FACT: We have a God who loves us and is for us.
FACT: We have an enemy who hates us and is against us.
FACT: Spiritual warfare is real.
FACT: We don’t face it alone.
On Sunday, we began the first of a six part series on spiritual warfare; Pastor John gave us an overview and reminded us of some important truths. In the weeks to come we will dive in more deeply.
Whether we want to be or not, we are in a war. It is not a war that we can always see with our eyes. We can see evidence of it with our natural senses, but the ultimate battle is taking place in the spiritual realm.
“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” (2 Cor. 10: 3-5)
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For 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.” (Eph. 6:10-12)
According to the above verses, there is a battle going on. There are spiritual forces of evil who battle against us. We are not helpless in this battle. We have weapons that have divine power, we have the full armor of God (that we’ll look at in a couple of weeks), and we can find our strength for the battle by being strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.
In the Old Testament, the prophet Elisha had a season in which he was continually ticking off the king of Aram. The king of Aram wanted to ambush and attack the Israelites, God kept revealing to Elisha where Aram’s forces were, Elisha told the king of Israel who acted on what he learned thus thwarting the king of Aram’s plans; therefore, the king of Aram decided to go after Elisha, the source of his frustation.
He sent his troops to surround the city of Dothan where Elisha was staying. Elisha’s servant awakened in the morning, and went outside. He saw the horses and chariots of the enemy surrounding the city and he panicked (quite understandably in my opinion!). He says to Elisha: “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do!”. And Elisha, a man full of faith and courage responds “Don’t be afraid…those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
I don’t know what the servant was thinking in that moment–maybe something like “yeah, right”–he couldn’t see what Elisha was seeing in the spiritual realm. Elisha didn’t judge him for that. instead Elisha had compassion on his terrified servant and prayed for God to open his eyes so that he too could see. …The Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. Wow! What a moment!! Elisha then prayed that the Lord would strike the Aramean army with blindness–the Lord did and Elisha and his servant did not die that day. (2nd Kings 6:10-18)
FACT: We are never alone in our battles. NEVER. We may feel alone, but we are not alone. Our feelings cannot be trusted. In order to recognize and face spiritual battles, we must be based in the truth that God is with us, and God is more powerful than our enemy. Elisha was full of faith. It’s important to note that not only did he pray for his servant to be able to see what was happening in the spiritual realm, he also prayed that the Lord would blind the enemy army. Elisha knew that he wasn’t alone and he knew that PRAYER was his key weapon.
In the book of Daniel, chapter 10 beginning in verse 7, we see another man of faith fighting in the spiritual realm. Daniel received a vision that was very troubling to him. He set out to gain further understanding, so he put himself in a posture to hear from God. For three weeks he mourned, he fasted, and he prayed. On the 24th day Daniel was visited by a man dressed in linen, with a belt of fine gold…his body was like topaz, his face like lightning, his eyes like falling torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude. Wow!
Daniel had other men with him, but he was the only one who saw the vision. The others who were with him felt the presence and were so terrified that they fled and hid. Daniel was left by himself. He says of this moment that he had no strength left, his face turned deathly pale and he was helpless. The man in the vision began to speak to Daniel. He told Daniel that he was highly esteemed. (I love that!) He told Daniel to stand up, and even in his trembling state, Daniel did. And then the man in the vision said, Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before God, YOUR WORDS WERE HEARD, and I have come in response to them.
That is a packed verse. We can take great comfort from that verse. Daniel had humbly set his mind to gain understanding. Not worldly understanding, but godly understanding. I love the phrase “set his mind”. Daniel was troubled, but he wasn’t freaking out. He didn’t fret and worry–instead he fasted, he prayed, and he sought the Lord. And the the man in the vision assured Daniel that the very first day he prayed about it, his prayer was heard. Daniel could not see the response to his prayer, but God had heard and was responding His way and in His time.
In both the situation with Elisha and with Daniel we see men of deep faith who are aware of the spiritual realm and are aware that their powerful weapon of warfare is prayer.
In the Apostle John’s 1st letter, chapter 4, he encourages his friends (and us) to test every spirit to see if they are from God, and he reminds them in verse four that they are from God and have overcome because the One who is in you is greater that the one who is in the world.
My crash course in major spiritual warfare came in Brazil. My youngest son was five years old and got infected with E. coli. He was very, very sick and was hospitalized for seven days. We did not know if he was going to live or die. In the middle of the week, he saw eyes on the wall of his hospital room. I poo-pooed it away. I hadn’t seen the eyes.
The following night he had a demon possessed nurse who literally tried to take his life. I could not poo-poo that away. I was freaked out and truly did not know what to do. We tried to call some people but the hospital phone did not work. I finally stepped into action when Seth asked me who the shadow was that was standing behind daddy, the shadow with the long hair. I sat next to Seth on his bed and asked him to say “I belong to Jesus.” Beyond that I had no idea what to do, so I cried out to God and begged him to lead us through this. He did by taking me to scripture passages to pray.
