THE WAR JOURNAL

Section Seven: Know Your Enemy

About a third of the way through basic training at Fort Jackson, the curriculum shifted. Up until that point, the rifle had been our constant companion — something we drilled with, cleaned obsessively, and carried everywhere — but rarely fired with anything more dangerous than a blank. Now we were getting to use real weapons for real purposes. Grenades. M60 machine guns. Rocket launchers. Anti-personnel Claymore mines. And live rounds in our rifles.

Some of the more exotic hardware was genuinely exciting to work with, and in hindsight I suspect the Army was making a calculated gamble putting that kind of firepower in the hands of eighteen and nineteen-year-olds. But despite the allure of the bigger, louder, more destructive options, my personal favorite turned out to be the rifle. I had never fired one before in my life, and I turned out to be a natural. I was good enough that it was one of the rare moments during basic training when I actually received something resembling praise from our drill sergeants, who were not generally in the habit of distributing encouragement.

A few of us who were similarly proficient started a friendly competition about who would score highest on the final marksmanship exam. We were discussing this one afternoon when one of the drill sergeants wandered over and delivered a piece of wisdom that I remember to this day.

He said it doesn’t matter how good a marksman you are if you’re going up against tanks. An anti-tank weapon is useless if you don’t know where the tanks are. Machine guns are devastating, but only if they’re pointed in the right direction — and if the enemy is coming over a different hill, it’s too late to recalibrate before they’re on top of you. He looked around at us and said: your most effective weapon in any war is information. Knowing your enemy. Knowing how they move, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how often you’re likely to encounter each type of threat.

That principle flows directly into Phase 2 of this course. We have spent Phase 1 building our defense. Now we turn to offense — and the first step in any offensive operation is intelligence. We need to know who we are fighting.

Our Enemy Is Not Flesh and Blood

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. — Ephesians 6:12 (NKJV)

Paul makes the primary battle line explicit: our fight is not against physical things. Not against people, not against institutions, not against cultural trends. Our primary enemy is supernatural — the fallen Elohim and the demonic entities that work with and for them.

That does not mean the enemy cannot use physical things against us. He absolutely can, and does — using situations, circumstances, and even other people as pawns in a war that is happening at a level we cannot see with our eyes. But make no mistake: the thing you are actually fighting when you are fighting is not what it appears to be on the surface. There is a spiritual reality underneath every physical battle, and until you understand what is operating at that level, you are swinging at shadows.

The challenge is that they are invisible. We cannot see them. We cannot point to one and say: there. But the Bible gives us enough to work with — and what it withholds tells us nearly as much as what it reveals.

What the Bible Does Not Tell Us — and Why

The Bible gives us remarkably little concrete information about these entities. We know the names of exactly two angels in the entire canon of Scripture: Michael and Gabriel. Two. Out of an army compared to the stars in the sky — hundreds of millions, possibly billions of spiritual beings — we have been given the names of two. And thankfully, both of them are the good ones.

We have titles. Satan, which means the adversary. Devil, which means accuser. We have designations like demons, unclean spirits, familiar spirits. But not names. And the reason is one we have already discussed in this course: human beings are hardwired to worship. We want to worship things we perceive as greater than ourselves. The more information God gave us about the fallen Elohim — especially their names — the more likely we would be to redirect our worship toward them. God is protecting us from ourselves by limiting what He tells us. The scarcity of names in Scripture is not an oversight. It is a feature.

The Bible names two angels out of hundreds of millions. That tells us everything about how seriously God takes the human tendency to worship the wrong things.

Despite the limits, there is much we can legitimately extrapolate from the biblical narrative. Let us start with the language itself.

Angel: A Job Title, Not a Name

The word angel comes from the Greek angelos, which simply means messenger. It is not a name. It is not even a permanent designation. Most of these beings are not primarily messengers — but when human beings encounter them in Scripture, they are almost always delivering something on God’s behalf, so messenger became the default descriptor.

