The Overbelief Of Spiritual Warfare
January 25, 2010 by Matthew Gillogly
I’ll never forget getting an email from a friend of mine Adam. I have known he and his wife, along with their two kids for a number of years. He a budding entrepreneur, she a hard core intercessor who just loves prayer.
The email went something like this…
“Please pray for us, we are experiencing another round of significant demonic attacks. My business is struggling, wife and kids are sick, etc. etc. “
I think you can fill in the rest. We’ve probably all received emails like this one.
I picked up the phone and started talking to Adam. He started talking about all the things going wrong and how the enemy is attacking him, his family and kids. I interrupted him in mid sentence and said to him.
STOP IT. JUST STOP IT. DON’T GIVE THE ENEMY THAT MUCH CREDIT!
He paused for second (I thought he was going to cuss me out in a kingdom sort of way) then said. “Wow you are right.”
We then began to talk about how the enemy is under God’s control. He can not do anything to us unless God gives approval. (See JOB) You only see two times in the Bible where the enemy shows up post fall. In Job and tempting Jesus in the wilderness and I guess we can only really relate to Job, since none of us are the Son of God.
David didn’t talk about demonic attacks, nor did Paul, Peter, (although Jesus did say, “I’ve given Satan the right to sort and sift you like wheat.”) John… you get the drift?
Paul did tell us that everything comes from God and that we are to have joy in all things. To which I’ve started taking that seriously as I walk through my days. I figure if Paul lived that way, then it’s probably good advice.
Which leads me to my second point, Wiley Coyote and the Roadrunner.
I was out walking with my dog two nights ago, talking with God about spiritual warfare. I’ve pretty much come to the conclution that most of what we think is spiritual warfare is nothing more than life happening through God’s grace.
While walking God gave me a picture of Wiley Coyote and the Road Runner. In that picture the Lord showed me that we Christians are the Roadrunner and the enemy and his demons are Wiley Coyote. For those of you who don’t know, the coyote (Wiley) spends his entire life trying to snag the road runner. He tries to blow him up, crush him with the rock, run him off a cliff, basically anything that ACME makes, he buys in his effort to kill and eat the road runner.
Except he never gets him. The road runner is always too smart, too lucky, too fast for Wiley to get him. Well, why don’t you just watch this….
We need to realize that the enemy can’t do a darn thing to us UNLESS GOD APPROVES. Therefore, if God approves of it, well then it’s for our own good. Yeah it’s a hard pill to swallow, but it’s an important one.
Paul did say, “JOY IN ALL THINGS”. He didn’t say ‘Joy in the found money’ or ‘Joy when you and spouse get the perfect house’. He said ‘Joy in all things’. That includes the young child with cancer. The unmet payroll, the failed business, the bankruptcy. He meant it all.
I’ll end with this. Smith Wigglesworth, the famous revivalist and minister tells the story of waking up at night. He felt a dark cold presence in the room. He sat up in bed, look at the base of the bed and saw Satan standing at the base of his bed. He looked at him said: ‘Oh it’s just you’ and went back to bed.
That my friends is how we should handle the enemy.
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Right on, Matt!!
It’s ironic how we can get so caught up in blaming the devil that we miss what God is actually trying to show us… Yes, we have the weapons of our warfare… but we also fail too often to take the responsibility of asking God what we are to learn in our circumstances. He likes to do something in us… before He does something for us.
Highly simplistic Matt and probably not much help to those in the battle. True, God does allow the enemy to sift us for God’s purposes. Painful as it is, we usually grow much more in times of trial than in times of plenty.
However, James tell us to “Submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. John says, “Greater is he that is in you than he who is in the world” Christ used the Word of God to reply to Satan’s temptation. God’s word is the weapon we need to use in spiritual warfare. “By the authority of and in the name of Jesus” has much power,
Great article! I find that we usually fall for one of two lies when it comes to Satan. The first is as you mentioned giving too much credence to the enemy’s power making him out to be a near equivalent to God Himself. Lord forgive us! The second mistake is to overlook the reality of the spiritual forces of evil and even attributing the enemy’s ploys as part of God’s work…. “God gave me this disease to make me stronger!” I find in many cases the truth lies between two extremes.
