But judging from your nonverbals last Sunday and some comments I’ve heard this week, I thought it would be wise to take a moment this morning to share my perspective on these often strange spiritual warfare issues. I suspect we may not agree completely, but at least you’ll have a better understanding of why I do and say some of the things I do around here.
This is Gayle Williams. Gayle was shot and killed on Monday morning by the Taliban in Kabul, Afghanistan for “teaching Christianity to the people of Afghanistan.” Under the auspices of Christian Aid, Gayle worked among the disabled with a group called Serve Afghanistan. She was 34 years old when gunned down on her way to work. LORD, is that spiritual warfare?In recent years, one of the single most effective evangelistic tools in the world has been The Jesus Film. Many of the spiritual warfare and power encounter stories surrounding the use of this film are almost too incredible to truly believe. Paul Eshleman, Director of The Jesus Film Project, reported recently in Thailand a gang of thugs plotted to rob a "JESUS" Film Team of their equipment and sell it for cash. As the team slept, the thieves approached the hut where the equipment was stored. They were startled by two brilliant white beings filling the doorway. Both were over eight feet tall and brandished flaming swords. Frightened, the robbers ran into the darkness and hid in the bushes. Convinced they had seen a ghost, that there was nothing to fear, they approached the back door of the hut. Again, the figures appeared, blocking that entrance. One of the robbers cried out, “If this is the power of their God, we dare not steal from them!” The Jesus Film team only learned about all this later because some of these same thugs came to a showing of "JESUS" and became believers! LORD, is that warfare?
Years ago, Dr. Herb Klem invited a guest speaker from Thailand to speak to our final missions class in seminary. The man had several doctoral degrees and we were expecting a very boring, academic lecture. Instead we were treated to one riveting power story after another. Our speaker concluded his conversation by happily inviting us to serve with him in Thailand. But he included a gentle caution as he closed. He said, “We would love to have any of you come to Thailand and help us, but if you come, you must have real Holy Spirit power. We casting demons out of people and doing fighting all the time in Thailand. And if you don’t have real Holy Spirit power when you come to Thailand, the devil, well…he just eat you up.”
LORD, what is that? What is he talking about? What does all this mean? What are we to think of these things? How do we know what we’re truly struggling against? Is it warfare or just plain old war? Is it warfare or just strange, primitive thinking among primitive people? LORD, is it warfare or is it coincidence? Is it warfare or just a faulty wire or burnt out bulb?
In the end, all we can do is turn to Scripture; opinions will only leave us “eaten up.”
In Genesis, the devil tricked Adam and Eve, controlled the heart of Cain and got the whole miserable mess rolling. In the book of Job, the devil was allowed to afflict Job and his family horrifically. For reasons I suspect none of us will ever completely understand, Job was attacked in almost every way a human being could possibly be attacked. In 2 Corinthians 4:4 we learn “the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” In Luke 13:16, Jesus describes a woman “whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years.” In a very troubling verse to me personally, the Apostle Paul once told the Thessalonian church that “we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, did, again and again—but Satan blocked our way.” How exactly did Satan do that, Paul? A little more detail here would be helpful. In 2 Timothy 2:25-26, Paul told young Timothy how some people have fallen into a “trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.” What does he mean by taken captive? Paul told the Corinthians that Satan “masquerades as an angel of light.” What sort of light exactly? The Apostle Peter said, in 1 Peter 5:8-9 that we are supposed to be “alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your fellow believers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.” Paul told the Ephesians, in 4:27, not to give the devil a foothold in their lives. In 2 Corinthians 2:11, Paul says he forgave people “in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.” What schemes exactly, Paul?
We are certainly not without hope in this deal. James 4:7 encouragingly tells us when we resist the devil, he will flee from us. And wonderfully, in 1 John 4, we are told without any sort of hesitating equivocation that “greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.”
But probably the single most important passage guiding our understanding of these things is the sixth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Most of us know these verses…
“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. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.”
Back in the days of the great Pastor Scott Pearson at the Ely Baptist Church, a young couple began coming to the church. They were new to their faith and soaking up everything like a sponge. When Pastor Pearson did a series on the Holy Spirit, this young couple went home and decided to get serious about what the pastor said. They sat at their kitchen table and invited the Holy Spirit to fully enter their lives. But as soon as they prayed this, the woman immediately began to manifest truly bizarre demonic behavior. Her young husband was very disturbed, called the pastor and the two of them spent the rest of the evening quietly exorcising demons from her. That couple remains to this day a vital and important family in the church.
Why can’t all spiritual warfare stuff be like that? Why can’t it all be obvious and easy? Why didn’t God give us a handy list of demonic behaviors in Scripture so we could know what is going on in any and every situation? Weird voices and abnormal power displays, sure – but lost wallets, strange coincidence, finicky sound systems and burnt out light bulbs? I’m not so sure. How can we know of a certainty what is actually going on in the spiritual realm around us?
