The Reality of Spiritual Warfare
Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Eph 6:11-12)
The topic of spiritual warfare is dense. This is simply a brief introduction into the fight, so that we may not be unaware and blind to the reality of the war. The easiest way to lose any war is to not know you’re fighting in one. May our eyes be opened to the reality of this war, and may we fight the good fight of faith.
Reality of The War
In this text God is preparing us for war. We are to ‘put on’ the armour - this is a command and something that we must do. It is not a passive state, but rather an action we have to take.
The greek word for ‘whole armour’ means a complete armour, both offensive and defensive.
This armour is further described in the following passages of Ephesian 6:14-18 as the shield of faith, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, feet equipped with the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
The Apostle is drawing on imagery from the Roman army to describe spiritual realities. If we were to think of this presently, it would be like tanks, guns and nukes. The idea remains; it’s heavy warfare artillery.
The language of war is consistently used throughout scripture to describe our present reality;
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds (2 Cor 10:3-4).
This is just one of many examples, but it shows that the Apostle Paul’s worldview was that he was engaged in a warfare that was beyond the natural realm. We are not fighting against people of flesh and blood, instead our war extends beyond that into the unseen world.
It is a spiritual war.
A war implies an enemy. Just as the war is spiritual, so too is our enemy.
The Enemy
In this passage of Ephesians, God is revealing to us that there is a kingdom of darkness in this world who we fight against.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Eph 6:11-12)
To break this down. We are not fighting against humans (flesh and blood). Instead we are fighting against
Principalities and powers (the princes of darkness) e.g. Daniel 10:13
Rulers of the darkness of this world (the evil spirits and fallen angels that influence the world system and try to control mankind)
Spiritual wickedness (literally: wicked/evil spirits) in high places (literally heavenly places)
The war is not against humans; it is against an invisible kingdom and invisible enemies. It is warfare against the enemy; Satan and his kingdom.
Further, this is not an abstract fight that is far off in the distance. The Apostle uses the word ‘wrestle’ deliberately. This is the closest kind of physical warfare, aptly describing the condition of the fight that we are in.
Some people find it difficult to accept the fact that Satan exists. This is exactly what Satan wants. The majority of the world is blind to the fact that Satan is influencing them, as a result he leads them down the broad path of destruction.
Jesus describes Satan as being the ‘prince of this world’. (John 14:30) Satan has influenced the mass of mankind into rebellion against God. He is God’s enemy. When we give our allegiance to God and follow Jesus as Lord, we side with God against his enemy.
How much damage and ground can the enemy take for himself when a person does not even realise they are being fought against? Many christians have been blinded to the existence of the enemy, or chose to avoid thinking about the subject. This is not a healthy attitude, nor is it scriptural. God wants us to understand our enemy. The only one who profits from people being blinded from the enemy is the enemy. If the enemy can infiltrate unseen he has gained a great advantage. Sadly many in the church today have been deceived and fooled.
God’s Mission to Destroy Evil
The Bible is not silent on the existence of evil in the world. Evil is not some abstract force; the source of all evil is Satan. He is described as the ‘evil one’. Jesus came to earth in order to free humanity from Satan.
For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8)
The reason why Christ came to earth was to defeat Satan. The Biblical narrative states that humanity had been put in bondage to the enemy, but now Christ has come and liberated us from the dominion of darkness (evil) and brought us into the light (good) of the Kingdom of God through his cross. His cross is the victory over Satan.
To destroy the work of Satan was the mission of Jesus. When Jesus commissioned Paul the Apostle he said:
I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them. To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. (Acts 26:17-18)
We see therefore the mission of Jesus and the mission he has given to the church is to destroy Satan and his works. This is through enforcing the victory of the cross.
Do Not Be Ignorant
Next the Apostle exhorts us to stand against the ‘wiles’ of the devil. The original word is μεθοδεία (methodia) meaning; schemes or craftiness. This word is partly where the English word ‘method’ comes from. It is describing a detailed, methodical plan that the enemy is plotting to act out against us.
We are not to be unaware of the plans and attacks of the enemy.
‘Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.’ (1 Cor 2:11).
Satan is seeking to destroy our lives and uproot our faith. Therefore we must be on guard against him. The Apostle Peter says:
‘Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour’. (1 Peter 5:8)
This means that we must be watchful against Satan. He is a supernatural enemy and he does not play by the rule book. He will seek to harm and destroy in whatever way he can. He is walking through the earth seeking those whom he may draw into his path of destruction. We are to be aware and watchful.