I prefer to call them by what I believe is the more accurate term: Elohim. As we have established in earlier sections, Elohim is not a name — it is a designation of residency. If your dwelling is the spiritual realm, you are Elohim. If your dwelling is the physical realm, you are man. Jehovah is an Elohim — the highest of all Elohim, the Elohim of Elohim — but the designation encompasses all spiritual beings. Understanding that framework clarifies everything that follows.

What They Do Not Look Like

Before we talk about what the fallen Elohim actually are, we need to clear out what they are not — because our popular culture has filled the space with images that are both inaccurate and disarming.

If you ask someone to picture an angel, they will typically describe a tall, beautiful figure in a white robe with large feathered wings and a halo. None of this is accurate. When spiritual beings appear to human beings in Scripture, they do appear as male — always male, when they are holy Elohim, because the Elohim are described as ministering spirits in a servant role, and service is the designated role of the male. But halos are a carryover from pagan symbolism that entered Christian iconography through medieval Catholic art — not a biblical feature. And the large bird wings are almost certainly not right either.

The only beings in Scripture explicitly described as having wings are the Seraphim, and they have six. The text does not specify that the wings are bird-like. And when the Elohim are described in their actual spiritual or heavenly form — as Ezekiel saw them, as John saw them in Revelation — they look nothing like the figures in Renaissance paintings. Ezekiel describes wheels within wheels covered in eyes. Daniel sees the territorial princes as monstrous animals with horns and features unlike anything in nature. These are human beings attempting to describe beings who exist in dimensions beyond the three we normally perceive. They are doing their best with inadequate vocabulary. The point is: these entities are genuinely alien to our normal experience, and treating them as familiar and manageable because of cultural images is a tactical mistake.

The Hierarchy of the Elohim

Because we know that Jehovah is a God of order, we can safely conclude that there is a hierarchy among the Elohim. The Bible gives us enough data points to map its general shape. Here is what we know:

RANK	CLASS	WHAT THEY ARE	STRATEGIC NOTES
1	Jehovah — God Himself	The Elohim of Elohim. All spiritual entities are Elohim; Jehovah is the highest among them — as a president is still American but holds supreme authority.	The only Elohim who is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. Creator and ultimate authority over all realms.
2	Cherubim — Throne Guardians	The four throne room guardians of Jehovah. Faces of a man, eagle, lion, and ox — representing the four types of earthly life. God’s mercy seat is literally formed from their wings.	The most powerful created beings. One cherub is conspicuously absent: the fifth, the anointed cherub — now called Satan — who represented cold-blooded/reptilian life and was the high priest of God’s throne room before his fall.
3	The Divine Council — 70 Elohim	God’s ruling advisory body. After Babel, God assigned 70 of these Elohim to shepherd the 70 nations, reserving Israel for Himself. These are the ‘gods’ of Psalm 82 whom God judges for corruption.	These are the territorial principalities of Ephesians 6 — the archons. They accepted worship and fell. The wars between them and God’s angels are still happening: see Daniel 10 and the Prince of Persia.
4	Archangels	Military commanders. Michael is named explicitly as an archangel and champion of Israel. Gabriel may be one. The Book of Enoch names several others.	High-ranking but subordinate to the cherubim and council. Michael was required to assist a lesser Elohim against the Prince of Persia — suggesting these battles are genuinely contested.
5	The Watchers	A powerful class who fell in Genesis 6. Their two leaders — Semjaza and Azazel — led at least 200 high-ranking Elohim who took human wives and produced the Nephilim. Azazel is named in the Old Testament law of the scapegoat.	These are now imprisoned. They made a deliberate covenant before falling — knowing they would be punished — because they wanted the Nephilim outcome badly enough to pay the price.
6	Other Fallen Elohim — Powers, Rulers	The exousia (powers) and kosmokrator (rulers of darkness) of Ephesians 6. Some are individual entities with territorial influence; ‘powers’ may also describe the supernatural ability these entities transfer to human practitioners — witches, warlocks, and Satanists who can wield real supernatural power.	Satan himself is called kosmokrator — ruler of this age. Not a legal title, since Christ holds legal authority over the earth. A practical title based on the influence humanity has ceded to him.
7	Demons — Spirits of Dead Nephilim	The lowest in the hierarchy. Nephilim were spiritual-human hybrids. When they died — most in the flood — their spirits were cursed to wander the earth until final judgment. They cannot take physical form, which is why they uniquely seek to possess human bodies.	These are your most likely daily opponents. There were possibly over a billion of them at the time of Noah — enough to assign one to every person alive. They are familiar spirits: they know you, your triggers, your strongholds, and your history.

