DCW Spiritual warfare 5

Spiritual Warfare week 5-

Good morning One River,

We’re going to jump back into our series on the Supernatural World View. We’ve been talking about supernatural combat. Different types of demonic afflictions and we’re working our way into the realm of how we as believers actually defend ourselves and resist those influences.

Today I want to dive into the Armor of God that I think some of us have been waiting for. I also want to look at what has been called the “magical thinking” commands of spiritual deliverance.

When I say magical thinking, I’m talking about the logic trap that seems to come from some of the Protestant deliverance ministries that exist. It goes something like this. Jesus is LORD. He doesn’t want anyone to be afflicted by demons. He has given us authority, therefore if I pray in his name whatever I ask for must be done.

Yes, Jesus said these words in John 14:13. But we know in practice, this doesn’t always work. Why not? Well, the short answer is free will. God is first and foremost a god of free will. He’s not going to grant you something that goes against the wishes of another.

Otherwise, he would have stopped us from sinning in the Garden and Babel and the flood and we wouldn’t have any of these problems to begin with. More on this later.

When Jesus says “pray in my name and it will be done.” That’s actually a command for us to become more like him. To begin to see the needs of the world through his eyes. Not to begin to treat our faith like a magic 8 ball.

First let’s recap the types of spiritual affliction.

Here’s a quick reminder:

Demonic possession: A demon using someone's body as their own. This is rare.

Demonic infestation: The presence of evil in a location (such as a haunted house) or an object (such as a voodoo doll or ouija board).

Demonic vexation: Physical attacks on a person's body, such as cuts, bite marks or bruises.

Demonic obsession: Demonic attacks on someone's mind. This can be the devil trying to get inside someone's head so everything they are thinking or experiencing is being filtered through the presences of the demonic.

This is just a reminder. We’ll get into this in a bit. Now for the Armor of God.

Ephesians 6:10–20 (NIV)

The Armor of God

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 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. 13 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. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

18 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. 19 Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.

I‘m sure many of you have heard messages on this before, and they’re probably better than mine so I’ll keep this pretty short and sweet.

Our struggle is against rulers and authorities, against powers and principalities. Back to the DCW, our struggle is against wicked supernatural creatures, not against our fellow man. Where are they now? In the heavenly realm(s). How many realms? Well at least three. Wait a minute, there’s three heavens? At least.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 12:2

2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows.

Anyone caught that before?

We see again in Ephesians 4:10–11

10 He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.

We often take the term heavens, even though it’s plural to be singular. But in truth we see there’s more than one level of heaven. Some of the wicked elohim are still floating around up there. The cosmic battle is still raging even though the war is won.

We’re told our part, is to put on the armor of God, so that when the devil comes, we can stand our ground. The imagery here is that of a Roman Centurion. We’re to put on the belt of truth. What truth, Yahweh’s truth. I looked up truth in the Greek, know what it means….truth. Know you’re God. Know the truth.

We’re called to put on the breastplate of righteousness.What is righteousness. In this case the Greek here doesn’t mean that we’re called to be good people per se. It means that we’re called to be in a right relationship with Yahweh and Jesus. Righteousness in Greek is seen through the prism of relationship. You’re righteous, if your relationship is right. Hopefully this takes some of the social pressure off of us to behave properly in public as Jesus was rarely socially proper.

Also, where does the breastplate go? It goes over your chest to specifically cover your heart. Take your relationship with Jesus to heart, he is your protection. Not earthly armor.

With your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the Gospel of peace. This is an interesting analogy. We’re describing a Roman centurion or hoplite soldiers dress here. But describing a warrior of peace. Peace describes tranquility and is often described in a negative form. ‘To be without trouble’ or ‘to have no worries’ or ‘to sit down in one’s heart.’ I think this analogy is to show us that our battles are different than the Battles of Earthly rulers. What is a warrior of peace?

