Cast it Into the Fire! Destroy It!

“The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” – 1 John 3:8b

It was yet another eventful week for the YWAMers at the Marine Reach DTS as we learned about spiritual warfare from Dean Sherman, who spoke across the miles and years through a DVD. Beginning this week, the idea of spiritual warfare was something that I hadn’t been exposed to all that much, because the church background I come from doesn’t talk about that kind of thing very much. Dean Sherman, however, gave me quite a few reasons why it’s really not smart to sweep the subject of spiritual warfare, Satan, and demons to the side. One of the most important of these reasons is simply that spiritual warfare is real, and we’re ALL in it. It’s going on all the time (much of it over our minds/thoughts), whether we acknowledge it or not. And if you think that’s not true, just look at the life of Jesus, who was constantly casting out and fighting against demons. If Jesus did it, then we are to do the same, and I don’t think the basic nature of the universe has changed since New Testament times. At the end of Mark (16:17), Jesus even commissioned us specifically to cast out demons, among other things. But now, especially in the western world, we have all kinds of natural explanations for things that are in reality the works of the devil (like physical and mental disease), and things like demons are for uneducated and illogical people. I think Satan is probably pretty happy to have us ignore his existence most of the time because if we are aware of him and his strategies we can really fight back, especially if we are aware of how much power and authority we have in Christ. Power to heal disease, cast out demons, break chains that oppress, cut off lies, turn curses into blessing, and deny the enemy access to our own lives. So you get the idea – spiritual warfare is real, important, powerful, and the province of every follower of Jesus.

As with Dean Sherman’s teaching on relationships, his instructions on spiritual warfare is just chock full of good ideas, practical strategies, and general wisdom – far too much to include in a blog post. But I’ll try to include a few of the things that stood out to me the most. First and foremost, here is the passage of Scripture that he used most frequently in his lectures, one you’ve probably heard before:

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 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. 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. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 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, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.” – Ephesians 6:10-20 ESV

One of the first things you can get from this passage is that we are capable and confident because we are in Christ – we have the “strength of his might”! And that’s nothing to scoff at – this is the strength of the God who created the universe. We should also notice that are not struggling to be saved or to be a good Christian (Christ took care of that completely on the cross, and we are new creations) but we are wrestling against spiritual forces of darkness, something larger than ourselves. And we are NOT fighting against other humans (flesh and blood), as lots of Christians have been mistakenly assuming for the past 2000 years. Our job as followers of Jesus is instead to stand against strategies of the enemy (“the schemes of the devil”). So the essence of spiritual warfare is learning to recognize the strategies of the enemy, refusing to cooperate with them, and cutting them off in the name of Jesus (Recognize, Refuse, Resist).

After that, the rest of the teaching was essentially about how to recognize, refuse, and resist the schemes of the devil. The “recognize” part was probably the simplest - this is how to recognize what the enemy is doing:

1.  What would I do to me if I were the devil?
2. Know the nature of God and the nature of the devil. This is really important! We have to realize what it means that God is perfectly good, loving, merciful, gracious, just, and holy – it means that God doesn’t destroy anything except the works of the devil. It means that he always wants us to have life and wholeness, and that sickness, despair, death, and oppression are never his will, and he wants to fix those things. It even means that the wrath and judgment of God ultimately lead to life and fulfillment, as hard as that is to understand a lot of the time.
3. Look at statistics and conditions – see the devil’s geographic strategy. For example, say one city has more teenage suicides than any other city of its size. Do you really think the devil doesn’t have anything to do with that?
4. Ask God (discernment). Just ask, “what’s happening here, God?”

So then, if we recognize what the devil is doing, how do we fight back? The answer has everything to do with the Spirit of God that lives inside every person who repents and has faith in Jesus. The Holy Spirit gives us both weapons and armor as we go against the power of the enemy. We fight against him by praying in the Spirit (Eph 6:18), which we do by removing possible hindrances (unconfessed sin, fear, disobedience, unbelief, etc.), yielding ourselves to the Spirit, letting God tell us what to pray about, and being empowered by the Spirit (just letting the Spirit flow through us). Of anything, yielding to the Spirit is maybe the most important thing – Jono and Mary said this last week as they told us to surrender (yield) to the Spirit. In fact, everything God does, He does by His Spirit, and that Spirit usually works through yielded humans! So we have to learn how to keep a clean conscience, surrender to the Spirit, and let the power of God flow through us.