The Missing Cherub — and What It Tells Us

There is a detail in the cherubim framework that is easy to miss but deeply significant. The four throne room guardians have faces representing four categories of earthly life: man, ox (herbivores), lion (carnivores), and eagle (birds). What is conspicuously absent? Cold-blooded, scaly life — reptiles and fish.

There is a fifth cherub. Ezekiel 28 describes the anointed cherub that covers — the being who was once the high priest of God’s throne room, before his fall. He is called the dragon in Revelation 12. He is the Nachash of Genesis 3. And since he is described as reptilian and is now absent from the throne room, the cold-blooded category has no representative. The four cherubim represent the four remaining categories of created life.

There is another detail worth noting. After the Nachash tempted Adam and Eve and they were expelled from Eden, Jehovah stationed two cherubim to guard the way to the Tree of Life. Why two? If the purpose were to stop Adam and Eve from re-entering, one would have been more than sufficient. There is an old military joke: what stops a tank? Two tanks. The two cherubim are not there to stop humanity. They are there to stop the dragon from accessing the Tree of Life himself. That tells us exactly how seriously Jehovah takes that threat — and how seriously we should take what we are dealing with.

Paul’s Battlefield Map: Ephesians 6 in Detail

When Paul lists the enemies in Ephesians 6, he is not being vague. He uses four specific Greek terms that describe four distinct categories of spiritual opposition. Understanding each one changes how you engage with it.

PAUL’S TERM	GREEK WORD	WHAT IT MEANS	WHAT TO KNOW
Principalities	Archon	Territorial spirits — the fallen council members assigned to nations at Babel who accepted worship and fell	These are the most organized enemy forces. The Prince of Persia held back an angel of God for 21 days until Michael arrived. They are powerful and geographically rooted.
Powers	Exousia	May refer to a class of fallen Elohim AND to the supernatural ability they transfer to human practitioners	The magicians of Pharaoh’s court duplicated the first plagues — real supernatural power, transferred to humans. Witchcraft and Satanism involve real forces, not theater. Take it seriously.
Rulers of Darkness	Kosmokrator	High-level rulers — Satan himself carries this title as ‘god of this age’	Satan is kosmokrator not by legal right — Christ holds legal authority over earth — but by practical influence, accumulated through human surrender. The more we fight back, the less power he wields.
Spiritual Wickedness in High Places	Porneia Pneumatikoi	A spirit of depravity — sexual and moral corruption as a spiritual force, not merely a cultural trend	Porneia is the root of pornography. There is a spirit behind the epidemic of sexual depravity in our culture. It has always existed, but it has never been more powerful than today. It targets both men and women — differently but equally.

Daniel 10: The War Behind the Wars

The most vivid glimpse Scripture gives us into what these principalities actually do comes from Daniel chapter 10. Daniel had been praying and fasting for three weeks — twenty-one days. Finally, a messenger Elohim appears to him, visibly exhausted, and explains the delay.

He had been dispatched the moment Daniel began praying. But an entity called the Prince of Persia had blocked his path for the full three weeks. He could not get through until the archangel Michael came to assist him. And then — remarkably — he tells Daniel that as soon as he finishes delivering this message, he has to go back and fight the Prince of Persia again. And after that, the Prince of Greece is coming.