Take on the Helmet of salvation – What is this? It’s knowing that you are saved by the LORD. How do we know this? Is it because we said the prayer? Is it because we got dunked in the bathtub? No, never, we don’t sell fire insurance. The only way you can know of your salvation is because you’re in a right relationship with Jesus. That’s it. This knowledge is defensive on the supernatural battlefield.

And the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. We often link the Word of God to scripture and it often is appropriate to do so. This comes directly from Isaiah 49: He made my mouth like a sharpened sword. Here Paul’s talking about something else. He’s talking about prayer.

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.

Our best and only offensive weapon against evil is prayer.

So, our armor, the full armor of God, is to know God’s truth, to be in a right relationship with Him, to carry peace without worry and trouble. Know in your spirit that you’re in right relationship with God and pray all kinds of prayers for the betterment of, not only yourself, but the whole body of the church.

2 Corinthians 10:3–4 (NIV)

3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

The kicker with spiritual warfare here, is to know our place and what we’re trying to accomplish. We need to know the enemy and how it attaches itself to us and how it can afflict us. Much ink and spiritual energy has been spilled and spent trying to workout formulas for the elimination of spiritual conflict.

Much nonsense has been spoken about how Christians cannot be demonically afflicted. Usually, we’re told we can’t be possessed, because the Spirit of God and the enemy cannot coexist in the same space.

I think people who are trying to make this argument are missing the mark. Full possession is rare. Incredibly rare. What must the state of a person be to get to the place where they can be fully possessed as the vernacular goes?

Now, it’s important to remember here how all of this works. Most supernatural affliction occurs through three main avenues with the enemy.

1) Familial connection. Some type of generational sin, sacrifice to occultic practices, pacts with demons of foreign elohim. This can be as late as your parents or sometimes many generations back. But a doorway of permission for interaction is given and the spirit makes contact.

This is a relatively easy fix once the cause has been found, as long as the person being afflicted is not actively inviting the spirit to stick around. A simple binding and cleansing prayer usually takes care of this.

2) Cursed object or location. This can happen for a number of reasons. Allegiance to a foreign spirit or some gruesome type evil, grants permission by way of a wounded spirit of the owner.

This can be addressed by first becoming aware of what’s going on. Then locating the object or location and revoking the permission given that allows the spirit to maintain contact with the afflicted.

There are, as I said before, some rules to the supernatural world. Firstly, free will. Only the owner of the property or object can revoke permission for a spirit to maintain contact. I cannot cast out a spirit on behalf of another person. This has been done on several occasions, but Jesus warns us about this

Matthew 12:43–45 (NIV)

43 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”

The person afflicted has to want the spirit gone, or this whole thing gets worse. Trust me, I have some very personal experience with this. We can’t will and pray another person to get better, they have to want it.

3) The final one is where things get a little more tricky; Possession, vexation, obsession. This is where the person themselves is actively in relationship with the spirit. When I say relationship here, I don’t necessarily mean worship, although that can obviously occur. I mean any permission given, sometimes even subconscious that allows that entity to stay in contact with the victim.

We must remember that these situations do not work like we may see in the movies. People don’t wake up on a Monday completely normal and then Tuesday are possessed by a demon. These processes are usually gradual over the course of many years and many small agreements they choose (free will) to make with the spirit.

Sin is always the cause. This can simply be not maintaining a right relationship with God, or something more profound like addiction. But the end result is the same. Bit by bit, the spirit wears us down and convinces us that we need them.

It often starts out as some form of a positive trade. Somethings small, don’t go to church today. There’s a party you’d rather be at. Go for it, you’ll have fun. So, you listen to the voice. You skip church go to the party and you do have fun.

Those bargains become more frequent until you feel yourself crossing a moral line. Then the positive encounters of the relationship cease and they become threats.

Pretty quickly your internal dialogue has become entirely negative and you begin to think it’s just you. I must be depressed. I’m not worthy of love. God doesn’t want me. Fill in the blank. But the lie her is, its not you. It’s not your internal dialogue. You’re listening to a wicked spirit.

