture. These did not appear to be isolated events. There appeared to be an underlying order to how the unseen realm operates.

But my understanding hasn’t come from Scripture and observation alone. Over the years, I’ve also had direct personal interactions with demonic entities, as have others I know and trust. Those encounters have given me another window into how the unseen realm operates. What I’ve learned through those encounters has consistently lined up with what I was already seeing in Scripture and observing as I applied these principles in people’s lives.

So, my understanding has developed from three things working together: what I find in Scripture, what I’ve repeatedly observed when applying those principles, and what I’ve learned through direct encounters with the demonic realm. Scripture provides the foundation; observation and direct experience have helped me understand how those principles operate in practice.

That’s how this journey began for me. I wasn’t trying to understand how demons operate. I was simply trying to understand why certain things kept happening consistently—and why, when particular biblical principles were applied, those things so often changed.

The more I investigated Scripture and compared it with what I was observing, the more convinced I became that the unseen world is not random. There appear to be boundaries. There appears to be authority. There appears to be permission. And there appear to be conditions under which that permission can be removed.

That’s what I mean when I say demons must obey God’s rules.

For Further Study

For a deeper discussion of these principles and how I came to understand the spiritual laws operating in the unseen realm, here are three teachings that explore the subject in greater detail.

Spiritual Laws of the Unseen World — Part 1
Watch Part 1 on YouTube

Spiritual Laws of the Unseen Word — Part 2: Demons
Watch Part 2 on YouTube

Spiritual Laws of the Unseen World — Part 3
Watch Part 3 on YouTube