The first one was Hannah taking her son Samuel to the temple to give him to the Lord (1st Samuel 1). God asked me who Seth (my son) belonged to–Him or me. We had a bit of a wrestling match at that point, because I knew that there was a very real possibility that Seth could die and I didn’t know what God was going to do. (Not that I could have stopped any of that anyway.). I also knew that I didn’t want Seth in that palpable darkness, so I surrendered him to God.
Once that was settled, God took me to the line in the Lord’s Prayer “deliver us from evil”, and I began to pray that. I said it over and over until He took me to the next passage which was in John 17:11 “protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me…” And I began to pray that God would protect Seth by the power of the name of Jesus. I prayed that over and over, until the next scripture came.
The next scripture was a surprise. God reminded me of Pharaoh in Egypt who did not acknowledge God, but God moved in Pharaoh’s heart to set the Israelites free. I knew immediately that I was to pray that He would move in the nurse’s heart to be able to care for Seth.
After that prayer, I had the sense that we were done and I sat down and waited. The next time the nurse came into the room, she did not acknowledge us, she stood upright, walked to Seth, switched his IV, left the room, and we did not see her again.
We were pretty awe struck and freaked out. We didn’t tell anyone what had happened for quite a while because it seemed so far fetched, and we were still trying to wrap our minds around it.
There is much more to that story, things that didn’t make sense to us, decisions that Seth’s Jesus-following doctor made that seemed odd–but we trusted her. And after the entire ordeal was over, she told us that she had prayed through Seth’s treatment and her decisions the entire time. Some of the things God led her to do didn’t make sense to her either, but she made them, and Seth was delivered.
God–in His might and power–responded to our prayers and saved my son. That is not an experience I would ever wish to repeat, but I learned a ton about spiritual warfare. Prayer, faith, and the word of God are powerful weapons in the unseen realm. The unseen realm is real. The enemy is real, he is mean, and he wants to take us out, AND gloriously, God is more powerful and has already won the battle. We fight from victory, not for victory.
We will dive into all of this more deeply in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, be assured that, if you are in Christ Jesus, you already have everything you need to fight in the spiritual realm, and you are not alone, ever. If you do not yet know the real Jesus, he is one prayer away. Send us an e-mail if you have questions about that. We would love to help you Enter In.
–Luanne
“We fight from victory, not for victory.”
As I listened to the message on Sunday, I couldn’t get John 16:33 out of my mind. Jesus, speaking to his disciples, his friends, says these words:
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
This verse has always stood out to me. Because Jesus spoke these words before the crucifixion, before the resurrection. We say that death and sin were defeated on the cross-and I absolutely believe that. But when Jesus proclaimed that He had overcome the world–he hadn’t yet done that. Not physically… But I believe (disclaimer: this is purely supposition, not theological fact...) that He had already overcome in the ways that mattered most. He had already defeated the power of darkness spiritually and mentally. Of course, as God Himself, He knew the outcome. Omniscience lends itself to that kind of knowledge… But that’s not what I’m referring to here. Jesus intentionally made Himself relatable; He wanted us to know that He understands. Hebrews 4:15 out of The Message says it this way: We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. Scripture shows us that Jesus wrestled emotionally and physically in the hours leading up to His death. But the matter was settled in His Spirit. And in His mind. He asked if there was any other way, if the cup of suffering could be taken away from Him (Matthew 26:39), but He ends that prayer with “Yet not as I will, but as you will…” He was, to borrow a phrase from a few weeks ago, fully committed to His surrender. So much so that He spoke with confidence, “I have overcome the world.”
And so it is with us…
In Jesus, we already have the victory–we don’t have to fight for it. He overcame from the very beginning. All the way back in Genesis 3, we read about the One who would come to crush the head of the serpent. And if we were to really get into the omniscience conversation, we would identify that God created humanity with the cross in view. Darkness and death never stood a chance. And our enemy has always known that. So why, then, does he continue to wage war against the Light? Why fight a futile battle? One, he is purely evil-the full manifestation of pride, arrogance, jealousy, fear, etc… He is named in the Bible as “the father of lies“. I believe this is why he continues to wage war against humanity and the image of God–because there are so many of us who believe him.
This is why it is imperative that we understand a few things… One, our God is good. Purely good. His light is perfect and where that light is, no darkness can hide. Two, we are now children of the light (1 Thessalonians 5:5, Ephesians 5:8), called to live in that light. And three, our enemy masquerades as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).
