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Spiritual Warfare
In Maranatha, the Lord has
been clear with us about the way He wants us to approach matters of
spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare is a biblical doctrine, but many
Christians today – especially in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches
– have distorted the teachings of the Bible on this topic, and have
introduced many abuses and strange practices into their churches. Even
worse, there are many who insist on continuing such practices simply
because they are accustomed to these things, and do not want to change
– regardless of what God says.
8 In the very same way, these
dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial
beings. 9 But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing
with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous
accusation against him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" 10
Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand;
and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning
animals—these are the very things that destroy them. Jude 8-10
In Jude vv. 8-10, the Bible
warns us about Christians who want to feel powerful, or make others think
they are powerful, by directly rebuking or commanding evil spirits. Yet
even the Archangel Michael, who is more pure than we are (given that we are
all sinful humans, redeemed only by the blood of Jesus), does not rebuke Satan on his own authority. He instead says, “May the Lord rebuke you.”
Christians today need a dose of this humility.
In Ephesians 6, the Apostle Paul says that our war is not with flesh and blood, but with powers of darkness. This
is absolutely true. The faithful church is engaged in a spiritual battle.
Yet many Christians take this and insist that they should devote their
prayer meetings to shouting angrily at Satan or unclean spirits. Satan laughs at this because we are giving him the attention in our church, instead of
focusing on the glory of the Lord. Sadly, many spirit-filled believers
today learn more about evil spirits than they learn about the operation of
the Holy Spirit.
Please notice what Paul says about HOW we fight – he says to “put on the armor of God.” What is
the armor of God? He lists the items: truth (v. 14), righteousness, (v.
14) readiness to spread the gospel (v 15), faith (v 16), salvation (v 17)
and the Word of God. So, if you want to defeat the powers of darkness,
here is what he says you should do – focus on truth, righteousness,
spreading the gospel, being strong in faith, your salvation, and the Word
of God.
Nowhere does he say you should
yell at the powers of darkness, or wave your hands in the air at them, or
hit the church members on the forehead to drive out the spirits. These
practices are merely the traditions of men. The Bible does not tell us to
do such things to the Enemy at all, but instead to focus on the things of
the Spirit – truth, faith, righteousness, the Word, etc. This
defeats the Enemy. Of course, the flesh would prefer not to be spiritually
disciplined or consistent about faith, righteousness, or the Word. Our
flesh would prefer merely to shout or wave our hands for a while at the
evil spirits during a church service, instead of changing our lives or
being consistently faithful to God.
4 The weapons we fight with are
not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to
demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every
pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take
captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians
10:4-5
In this passage from 2
Corinthians, Paul says his “weapons” are indeed spiritual, but
what is he talking about here? Does he mention rebuking Satan in the church
service? No, not at all. Instead, he is talking about his PREACHING the
TRUTH – that he would defeat arguments that set themselves up against
the knowledge of God, to bring people’s minds and thoughts into
submission to Christ. Paul knew that preaching the gospel, the revealed
Word, was a spiritual weapon to destroy strongholds. He did not have to
imagine some sort of demonic fortress, like some Christians do today, and
then wave his hands and yell at it in the name of Jesus.
Many Christians resist this
teaching. It seems more sensational and exciting in a service to have
angry outbursts at the devil. They honor the Enemy in the services when
they do this. Some Christians even begin to act like witches and
sorcerers, who claim to be able to control evil spirits, to put curses on
people, etc. These Christians want to boss around the demons in Jesus’ name. In the coming years, you will see such groups drift further and further
into mysticism, even though they call themselves Christians.
The blood of JESUS gives us complete protection from evil spirits. We plead the blood of Jesus and we walk about in freedom. We can then IGNORE what the sorcerers do – we must
not live in fear of them. The Blood of Jesus is our shield, just like the
blood of the Passover Lamb kept away the angel of Death from the households
of the Israelites (Exodus 12). The Israelites did not have to stand at the
door and shout at the Angel of Death to depart from them. It was enough to
put the blood there.
The effective way to fight the
Enemy is to plead the blood of Jesus in humility in our hearts, to nurture
our faith, to hold to the truth, to preach the gospel, to live out our
salvation, and to have the revealed Word of God at hand all the time. We
focus on our duties in the Spirit and GOD takes care of the Enemy. When we
do feel an attack, we can pray to GOD to deliver us through the covering of
the blood of Jesus.
A pastor we know in Congo had a dream last year – in his house, evil spirits had come and taken away his children
from their beds while they were sleeping. (This was in his dream). He
began to rebuke the Enemy in the name of Jesus but nothing happened. A
voice told him, “You did not plead the Blood of Jesus like you
learned about in the teachings sent to you.” Therefore, he pleaded
the blood of Jesus, and his children reappeared immediately, safe and
sound. It was a great experience for him. He was skeptical about our
teachings before, because he had a large “deliverance” ministry
in Congo – but now he teaches his churches to plead the blood of
Jesus, and the members are growing, becoming more sanctified, living in
more unity, and are being delivered from fear of the witches.