Steal, Kill, Destroy
‘The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.’ (John 10:10).
Jesus describes Satan as a thief, murderer and destroyer. Satan seeks to bring about death and by contrast Jesus seeks to give us abundant life.
This means Satan is devising plans against us with three primary purposes: to kill, steal and destroy. He is primarily seeking to take our life from us and to destroy our faith. We must fight against this with everything we have.
And if he cannot succeed in doing this, then he will attempt to hinder us from serving God.
Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan hindered us. (1 Thes 2:18)
Jesus shows that Satan attempts to steal faith out of people’s hearts.
And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan comes immediately, and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts. (Mark 4:15)
In this passage Jesus describes the message of the gospel like a seed being sown by a farmer. Satan is the enemy who tries to uproot and steal faith in the message from people’s hearts.
Jesus rebukes the Pharisees that were seeking to kill him. He says to them:
‘Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.’ (John 8:44)
This describes Satan as a murderer from ‘the beginning’, and likewise one who does not stay in the truth, but departs from it; meaning he is an ‘apostate’ (one who has departed from God).
The meaning of the name Satan is both adversary and apostate. Satan is therefore a liar and the manufacturer of all lies. His lies are directed at God’s Word and God’s children.
When Jesus says ‘from the beginning’ he is making a reference to Genesis, specifically Adam and Eve. Satan murdered Adam and Eve by lying to them in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3). Eve was deceived by the lying words and by casting doubt on God’s word. The voice that speaks in the world today saying: ‘Did God really say?’ is the same one who said it there in the garden of Eden. Through Eve’s decision to obey the lie instead of the truth of God’s word, death and sin was brought forth into the world. It stemmed from choosing to believe and obey the lie, instead of the truth.
This is the same tactic that Satan now uses against humanity. To cast doubts upon the Word of God and to try to force disobedience to God. This is his main tactic.
Two Kingdoms
Very simply; sin is Satan’s dominion. Sin is choosing to believe the lie rather than the truth. It is darkness, evil, unrighteousness, hatred and death.
Holiness is God’s dominion, it is life, light, purity, love, truth, peace, joy etc.
Holiness is the image of God.
Sin is the image of Satan.
Either you serve God or you serve sin (and thus Satan). Jesus says you cannot serve two masters, for you will love one and hate the other. God and sin are as opposite as light and dark. You cannot have sin as your Lord and love God. The Apostle describes this in Romans saying:
Do you not know, that to who you present yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you are obeying; whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience (to God) leading to righteousness? (Rom 6:16)
But now being made free from sin, you have become servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness, and the end of this is everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom 6:22-23)
Early church writer Irenaeus reflects this same point saying:
He has termed those angels of the devil, and children of the wicked one, who give heed to the devil, and do his works. But these are, at the same time, all created by the one and the same God. When, however, they believe and are subject to God, and go on and keep His doctrine, they are the sons of God; but when they have apostatized and fallen into transgression, they are ascribed to their chief, the devil— to him who first became the cause of apostasy to himself, and afterwards to others.
When John Wesley realised this teaching of scripture he said:
‘Instantly, I resolved to dedicate all my life to God; all my thoughts, and words, and actions; being thoroughly convinced there was no medium, but that every part of my life must either be a sacrifice to God; or myself; that is, in effect, to the devil.’
The Christian life is to be one of habitual obedience of living in the light of God’s word. If a genuine believer cannot overcome a particular habitual sin in their life with sincerity, then the root is deeper and deliverance ministry is necessary.
Truth vs Lie
The truth is God’s Word. Satan was the first one who departed from God’s Word. All who depart are followers of the apostate angel. This is why Jesus says that on the day of judgement:
‘Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels’ (Matthew 25:41).
The lake of fire was not made for humanity. It was made for the devil and angels, those who rebelled against God. However, humanity has been given a choice in this age to whom they will show their allegiance to either God or Satan. Those who follow Satan will suffer the same fate as him; everlasting torment. Satan’s desire is to get all mankind to follow him into apostasy and to depart into the way of idolatry.
Every false religion has been set up by Satan and his fallen angels to get mankind to veer out of true worship of God and to break the commandments of God (sin). He does this by getting people to leave the commands of the Word of God by breaking them either through unbelief, fear, doubt, lust, pride, etc.
To serve sin is to serve Satan. The vast majority of the populace of humanity is under the dominion of this dark kingdom.