I remember so clearly the night I began to understand these things… February 10, 2011, I was sitting in bed reading my Bible. Devouring it, really. I was in Hebrews and I was starting to see some new insights, beginning to go deeper. My husband was sleeping next to me, my babies were asleep in their beds. I was at the beginning of a season during which God would remove much of what had kept me bound and blind to the truth of who He is. It was very late. I had been reading for quite a while. The house was dark except for the lamp on my nightstand, and it was quiet. Out of nowhere, as I read, fear wrapped icy fingers around my chest. My breathing quickened, my heart raced… I saw shadows move-or I thought I did. I started to hear unsettling noises. This wasn’t an unfamiliar experience for me. I spent many nights afraid, paralyzed by the fear of what was lurking in the darkness. I can’t remember a time in my childhood that the dark didn’t feel threatening. I spent the first eight years of my life in a cult that masqueraded as a Jesus-loving church, so the presence of fear, the sense of the darkness, was always around. I believed as a little girl that God would use fear as a tool to bring about His purposes. As discipline, as a way to control, as a means to an end. I didn’t know I believed that–but I would soon find out that it was a core belief, evidenced by my own words…
During this season, I was receiving some counseling. For the first time, someone was challenging the deeply-rooted narratives that my understanding was built upon. And that was opening the door for me to really do some soul-searching, some questioning on my own. I was also going back, remembering things from my past that were difficult. So when fear put its hands on me, my initial instinct was to talk to God. That’s good right? Yes… right move, but… the words I said went something like this…
“God… if there’s something I need to see, to remember; if you need to take me somewhere scary to show me what I need to see, okay… If I have to go into the dark to find freedom, I’ll go there…”
I remember my voice shaking as I whisper-prayed with my Bible open on my lap. I remember thinking that this was a perfectly logical assumption. I remember steeling myself for whatever might come next…
I turned from Hebrews to Psalm 69:3b: “My eyes fail, looking for my God…” I felt the words deeply. I was seeking God in His word and yet sensing evil. I felt like my eyes–as well as my ears and heart–were deceiving me. I can’t explain what happened next, or how it happened, but I know there was warfare happening. And I know it changed my life. In the next moment, my Bible somehow opened to Ephesians 5:13-14: But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” And immediately after I read that, I looked down to see that I was now in 1 John 1. My eyes were led to verse 5 and this is what I read:
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.
Suddenly, truth broke through the lies. And I wish I could have seen the victory celebration going on in the heavenly realms as the real Light broke through the darkness in my soul that night. I realized that I had believed lies about God. I didn’t know that He wouldn’t use darkness and fear as tools to grow and teach and discipline me… because I didn’t know that He was good. Incapable of darkness-because unadulterated light scatters the tiniest pin-prick of darkness. They can’t coexist. I hadn’t known that before. But the truth of His goodness and light settled into my heart in that moment. And the fear, the presence of darkness were gone. The real light had scattered the artificial light–the darkness that had been (successfully) masquerading as light up to that point.
When we see the Light of life and let Him in to overtake our hearts, our souls, our minds, we become His light-bearers to the world around us (Matthew 5:15 MSG). And, as Elisha was the source of the king’s frustration, we are the source of our enemy’s frustration. We threaten his efforts to keep the rest of the world in darkness–because the light we carry has the power to scatter it. And he hates it. He knows he can’t have us once we are sealed in Christ, but he wants everyone else to be eternally blinded by his lies. So he does what he always does… he lies. He preys on our feelings and our fears to draw us into a place where we believe the lies-and that place is always one of isolation. When we take the bait and let the lies pull us into the shadows of isolation, he does a little happy dance. Because, even though he can’t lay claim to us or put out the Light within us, he can draw us into hiddenness where we are, essentially, rendered useless. Where our light may still live in us, but can’t be seen by anyone else. So he can continue his masquerade of deception without us getting in his way.
It makes me want to throat-punch him…
But it doesn’t have to be this way. The battles will rage in the heavenly realms. It’s a guarantee. But, we can say, as Jesus did, “I have overcome!” How? Back to 1 John 1…
If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (verses 6 & 7)
Pure light dispels manufactured light every. time. If you plug in a lamp outside in full sun, you don’t see the light of the lamp. The strength of the sun exposes the artificial nature of the light bulb. If we walk in the light of Jesus, we stand in authority over the darkness. And did you catch the highlighted part of the verse? Walking in the light keeps us in fellowship with each other–away from the shadows of isolation where the truth can feel hard to find.
As we move into this series, I encourage you to remember what Luanne wrote above…
“…If you are in Christ Jesus, you already have everything you need to fight in the spiritual realm, and you are not alone, ever.”
We have everything we need in Jesus. And we are never alone. We fight from victory. Have you experienced the darkness-scattering light of God? Or have you bought into the masquerade of your enemy? We would love to hear from you and we encourage your comments and questions. Blessings, friends.
–Laura
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