The Unseen War

Introduction

We’ve been on this theme of prayer - a series that I have personally been so excited about because I’m just sure that God is wanting us to lean into this area as a church.

And the truth is that for most Christians - prayer is a weak area. For some reason, many Christians don’t pray as much as we know we should.

It’s true that perhaps discipline is a part of the issue. But I think that fundamentally the problem is that deep down - we’re not even sure that prayer is doing anything.

Prayer to the Christian is somewhat like a spiritual vitamin, it’s good for us in some vague sense, definitely better than nothing, but we’re not sure if it’s ACTUALLY doing anything.

And if I’m honest - this is very much how I viewed prayer for much of my early Christian life - until something significant happened.

ILLUSTRATION: War over the Lake

Many of you guys know that I was raised in a very non-pentecostal background. I actually grew up in the Methodist Church - not just any methodist church, the CHINESE Methodist church which are like the conservatives of the conservatives.

Anyway something happened at one of our camps that changed my perspective on prayer forever. I was walking back from one of the camp sessions late at night when I spotted one of our younger members standing on a rock by the lake - overlooking the lake. And he looked scared for some reason.

And so I approached him and asked him - hey what’s going on? And what was happening was he was seeing a vision, that was clear as day to him - he said above the lake he could see two forces fighting, angels and something darker - doing war in the sky. Beings of light and beings of darkness warring right above our campsite - for the souls of the people who were at camp.

This vision not only put the fear of God in me - but confronted me with the reality of an unseen war, a spiritual realm in battle over souls, over people.

It left me reeling - and my spirit so convicted around a single question - are we simply passive observers of this spiritual war? Or are we actually called to be participants in it?

The next few months would reveal to me a facet of prayer that I was quite frankly unaware of, and at worst - I think that many Christians can be quite ignorant of.

And that is that Prayer is an indispensible weapon in an unseen war that the Christian is always fighting. (REMOVE HERE AND ADD AT END)

Let’s pray to open.

Segment 1: The real enemy

Ephesians 6:11–18 ESV

11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm…18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,

This passage is a very familiar one to us - it’s actually the verses preceding and following the famous Armor of God. And I’ve omitted those verses specifically to bring our focus to the very important context to that passage.