Of course, Jesus and the Apostles DID cast demons out of the demon-possessed people (not Christians, of
course). We do this today as well, pleading the blood of Jesus, and saying
something similar to what is said in the Bible (or even what the Archangel
Michael said in that passage above). God is the one who casts them out by
His power, not us. We do not have to say magic words. They are driven out
by the power of Jesus’ blood, by his Spirit’s operation, as we
trust in HIM to do the work.
We do not need to perform
exorcisms in the middle of our prayer meetings. If you start doing this,
the Enemy will simply send possessed people to every meeting or service to
distract you so that you never pray to God or worship the Lord. The devil
is smart enough to do this, and the Christians are gullible enough to fall
for it. The prayer meetings in the book of Acts did not focus on
exorcisms. In our churches, we pray for people discreetly after a
service is over, or perhaps during home visitation, with only a few people
present so that the demons do not have an opportunity to show off and get
everybody excited. If we do exorcisms in a big group, demons will show
off, making the person thrash around on the floor or fly through the air,
to impress everyone with the power of darkness. Think about the effect
this has on new believers. They never see the pastor or the Holy Spirit
making people fly through the air, but they see the demons doing it in the
church service. Eventually the new members get the idea, at least
subconsciously, that demons are even more powerful. This is sad, and it is
the pastors’ fault for giving the demons a stage or platform in the
Lord’s House like that. We do exorcisms with just two or three
mature believers in a more private setting; this brings better results.
Also remember that exorcisms
are not the main way we defeat the powers of darkness. The demon will just
go look for someone else to possess, Jesus said (Matt 12:45), or it simply
re-enters the original victim. The main way we damage kingdom of darkness,
the way we penetrate the gates of hell, is exactly what Paul said – focus on the truth, faith, salvation, righteousness, and the Word of God.
Plead the blood of Jesus, because there is power in the blood. This
will solve the vast majority of problems with the forces of darkness, and
the exorcisms will simply be an auxiliary function of the church.
God’s project is a project of Salvation, not a project of exorcisms.
Exorcisms are merely one small component of the greater project of
salvation. Let us look at the remaining passages in the New Testament that
give us instructions on this subject, and similar patterns emerge.
7 Submit yourselves, then, to
God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near
to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and
purify your hearts, you double-minded. James 4:7-8
In this passage from James, we see the same
doctrine that we found in Paul’s letters – in connection with
“resisting the devil,” we are instructed to 1) submit to God,
and 2) come near to God with our “hands washed” and our “hearts
purified” (that is, sanctification or righteousness). We resist the
devil by refusing his temptations – refusing to sin. There is no
instruction here to have verbal attacks against devil as part of our church
services or prayer meetings. The Enemy wants to pull us away from God, and
we resist this pull and cling to our Lord. That is what the passage
teaches us.
8 Be self-controlled and alert.
Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone
to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because
you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same
kind of sufferings. 1 Peter 5:8-9
Peter tells us essentially the same thing as Paul and James – we need to be self-controlled, spiritually awake, standing firm in faith,
enduring hardship or persecution for the gospel. This is how we resist the
devil – by being faithful to God, refusing to yield to sin or
temptation. The Enemy looks for people to devour – he wants to kill
our spiritual lives, not merely afflict us with physical sicknesses or
discomfort. The great irony of “spiritual warfare” in many
churches is that Christians treat it primarily in material terms,
trivializing it as if the spirits of darkness are mostly concerned with
making us sick or emotionally depressed (even worse, some unspiritual
Christians think that the Enemy’s project focuses entirely on certain
political parties or the “mass media”). The fundamental
doctrine of spiritual warfare, biblically, is that God is mostly concerned
with His project of Salvation (saving souls and preparing the faithful
church for the Rapture) and the Enemy is mostly concerned with preventing
this project and substituting alternatives for it. This includes replacing
God’s project of Salvation with and obsession about exorcisms and
shouting at evil spirits in our prayer meetings.
We see, then, the same instructions in
Scriptures from Paul, Peter, and James. Now look at the Apostle John’s instructions in his first epistle – again, emphasizing the
devil’s goal of ensnaring us in sin, and our response, obedience to
God:
8 He who does what is sinful is
of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The
reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. 9 No
one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in
him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10 This
is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the
devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor
is anyone who does not love his brother. 1 John 3:8-10
When Jesus “destroys the devil’s
work,” this does not mean church members fall down on the floor and
exhale evil spirits in our services. It means we get victory over sin in
our lives, becoming exemplary believers.
Of course, we also believe
that we should avoid things that invite the Enemy into our homes or our
hearts. Paul, for example, told the Christians in Corinth not to eat meat
sacrificed to idols in the temple, because this was partaking of the table
of demons (1 Cor. 10:14-22). We avoid things like idolatry and religious
images (whether pagan or Christian) in our homes and churches, because we
do not want to give the Enemy any place at all. We want the Lord to be
free to operate and to be pleased with everything he sees in our homes and
our churches. We want to participate fully in God’s project of
Salvation. God gives us victory over the forces of darkness as we submit
to the Lord and obey Him faithfully.
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