At the time Daniel received this message, he was living under the Persian Empire. The Prince of Persia was the territorial spirit running that empire. And the angelic messenger already knew that Greece was the next empire on the rise — two hundred years before it happened. There are wars occurring in the spiritual realm, involving entities of enormous power, that are directly connected to the movements of nations and empires in the physical world. Those wars have not stopped. They are still happening. We just cannot see them.

Who You Will Actually Encounter

All of that intelligence is important context — but your drill sergeant’s point applies here too. It does not matter if you know everything about the entire enemy order of battle if you do not know which unit is coming over which hill. So let’s be specific.

Your Familiar Spirit — The Most Likely Opponent

The entity you will encounter most often in daily spiritual combat is what Scripture calls a familiar spirit — almost certainly a demon. At the time of the Flood, the number of Nephilim on the earth was potentially enormous — easily enough that every living human being could be assigned one. And that appears to be how it works: each of us has a familiar spirit whose primary assignment is us.

The name tells you everything about the strategy. Familiar. This spirit knows you. It has been observing you your entire life. It knows your triggers, your strongholds, your history, your patterns, and your weaknesses. It knows which temptations have worked before and which ones have failed. It has a detailed file on you, and it uses that file.

This is why John Lenhart’s Combat Manual lesson on rehearsing away your triggers is not just practical psychology. It is a specific countermeasure against your familiar spirit’s primary weapon. Every trigger you rehearse away is a page removed from their playbook. When you dismantle your strongholds and break your negative covenants, you are not just getting healthier. You are disarming the entity that has been exploiting those exact vulnerabilities since before you knew they were vulnerabilities.

BINDING AND CASTING OUT — LUKE 10:19 Using the authority Jesus described in Luke 10:19, you can bind and cast out your familiar spirit on a daily basis. They will not be permanently gone — they will return. This is the ‘daily bread’ Jesus speaks of in the Lord’s Prayer: a daily practice, not a one-time resolution. Do it every morning. The accumulating effect of daily binding is that their access to you becomes increasingly limited over time.

The Entities You Are Unlikely to Encounter

Here is a piece of intelligence worth having: you are probably not going to be opposed by Satan himself. The fallen Elohim, unlike Jehovah, are not omnipresent. They have locality — they exist in a specific place at a specific time, and they go where they can be most effective. The Nachash — the dragon, the fallen cherub — will not be personally assigned to most of us, because most of us are not yet dangerous enough to require that level of attention. Do not be offended by that. Being opposed by the highest-ranking enemy requires being a high-level threat to their operations. Make that your goal.

Similarly, the imprisoned Watchers are not in play, and fallen archangels — if any exist — are not your daily concern. Where you may encounter territorial principalities is if you move into or operate extensively within their claimed territory. Certain geographic areas and certain industries have been specifically claimed. If you begin doing serious damage to their operations in those areas, you may get their attention. We will address that in Phase 3.

Offensive Weapons: Taking the Fight to Them

Knowing the hierarchy and understanding who you will encounter is the intelligence briefing. What comes next is the tactical plan. These are the offensive weapons available to you right now.

WEAPON	THE ENEMY’S VULNERABILITY IT EXPLOITS	HOW TO USE IT
Withhold worship	They need worship to maintain influence. Worship is their sustenance.	Anything you place before God is worship directed at them. Sports, celebrities, money, lifestyle — indirect worship opens a door. Remove it and you both defend yourself and starve them simultaneously.
Break covenants and withhold authority	They can only operate where they have legal standing. No covenant, no legal foothold.	Identify and renounce every covenant you have made — spoken or unspoken, intentional or accidental. Every negative covenant broken is authority withdrawn. Without it, they cannot hold ground and must retreat to where they can be effective.
Withhold fear	Fear is both what they produce and what they feed on. Perfect love casts it out.	Fear gives them energy and encouragement. Confidence in Christ’s authority removes their primary tool. Know that they cannot harm you beyond what God permits. Fear less, fight more.
The Sword of the Spirit — specific verses	They have no counter to scripture applied precisely in context.	Luke 10:19 when under direct spiritual attack. Ephesians 6:12 when you recognize the source of what is happening to you is not flesh and blood. Call them out by name, bring them before the throne of God, and cast them out in the name of Jesus.
Rehearse away your triggers	Your familiar spirit’s entire strategy depends on your triggers remaining intact.	Your familiar spirit has studied you. It knows exactly which triggers produce which reactions. Rehearse them away — as John Lenhart taught in the Combat Manual — and you dismantle the enemy’s primary playbook against you personally.
Remind them of their fate	They know they are condemned. Their judgment is already issued — they are only awaiting execution of it.	When they accuse you of your past, remind them of their future. Speak it out loud: “In the name of Jesus, no matter what you do to me, you are doomed for eternity in the lake of fire.” They do not want to hear it — and a person who keeps saying it becomes someone they prefer to avoid.

