What if I told you the false gods of the Bible were real beings? This is indeed the Bible’s depiction. Such gods are false in the sense that they are not to be worshipped, but not false in the sense that they’re not real.

This throws many off because, in the English dialect, Christians use the word “God” as the primary name of Yahweh. But in the Old Testament, any spiritual being could be described as a god, including the spirit of the dead prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 28:13). That being said, the term “god” is one of the many blanket terms used in the Bible to denote a spiritual being. And since Yahweh is the spiritual being of all spiritual beings, he is labeled the God of gods (Deuteronomy 10:17).

Underneath Yahweh’s godship are the gods of the nations. Deuteronomy 32:8 informs us that when God separated the nations by language at the Tower of Babel, he assigned the nations to the “sons of God” (another blanket term in the Old Testament for spiritual beings), while God spent time cultivating Abraham’s family into a nation.

I’m prone to believe that these national gods Yahweh created were supposed to lead their nations toward Yahweh, but Psalm 82 informs us that they instead became corrupt. Rather than care for the needy of their nations, they oppressed them and embraced the wicked. Their rebellion against God becomes clear in Daniel 10:10-14 where the gods of Persia and Greece oppose God’s angel. It’s no wonder Job said, “God puts no trust in his holy ones” (yet another blanket term for spiritual beings). With this in mind, it also shouldn’t be surprising that Moses called these gods, “demons.”

Paul will recall these gods as rulers, principalities, powers, authorities, dominions, lords, thrones, and world rulers. As strange as it is for modern people to imagine gods ruling over different territories of the earth, this is the biblical worldview—hence why the legion of demons in the Gerasene demoniac begged Jesus not to send them out of the country. For whatever reason, they had a territorial hope to stay where they were already located.

Do These Kinds of Demons Come Up in Exorcisms?

I find it incredibly unlikely that anyone would have to exorcise a national demon-god from a person. Biblically speaking, such gods are mentally tied with kings and authorities of a nation, where they try to direct them on what to do. It makes little logical sense to expect such a high-level demon to be found ruining a random person’s life—though we can’t discount such a scenario.

While I haven’t come across such a demon, it is not uncommon for demons to try to pretend they’re bigger than they are. One demon once told me they were Lilith, a popular demon from Jewish lore. I laughed at the idea that this famous demon was busy ruining the life of my participant and asked the Holy Spirit to give us its real name. The participant humorously heard the Holy Spirit sigh at the demon before he gave us her name.

During one manifestation, I had a demon talk about how I worship my Father, and it worships its father. I don’t know if this was a reference to Satan directly or perhaps to its national demon-god. Whatever the case, this statement recognized hierarchy and leadership within the spiritual realm.

All of this being said, David Appleby, an exorcist I trust, suggests that you might come across such high-level demons. He has especially found this dynamic to be the case when the demons don’t seem to do anything he says. He proposes that this is the kind of high-level demon that Jesus was referring to when he said, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” Appleby writes, “Perhaps this ‘kind’ does not respond to the authority given to the believer and can only be removed by God in response to our prayers” (It’s Only a Demon, 374).

Appleby has had a lot of luck with this approach, so it’s one possibility we could lean into. However, I’ve also come across demons that won’t leave, and when I commanded them to truthfully tell me if they were these kinds of high-level demons, they laughed in response. They were not.

The reason they didn’t have to leave was related to a very complicated issue. Once we took care of that issue over the course of months, they left. I don’t know if Appleby’s sessions extend over such a lengthy period, so if he ran into the same dynamic that I did, he wouldn’t have been able to take care of it quickly. But since he’s succeeded with his approach, it could be one answer to those tough situations!

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To learn more about the gods and their place in the Bible, I highly recommend my favorite book, The Unseen Realm, by Bible scholar Dr. Michael Heiser.