Pierre Eade
http://www.christiangrowthnetwork.com
I agree that many sometimes give the enemy more credit for calamity than is, in fact, due. But then there is the Book of Revelation, the Book of Daniel, and a host of other prophecies to consider. Beware of seeing the enemy as a buffoon. Know your enemy. In the light of scripture, he is not very much like Wiley Coyote, at all.
Scott, I agree that our words have much power. However, we are to have joy in all things. The heaviness so many believers have about the enemy is a bit unnerving. In my own life, I remember getting caught up into that thinking. Only to find out that the fathers love is so much more powerful.
Wow, Thank you for this post. It was awesomely powerful!
Matt,
Thanks for sharing your vision. I agree we “blame” satan too much, and don’t take control ourselves very much. Blaming satan seems to keep us from feeling or being responsible. I believe God still ‘allows’ satan to attack us because of our free will, and our ancestor’s free will. Our sinful actions gives the demonic world a legal right to oppress us, and God has already allowed that when He told us do good and we will be blessed, do badly and we will be cursed.
Paul talked about his thorn in the flesh, and called it a messenger of satan sent to buffet him, most likely a demon in today’s understanding. Among Paul’s many lessons he said we should put on the armor of God every day, I believe he was telling us it would be a battle that we have to take preventive measures to win.
If we all lived a life of devotion like Smith Wigglesworth, we could ignore satan too, but our sin allows demonic oppression, and it’s up to us to live a life of prayer, repentance, and obedience to avoid it. Satan has had 6,000 years to develop a strategy to defeat us, and he’s pulling all the stops out in these last days. If we don’t know the opponent’s game plan, develop our own strategy, and implement it with all our strength, we’ll be in danger!
Blessings,
Bill Bender
http://www.AnothenLife.org
http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/billbender
I believe there are only two type of people in this world those chosen of God and those born for condemnation, white or black no grays! Many times when God is trying to see which side of the fence we are going to graze on or check our faith He brings trials and tribulations to us, our families, friends and brothers and sisters in the kingdom. These are not the condemned but the family of God, we are sharing in the suffering of Christ. The first thing all of us want to do is pull out our check books or call on some of our powerful friends or powers to be to change the course of direction, stop the pain, make things all better while God is trying to put someone on their knees or change their course not His. Not everything is as bad as it seems, sometimes it’s for our betterment that bad things happen to good people or those around them. The mountain tops are a lot higher when you are in the valley and the mountain top is where all of us want to be!
I am always astounded that at some of the comments that God is in controll, yes, If YOU let HIM be in controll, YOU choose to listen and act on what the DEVIL has placed in your head, or You choose to act on what GOD has put in his word.
The Thief comes to kill, steal and destroy…. GOD is not a thief.. When you go through trials GOD’s word and strength get you through to victory. When you lose the trial, you lose because you relied on you on not HIM.. I couls go on, I deal with many business men who have made bad decisions and want to blame GOD and HIS infinate plan that are human minds cant grasp.. How about this. Our HUMAN minds listen to the DEVIl and did his way and not GODS way. Thats why your business is failing. HOWEVER with all that said.. If we turn BACK to HIM and HIS word then HE can turn all the bad to good.. right…?!?
Sorry for the misspellings hard to type on small keyboard and screen
Well,
This does incite a great conversation that i believe is going in the right direction. While i can see the intent is not to trivialize our adversary; he does have boundaries. God is God of all including the other guy who can give us trouble; especially when we let him take more ground.
I have experienced great moments of fear at times in the unmistakable presence of evil. While Satan can not harm us and overstep his boundaries, God does call us to take action. We are not called to give it more place than necessary. John White (a humble and wise voice, now with Jesus) likened it to the inglorious job of “cleaning toilets”; one he was not fond of but needed to do from time to time.
God has made a home in us and by relationship that authority also dwells within. Jesus did not strive or was long winded when encountering the demonic. He spoke plainly and simply resting on His power and authority; which also dwells within. I think the demons know who we are identified with; joint heirs as well. A simple “go away” would do or an act in confidence out of that knowledge (like Smith-Wigglesworth’s).
Sandy and I had a recent experience of that during our recent cruise. I was involved in a very electric and vivid encounter with some entities in a dream(?). I was striving to evade and fight them off in the flesh without any success.