Their Weaknesses — Your Advantages

Every enemy has vulnerabilities. Here are the ones that belong specifically to the fallen Elohim — and how to exploit them.

WEAKNESS	WHY IT EXISTS	HOW TO EXPLOIT IT
They cannot repent	They sinned with full knowledge of the spiritual consequences — unlike humans who sin in partial ignorance. Jesus became a man and died for man. He did not become an Elohim or a Nephilim. There is no provision for their forgiveness.	When they accuse you of your sin and guilt, agree — then turn it: “Yes, I am guilty. And Jesus took that guilt and made me pure. You do not have that privilege. You are in your sin forever.”
They are not omnipresent	Unlike God, every fallen Elohim exists in a specific location. They cannot be everywhere at once. They concentrate where they can be most effective and most worshiped.	Remove their reason to stay. Break covenants, withhold worship, withhold fear. If you are not productive ground for them, they will relocate. They are strategic, not sentimental.
They have no free will	All fallen Elohim have already been judged. Their sentence is final — eternity in the lake of fire. They are simply in a holding period on earth. A judged person no longer has meaningful free will — they are locked into their fate.	Remind them of their fate. They are condemned criminals on a temporary reprieve, doing damage in the time they have left. The last thing they want is to be reminded of where they are going. Make yourself that reminder and they will seek easier targets.
They depend on your cooperation	They cannot operate unilaterally in the physical world. They need human agents — willing or unwilling. Every covenant you have made, every worship you have given, every fear you have sustained is a door they are using.	Close the doors. Every covenant broken, every act of worship redirected to God, every trigger rehearsed away is a door slammed in their face. Without your cooperation — active or passive — they lose their primary access point.

The Jail Analogy — Weaponizing Their Dread

This last point deserves more than a row in a table. Think about what it would feel like to know, with absolute certainty, that you had been tried and found guilty, and that your sentence was to spend eternity in the most severe punishment imaginable — and that you had a finite window of time before that sentence began to be carried out.

What is the last thing you would want anyone to bring up during that window? The sentence. You would do anything to not think about it, not hear about it, not be reminded of it. Every mention is a preview of an eternity you are desperately trying not to contemplate.

That is the exact situation of every fallen Elohim. They have been tried. The verdict is in. The lake of fire is their destination. And they know it. They are doing as much damage as they can in the time they have remaining — but the moment you remind them of what is coming, you become a source of the one thing they most want to avoid. Make yourself that source consistently, and you will find that they prefer easier ground to the person who keeps speaking their future into the present.

They remind you of your past. You remind them of their future. That exchange, done consistently, is an offensive weapon they have no counter to.

Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. — Luke 10:19 (NKJV)

That authority is not aspirational. It is not reserved for spiritual giants with decades of experience. It is given — past tense, already given — to every believer. The only question is whether you will use it.

In the sessions ahead, we go deeper into specific offensive tactics: spiritual warfare prayer, the courtroom of heaven, breaking generational curses, and confronting high-level territorial spirits. What you have in this section is the intelligence briefing. Now you know who you are fighting. The next step is learning how to fight.

Know your enemy. Know your authority. They are not the same size.