This present age is an evil one where Satan and his fallen angels have taken humanity captive. Jesus came to set humanity free from this bondage to these tyrants. The Apostle says that Jesus:
‘gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of God and our Father’ (Gal 1:4)
The Battlefield
‘For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ’ (2 Cor 10:3-5).
We have established the war is not physical. We have also established who we are fighting. Now we need to establish where and how we fight.
First, the battlefield is the mind.
In this passage, the language is describing a mental siege. It is full of warfare imagery. It is an all out assault occurring in the area of the mind. The enemy seeks to attack through planting thoughts, we combat by demolishing his attacks and taking every thought as a prisoner in obedience to God’s word.
Every action in life stems from thinking. Right thinking leads to right living, wrong thinking leads to wrong living. The mind must test what thoughts it is receiving/perceiving. The ‘will’ is the deciding choice to act or not act on such a thought.
For example; for a person to commit murder, they must first have the idea of murder placed into their mind.
The prophet Isaiah describes this kind of process of the enemy’s attacks.
‘They rely on empty pleas; they tell lies; they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity. They hatch the eggs of vipers and weave a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die; crack one open, and a viper is hatched.’ (Isaiah 59:4-5)
The prophet is describing a process. The eggs of ‘vipers’ (demons) are thoughts that the enemy plants into the soul/injects into the mind. The goal is to have the person accept the thought and act on the thought (hatching the egg), thus committing sin.
A thought comes into the mind ‘I should cheat on my taxes’ or ‘I should steal that pen’. It’s the enemy tempting into sin. A person can choose to accept or reject that thought.
Testing the Thoughts
Common thoughts injected by the enemy:
‘God doesn’t love you’
‘You’re worthless’
‘You’re rejected by God’
‘God won’t mind that sin’
‘Just a little x won’t hurt this time’
‘Did God really mean that?’
‘That’s cancer/fatal etc’
‘You’re going to go lose your mind’ (this is a common one)
‘You’re the best x here’
‘You deserve that recognition/praise’
‘You’re so special to the kingdom that God will overlook your sin’
Commonly project intrusive thoughts/images/words etc and then blame it on you, telling you that you sinned when you didn’t.
The enemy knows the weakness of every particular person and he will play on that part in order to try and get them to go down the wrong path and to distrust God.
Every thought has to be measured and tested according to the standard of God’s word. This is why it’s so important to know God’s word.
The enemy operates on fear. Scripture is explicit that such fear does not come from God;
For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2 Tim 1:7)
The Pattern of War
Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness with three different temptations. This is found in Matthew 4, Mark 1, and Luke 4. It is important to recognise that Jesus sets us a pattern on how to overcome and defeat Satan.
Each time Satan tempts, Jesus responds with scripture. For example:
And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:3-4)
Jesus is here quoting Deuteronomy 8:3. The weapon that Jesus used is the word of God and standing on what God had written. To overcome all temptation we must use the sword of the word.
Signs of Attack
Common signs of Satanic attack:
Anxiety
Fear
Doubt
Self-harm
Worthlessness
Rejection
Depression
Thoughts of suicide
Panic
Addictions
Anorexia
Gender dysphoria
Common activities that bring demonic oppression and to be repented of:
False Religions
Idolatry (physical idols, items that are considered ‘protective’ or ‘lucky’, charms, ‘protective’ medallions, hoarding, etc)
Drugs
Sexual Immorality
Unforgiveness
Tarot Cards
Occultism
Cursed objects (ie: witchcraft books, occult literature, Harry Potter books)
Horoscopes/palm reading/tea reading etc
Ouija Boards
Yoga/Tai-Chi/Reiki etc
Transcendental Meditation
Psychics/Clairvoyants/Mediums etc
Astral projection
Speaking to the dead (including ‘prayers’ to the dead)
Horror movies
If you have knowingly participated in any of these activities listed above, they need to be confessed and forsaken so that healing and mercy may be received from the Lord. Many people are not aware of the importance of obedience and just the amount of danger such activities can bring their lives into.
This is not a game, this is war.
Too many people have been fooled into adopting a light and frivolous attitude to the condition of their eternal souls. Such an attitude is a lie and a deception that needs to be uprooted. Often this lightness is reflected in reference to the lack of reverence towards God. The root problem is a lack of fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of all wisdom. If this is you, pray for the fear of the Lord and ask God for wisdom.