I suddenly woke(?) in a great fear, leery of falling back to sleep. Then the Lord spoke; “Just tell them to leave and go back to sleep.” That was it? I did that and a “little” more. The religious part of me felt more needed to be done. By this time Sandy was well awake and we began to pray over the funky native artifacts acquired in Honduras and Belize.
The fear left me immediately when i told them to leave (“Get out! There is no place for you here.”). In retrospect, praying over the stuff was a little superfluous.
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” — Jesus
Joy and a light burden are also woven into the troubles we experience (no matter the form), and the overcomer is with, in us and will not leave us.
That should be good enough for all of us lest Satan otherwise deceive us.
Regarding Steve’s comment:
Beware of seeing the enemy as a buffoon. Know your enemy. In the light of scripture, he is not very much like Wiley Coyote, at all.
I believe you’re sort of right – but have to look at the big picture and the context.
We humans to do need to beware of the enemy, in which case we’re the buffoons (aka sheep) and the enemy is cunning, manipulative, and persuasive. But the enemy in comparison to God is quite like the Coyote, he doesn’t even come close to God’s brilliance, therefore is a buffoon in comparison to God Almighty.
I can see Matthew’s point in using the Coyote and Roadrunner to explain spiritual warfare. It’s very effective for new Christians that lack the understanding, and gives them a visual picture to begin grasping what is going on “behind the scenes”, and to understand that we’re always safe – even if we should die – we have nothing to fear but God.
Correction: We humans do need to beware of the enemy, ….
Ah, Coyote vs. Roadrunner is a good one. In Native American stories the cartoons were taken from, Roadrunner is a child or sickly person. Coyote’s names include eater-of-souls and eater-of-infants, and he’s fairly high up in the demonic pantheon. in reality, a roadrunner would kill a coyote stupid enough to try to catch him. We have to be roadrunner and bind the darkness with the word of our testimony (born-again, under the blood of the Lamb, seated at the right hand of the Father in Jesus) and the Blood of the Lamb.
Now, I have this little problem with curses on me and have been binding them, and casting them out. Money-wise and health, I’ve never been at a lower ebb, but am claiming the Word and pleading the Blood, asking that Father keep me in His Perfect will. Doing that, He moves Heaven and earth and while the costs are rising, the money is stretching farther. I still need to make a good break in publishing but that’s coming! Amen! We can do all things through Him Who strengths us.
Walk in Beauty,
tsi
I have frequently heard ‘faith’ statements from both extremes on this issue.
I have heard some attribute everything negative in their lives to ‘satanic attack’ and they live in constant panic and fear and calling out ‘pray for me pray for me’
I believe that many things in life just ‘happen’ because it is ‘life’ and things happen and or it is an excuse to not take responsibility for their own actions which may be causing or contributing to the problem.
This over-spiritualization of every event I find in people that tend to have psychological /emotional issues. Not infrequently, this ‘Could it be Satan’? is also a mantra used by people in order to be accepted by the group they are in that tends to lean this direction. That is, they talk in a manner that is accepted and even rewarded by their group, whether or not they truly believe it themselves.
On the other side of the coin, I have heard people use scripture as an injunction to
be thankful, even when your child has cancer. This is absurd. I have never met anyone that is truly thankful for such an awful disease in their own children. This idea is usually promoted by the ‘Everything in the Bible is a PRESCRIPTIVE’ and just do it to the letter. This is often proved to be a bad choice as shown in those people who let their loved ones die from lack of medication becasue they want to ‘prove’ that they believe and adhere to the [prescriptive’. Nonsens! And, as I say, I have heard people ‘mouth’ these prescriptives “Be thankful for all things” becasue they feel guilty or like failures if they don’t mouth them OR, they are part of a group that EXPECTS this behavior and they need to prove that they are not BAD believers. I.E FEELINGS OF GUILT for not being a strong believer.
I believe that these along with other scriptures mean, that despite bad things happening, first, DON’T forget to be thankful for those areas of your life that are blessed..Wherever blessing occurs, no matter hpw small, and even if it does nothingto assuage the BIG problem..don’t lose the spirit of thankfulness .
Second
Blessed are You Lord, Creator of the Universe and giver of the Messiah.
A prayer, something like that is a good starting place. I doubt seriously if I would be able to say,,God I thank you for my child’s cancer…I would be mouthing the words,, but in my heart it would be a lie..and I think God woild spot it right away.