Medication doesn’t work, exercise doesn’t work. Nothing you do seems to turn this around. You feel shame and pull away from God and the church, which perpetuates the affliction. But the spirit has convinced you that it’s just you in there.

….and it only gets darker from there.

But there is hope. But often at this stage it takes another person to come along and point this out to the victim and they’re not always willing to hear the truth. If that’s the case, then little can be done, because as I’ve said a few times now….Free will!

Here comes my disclaimer. There is mental illness. Not everything wrong with a person can be attributed to demonic affliction. But I do believe there is some crossover here. I also think there is some misdiagnosis from both establishments. Sometimes something is classified as mental illness that is spiritual and sometimes the other way around.

I have my own, unscientific tests in this regard. It’s been my experience that those that are truly afflicted by evil spirits will not be able to come to the church and ask for help with their problem. The spirit will prevent them from seeking help in a location where they may actually get some relief.

Those that come in asking for deliverance or exorcism, are usually mentally ill. Demons don’t want the person to cast them out.

But, when the person becomes willing, and if they’re willing to put in the work, they can be freed. This is where we turn to prayer. As Paul says, all kinds of prayer.

If you know someone is spiritually afflicted, pray for them. Pray for wisdom and clarity. But do not, without their permission, cast out the spirit.

Pray often and without ceasing.

There are two main types of prayer when we’re talking about spiritual warfare; imprecatory prayer and deprecatory prayer. Have you guys heard this before?

Imprecatory prayer is a prayer that directly commands a demon. We see Jesus use this, and the apostles in several cases. But the just of it is authority. Authority, as I mentioned, can be a tricky thing. You personally, have no authority. Jesus gives us authority, when we ask for things in his name. However, even that authority does not trump God’s Prime Directive of free will for all.

You cannot command out a demon from a person, place, or thing, if it wants to be there (which it does) and it has permission to be there by the spiritual authority of the person, or owner.

What you can do, is use something called deprecatory prayer. This is a petition to God to ask Him to act against the will and authority of the evil spirit. That is His prerogative alone.

A big part of legitimate spiritual warfare is knowing what you have permission to do, and what you don’t. Know the types of prayers that we can pray and what they’re for. Paul tells us, these are our sword. These prayers are our lone offensive weapon against the enemy.

There is no magic thinking here. There are three things at play in all prayers. Our request and whether or not it lines up with the humble word, and will of God. Our authority, and the free will of all parties involved, but particularly the afflicted.

Too often I’ve encountered people who have a Prosperity Gospel understanding of spiritual warfare. Oh, if I just say “in Jesus’ name” it must be done. Cause he said “whatever you ask in my name….”

But we all know that doesn’t really work, right? This can be a sticking point for some people. Some variation of this has been found in every Gospel, including John as well as several of the pastoral epistles. If you ask for something in my name (Jesus’ name, not mine) it will be done. But I’m also willing to bet that everyone in this room at some point has prayed a prayer that didn’t get met either at all, or in the way we wanted it too. Right?

So why is that? What does that mean?

Remember how Jesus taught us how to pray? I will dissect this one of these days for you all. But in short, it’s about coming into union with God and His will, under his authority. Even Jesus prayed “oh God don’t kill me.” But he finished it with, “not my will, but yours be done.”

Even Jesus’ prayers did not allow for Jesus will to be done at the cost of Yahweh’s will or order to things. Our job as Christians and practitioners of spiritual warfare it to aline ourselves with the will of Yahweh. This is the truth to the armor of God passage. Your armor, my armor is to truly, deeply be in relationship with and know Yahweh. It’s only when your safely in His hand that practicing this becomes routine like we see the Disciples do in scripture.

Sure, you can take a stab at it and you may get one right here and there. But to truly be an asset to Yahweh here, we need to know Him. That allows us to know the supernatural kingdom and allows us freedom to ask for things in Him name that aline with his will, and that he promises us he will give us.

Don’t take this stuff lightly, casting out evil spirits in an unprotected and unworthy manner can backfire on us as we see in scripture. Seek first the will of God, then you’ll be ready to pray for the deliverance of others.