Most of the time, I don’t think we can know of a certainty. The devil usually isn’t that dumb and obvious. So all we can do is rely on what Scripture clearly tells us. There are many great studies on spiritual warfare, and I’ve done a lengthy teaching series on the subject in the past but, to be honest right now, I don’t really want to spend too much time on this.
Biblically, I believe everything boils down to three constant and very simple activities.
The first activity is watching. Be aware. Be alert because we know we have an enemy who prowls around like a roaring lion looking for whom he may devour.
Do you know why I’m completely comfortable saying the spiritual warfare things I did about our little technical distractions last Sunday? Because I know for a fact the devil doesn’t ever want you fully paying attention when I open the Bible. In a very real and biblical sense, we are always stuck in the middle of a spiritual battle for our eternal souls. This is where we all live! While I don’t know for a fact we were particularly singled out for special demonic attention last Sunday, I do know for a fact the LORD had given me a word the devil did not want any of us to hear. I have dealt with enough spiritual warfare like this over the course of my preaching and teaching ministry to recognize too many coincidental conflicts in the house at one time.
As I was writing these very words on Thursday, our con man friend from back in April showed up to waste my time and steal money from us again. But this time, I didn’t go get Bonnie from downstairs to hear his phony preschool proposals. We didn’t sit down to waste away the morning on his silly, scheming financial stories. He was in and out of the building within five minutes this time. Why? Because we know him now! We know how he behaves. We are familiar with his tricks and deceit. We were alert and ready to stand against him. We were watching. From Genesis to Revelation, we are told to be watching.
In the late 1980’s, I was in Bogota, Colombia on a military mission. We were in a morning meeting at the Army headquarters discussing the situation in Colombia. At one point, a Colombian Army officer told us the story of an Army sergeant reassigned to Bogota after many difficult months fighting leftist guerrillas and narcotraffickers in the countryside. He was peacefully and happily at his guard post in the city when some children came running up to him, telling him about a box sitting by a fence outside a nearby elementary school. The soldier quickly ran to the school, took one look at the mysterious cardboard box, ordered everyone to evacuate the area and proceeded to diffuse a massive bomb literally seconds before it was due to explode. The target of the bomb? The 5 year old grand-daughter of the President!
It is our biblical task to be watching, aware and vigilant. We have an enemy who will stop at nothing to prevent us from hearing or, worse yet, sharing the Good News. We don’t need to navel gaze, carefully define things or waste time analyzing his tactics. We know we have an enemy. We know how he behaves. We have seen enough of his crummy bombs to know what they look like. It might creep us out to feel like we need to maintain this sort of constant, almost paranoid sort of vigilance, but the Bible and our spiritual situation demand it.
The second biblical activity is protection. We must not only be aware and watching, we must take all the spiritual steps necessary to ensure we and everyone we know are properly protected from the enemy. And this is where the Ephesians 6 passage is so helpful. Paul tells us exactly what we need to do to ensure we are protected in our encounters with the enemy. He says we must wrap our lives in whatever is true like a belt holding our whole battle uniform together, so the devil can’t lie to us. We live our lives righteously, so the devil can’t accuse us or coerce us. We embrace a gospel of peace, which makes us ready to love at all times. We fearlessly live our lives by faith, understanding that we can’t actually protect ourselves from the weather, much less the devil. By faith, we trust our God to protect us and that rock, solid faith leaves us fearlessly shielded from the fiery darts of the enemy. We put on the gleaming helmet of salvation; embracing the free offer of eternal life with Christ, again completely unafraid of what the devil might do. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain! And then, like Jesus in the wilderness, we fight back with the Sword of the Spirit, the word of God. We know our Bible so thoroughly we will never be tricked into the sins and suffering the devil always has planned for us. We protect ourselves by throwing ourselves into the arms of our Heavenly Father. We assume this protection is always necessary because we assume our enemy is always out there.
And here’s where it is important we understand something about a pastor’s role in all this stuff. In Hebrews 13:17, we learn we are to “have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account.” I know it isn’t real popular these days for folks like me to talk about you submitting to authority, and I know submission isn’t a strength of many churches in America, but that isn’t the part I want you to focus on today. The second part of this verse describes how I must feel about you. This second part almost completely explains why I will do and say some of the confusing, contentious things I will occasionally do and say in this place, especially in possible areas of spiritual warfare. I’m going to have to stand before Almighty God some day and say, “LORD, here’s what I did with Elim Church.” And because I honestly believe that, I’m sometimes going to get real feisty and direct with our enemy. You may think I’m loopy or exaggerating at times, but I can’t be overly concerned about that. If I’m going to make a mistake, especially in this tricky area of spiritual warfare, I’m going to err on the side of caution. I’m going to err on the side of protection. So sometimes you’re just going to have to humor me, okay?
In the early 90’s, I took my youth group in Panama scuba diving. Because our dive boat operator overloaded the boat and didn’t know how to handle open ocean swells, a wave flipped us over and tossed the whole youth group and all our gear into the ocean. SSG Hanson took over immediately! I yelled at all the kids to get away from the sinking boat, drop anything and everything of value they had in their hands, grab whatever floated and assemble in a tight group. And then I forced the whole group to slowly dog paddle all the way back to shore. The kids treated the whole experience like a game and Monica was a little mad at me for allowing all our expensive gear to sink 60 feet down to the ocean floor. She thought I overreacted and she may well have been right. But all I know is that I got all my kids safely home that night.
