Spiritual Warfare
Some of you may have rolled your eyes yesterday as we were talking about spiritual beings. After all, we live in an age of particle accelerators, microchips, and organ transplants. Aren’t the Devil and demons just medieval superstitions created to scare naughty children and illiterate peasants?
This is what our secularized and demythologized world would have us believe, and, frankly, it is what the Devil himself would have us believe. As the French poet Charles Baudelaire said, “The devil’s best trick is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist!”
The reformer Martin Luther in his hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” wrote a magnificent description of spiritual warfare and our place in it.
A mighty fortress is our God,
a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood
of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe
doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great,
and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
These demonic forces are quite real, and there is a spiritual war going on every minute of every day (Rev. 12:17). It was foretold by God when He cursed the Serpent and said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring” (Gen. 3:15). This war is not a dualistic battle between two essentially equal forces, good and evil, light and darkness. The Satan is not omnipotent or omniscient. God alone is sovereign and all-powerful. All that the Devil does is done only by God’s permission and ultimately will be used by God for His own purposes.
It is important for you to understand that the outcome of this war is not uncertain. As God also said to the Serpent, “He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” The decisive battle has already been won at the cross. The Devil may have thought he had won when Jesus was crucified, but this was actually the point in redemptive history when his head was crushed. It was by means of His death on the cross that Jesus destroyed the Devil (Heb. 2:14).
Christians today live in the time between this decisive victory at the cross and the final day when every knee, including all of the forces of darkness, will bow and every tongue, including the forked tongue of the Serpent, confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
The fact that we live between the decisive battle and the final surrender explains why Peter must still warn his readers that the Devil prowls around like a lion seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). The Devil has suffered a fatal wound, but he is not dead. Even a dead serpent still has venom in its fangs. He remains dangerous, and we must remain watchful against his schemes. He does not always come to us looking as evil as he is. He and his servants can disguise themselves as angels of light (2 Cor. 11:14). In spite of this, because we are united with Jesus Christ, the One who crushed his head, we can resist the Devil, and he will flee from us. (James 4:7)
How to Overcome Evil in Your Daily Life
The Bible portrays our life as a battle. However, it’s not an army that we are lined up against. As Ephesians 6:12 says, “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.” This is a spiritual battle. And to fight, we need spiritual armor and weapons.
Ephesians continues saying:
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.
Ephesians 6:13-18 (NIV)
Notice the armor that we are told to put on. Don’t focus so much on the picture of breastplates and belts, instead focus on what the picture is communicating.
- Truth
- Righteousness
- Readiness to share the Good News
- Faith
- Salvation
- God’s Word
- Prayer
We need these 7 things in our lives if we are going to be successful in this battle. They don’t do any good if you leave them sitting on the shelf. You must put them on. If you leave out any part, you are leaving yourself vulnerable to attack. You must put them all on.
Knowing that you are going to face a daily battle with evil, you can’t wait to put them on until the middle of the battle. You must put them all on daily. How do you put them on? By recognizing their reality and effectiveness as you are in Christ. This is spiritual armor, so you put it on spiritually before you even get out of bed in the morning. You must put them all on daily through the Holy Spirit.
Take the Offensive
When you are faced with inner accusations, preach the good news to yourself. As we learned yesterday, Satan means “the accuser,” and he loves to use this tactic to cut the leg out from underneath us. Though he can’t enter our thoughts, he can whisper little accusations like, “You’re not good enough,” or “How could God love someone like you?”
Instead of arguing with these thoughts of inadequacy, God invites you to focus on the Cross of Jesus Christ. Whatever your faults or failures, Jesus died on the cross displaying God’s great love for you. And because of his death on the cross, he “disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” – Colossians 2:15
When you are faced with outer confrontation, you can rest in Christ’s rescue. 2 Timothy 4:18 says, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.” This is a promise to hold fast to in the face of any evils that this world can throw at us.
When faced with evil, do good. Romans 12:21 says, “Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.” This verse tells us how important our focus is. You’ll never defeat evil by focusing on evil. Evil is defeated by focusing on what is good and living what is good. Romans 8:37 sums it all up nicely, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
Evil is real. It impacts our lives every day. But you don;t have to live in fear of Satan or of evil. God won the victory at the cross. What does this look like practically this week? Here are a few ways…
You can overcome evil in thoughts. How can you change your focus from what is evil to what is good in a way that you are thinking?
You can overcome evil in habits. How can you change a bad habit by instead committing to a good habit?
You can overcome evil in problems. How can you rejoice in what God is doing in your life through a problem you’re facing right now?
Please share your thoughts or questions about spiritual warfare below, and let’s all share a way that we want to overcome evil with good this week.
I think that the armor of God is very important. I liked the part that says you cant put only some on, but you must put the full armor of God on or you are vulnerable.
Btw I didn’t realize that you basically said the same thing as me I completely missed that I wasn’t trying to steal it from you lol
Its cool that when it comes to the illustration of armor, you need to have all the pieces. If you lack faith, you have no shield, and can’t defend yourself. If you don’t have salvation or righteousness, you are exposed and have no armor. Every piece is essential, and lack of any one piece can result in spiritual death.
In the first part of what you wrote about rolling our eyes is kinda true. It’s hard to believe that there are great beings out there. Some good some bad, so we need to be in the good side and put on that armor and fight for Him. Meaning spread the word of God.
We are al in this spiritual war and anytime we face evil or have self-dought in our self we just have to remind ourselves that Jesus died on the cross for us
Martin Luther wrote a mighty fortress is our God. This hymn talks about spiritual warfair
The devil tries to make us believe he does not exist. But he is real and God cured the serpent. The devil is not all omnipotent and omnipresent. Only God is.
the devil wants us to believe god and himself are not real.
as christians we will have evil come at us but we are called to still serve god.
The devil likes us to believe that he doesn’t exist because he can use our ignorance as a weapon. Ignorance isn’t bliss.
I learned that our life is a battle and Satan is the invader.
You can overcome evil with your thoughts and habits. If your thoughts are relatively clean and of the Lord, then you can think clearly and see through the evil. And if your daily habits are good, then resisting the devil and evil will become easier.
For us to be successful in our spiritual battle, we need truth, righteouness, readiness to sharing the good news, Faith, Salvation, God’s word, and Prayer.
The devil wants us to believe that him and are not real. when it says “These demonic forces are quite real, and there is a spiritual war going on every minute of every day …” this is the devil trying to do his works among us, but we mist stay string in the faith and know in our hearts there is a God.
I like that god is like a shield I like that he can protect us. I know this because I know god protects me evryday
I remember learning about the armor of God years ago and thinking it was super cool. It truly is a good description of these spiritual gifts.