And that is my responsibility before God. I keep a small, leather Bible I rescued that scary day from my submerged dive bag at the bottom of the ocean in my office as a reminder of my serious, sober responsibilities before God. I may sometimes look goofy, spooky or silly to some people, I may anger or embarrass you, you may not always understand, but I’m going to do everything I believe is necessary to get my kids safely home! Together, we must all do the great Ephesians 6 stuff necessary to allow God to protect us and then, congregationally, we must understand I am singularly responsible to Almighty God for ensuring that protection.
And then there is the third biblical activity: prayer. From Genesis to Revelation, we are told to pray like crazy, particularly whenever there is any possibility of spiritual warfare. The Apostle Paul closes his great Ephesians 6 spiritual warfare conversation by saying, “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” Nowhere in Scripture, Genesis to Revelation, are we ever given the impression that anything is too small or insignificant for us to pray about or the devil to ignore. We pray constantly about everything, fully understanding our sneaky enemy will use any silly little thing he can to distract and destroy whatever God is trying to do.
When Paul repeats this theme elsewhere, telling the Thessalonian church to “pray continually,” he uses a funny word to describe the sort of prayer he has in mind. The Greek adverb he chooses for “continually” is actually a word used to describe a persistent, annoying, and hacking sort of cough. I’ll admit that isn’t necessarily an attractive picture of prayer, but I think the teaching point is clear. Prayer is a persistent thing that just doesn’t go away. We’re praying about everything; all kinds of prayers and requests. We’re constantly hacking up our concerns to God and that is especially true if we suspect any sort of spiritual weirdness going on around us. We understand we are powerless without God and so we include our God in everything we do and say. We’re talking to God so constantly and comprehensively it would simply be odd not to talk to Him in the midst of something supernaturally strange. We pray!
There’s no fancy formula, perfect words or “binding” prayers we need to learn in order to win our spiritual fistfights. We don’t need to spend weeks and weeks discussing ad nauseum the wiles and ways of our enemy; what he does and does not do. We can cut right to the chase. Almost everything we really need to know about the devil was revealed to us the first time we saw him in Genesis 3! The devil and his demons are out there, they hate you and they want nothing more in the universe than to ruin your life and make God sad. It isn’t personal and yet it couldn’t be more personal. It isn’t about you and yet it has always been exactly about you. It is zero sum game, low and high intensity, conventional and very unconventional spiritual warfare. It is just plain, old, ugly combat. We can pretend the devil isn’t there or that some little stuff is too unimportant for him to care about, but that’s not what the Bible teaches. The Bible says we must have “real Holy Spirit power” or the devil, well, he just eat us up.
But having said all this strange sounding stuff, I can’t close this morning without telling a favorite spiritual warfare story. I’ve shared it with some of you already. Smith Wigglesworth, a very Pentecostal preacher and healing evangelist, was once disturbed by a noise in the middle of the night. When he went downstairs, he discovered a full-fledged manifestation of Satan himself sitting in his living room. Upon this scary discovery, as the story goes, Smith reportedly mumbled, “Oh, it’s just you. Keep it down would you, I really need to get some sleep tonight.”
Folks, this is not a fair fight. When God tells us in His Word, “greater is He who is in us than He who is in the world,” He means it! We have nothing whatsoever to fear, but we must not allow our joy and freedom to lure us into a blind, naïve complacency on these important things. We must watch, we must allow God to protect us and we must constantly be in prayer.
Last Sunday night, I woke up at 2:45 in the morning, very strangely awake and aware. Ten minutes later, outside my open bedroom window in the early morning silence of the night, I heard someone run into the courtyard of our apartment complex. This person was obviously crying and pulling on doors to see if she could find any door that would let her in. Moments after she arrived, a man came running in after her. I didn’t know what was going on, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I said a quick prayer, noisily raised the blinds on my window, stood with my arms crossed in the window, coughed loudly and glared angrily down at the man in the courtyard. He looked up at me, looked at the girl across the courtyard and then said something gently to her in Spanish. From the tone of his voice, it seemed to me he wasn’t angry at her, but simply concerned for her safety. Moments later, the two of them left the courtyard.
I don’t know exactly what was going on there, but I was watching and aware. I made myself available to God for the protection of this girl. And I was praying. Perhaps it was nothing at all to be concerned about. Or perhaps, just perhaps, a father lost control of himself last Sunday night and God woke me up in the middle of the night to be just the faintest little sliver of sanity the moment required. Perhaps the LORD woke me up to save a young girl’s life.
We don’t know what is going on in the spiritual realm around us. So doesn’t it just seem reasonable to listen to what the Bible says and do what it says? I sure think so.
May we be watching!
May we embrace the protection Almighty God offers us!
May we be in prayer constantly that we might be powerfully useful in God’s hands!
Amen.