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” – Matthew 16:18-19 ESV

From there, Dean moved on to talk about the above passage, where Jesus tells his disciples (soon to be his church) just how much authority he is going to give them – the keys of the kingdom of heaven! The church (you and me) has been given God-level authority, basically the authority to bring the kingdom down to earth (“Your kingdom come” – Matt. 6:10)! God has chosen to rule and reign on Earth through his church, partnering with people (imperfect as we are). What an amazing thought! He gave us a huge amount of power and authority that can be exercised just through what we say and what choices we make. “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4), and as Jesus said, “I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:19). Our prayers have great power! Our words have great power! When Jesus said “As the Father sent me, so I am sending you” (John 20:21), He really meant that his church would do the same kinds of things He did, but would do them even better because it would be a whole body of men and women with the same power Jesus had, not just one person. He meant that we, his people, would be the method that He uses to redeem and restore the world.

When we see hurt, disease, lies, and destruction, God wants yielded followers of Jesus to step in and exercise the authority He has given them to bring the kingdom of God to that situation. When the followers of Jesus come together in unity, with hearts fully surrendered to Jesus and willing to persevere, no sickness, bondage, despair, or any other work of the devil can stand. We have the Name of Jesus, the Word of God, the Power (Dunamis) of the Spirit, the blood of Jesus, and our own testimonies to use in the fight. Certainly, Christians have no reason to blame God for the injustice and problems in the world, for He has given us the authority and power to deal with those things! This is where the problem comes in, though: people have the choice of whether to use their authority for God or to give it over to the enemy. Satan has no authority of his own; he has only what authority people give him through their decisions. This is what happened in the garden – Adam and Eve gave Satan the authority God had given them.

This is where the defensive work of spiritual warfare comes in. We not only have to go against the works of the enemy around us, we have to deny the enemy any access to ourselves. Certainly, as Christians we are secure in Christ – saved, forgiven, new creations, the righteousness of Christ, children of God. However, even with this as our permanent condition, we still have to make sure that we follow God’s commands and regularly examine ourselves, making sure we haven’t opened any doors to give the devil access. Dean Sherman referred to these access points as “gates,” as in the Matthew 16 passage, because in the time of Jesus the gates of a city were the primary access points as well the place where the city’s elders sat to made decisions. Dean pointed out that humans have “gates” as well – access points that are controlled by human decision making.

The gates we have to keep watch over are the mind, the heart, the mouth, and relationships. In reality keeping the devil and his lies out of our minds is a huge part of spiritual warfare, maybe even more important than actually casting out demons. We have to deal with thoughts of pride, unbelief, fear, contention and strife, criticism and judgment, inferiority and discontent, and condemnation. We have to cast down these thoughts (which are lies) and replace them with the truths of God, and we have to take captive every thought, controlling what comes into our minds. This is part of being “transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:1). In our hearts, we have to make repentance a regular thing, taking sin to the cross whenever we need to. We have to guard our mouths as well, making sure to bless and bring life with our mouths rather than doing the opposite (Prov. 18:21). And finally, we have to deny Satan access through relationships, doing away with bitterness, unforgiveness, and rebellion (easier said than done), blessing and serving even our enemies.

So that’s spiritual warfare in a nutshell – it’s all about cutting off the enemy’s influence and praying in God’s influence.

Dean talked about all of this, but in so much more detail, teaching amazing theology in such a practical way. He brought out themes in Scripture that pull so much together and make the gospel into such a cohesive picture. He really is an amazing teacher to learn from.

We finished the week by putting into practice what we learned. On Thursday we spent some time in small groups confessing the gates that we wanted to close in our minds and hearts, then denying the devil access by repenting, renouncing, applying God’s truths, and sending the enemy away in the name of Jesus.

Then on Friday we had another time of sharing like we did the very first week of DTS. During that first week, we didn’t have time for everyone to share, and we finally had time to continue. As people shared their life stories and all the hurts they had dealt with, we prayed for them. This time, I was introduced to the idea of generational curses, brought onto families by such things as vows, deceptions, demonic practices, and the occult. According to Cheyne (one of our school leaders), such curses can bring on a propensity for health problems, mental illness, accidents, birth problems (including miscarriages), and things like that. All of that sounded a bit crazy to me, and might to you, but Cheyne and Mariana (a student from Brazil) both had amazing stories of physical and mental health problems being taken away suddenly after people prayed for family curses to be broken in the name of Jesus.  Mariana’s story actually took place just before she came to the DTS, when her sister was miraculously healed of bipolar disorder and depression severe enough for her to be hospitalized. So during this time we prayed against any such curses people might have on their families.

And that was the week on spiritual warfare – yet another very full week! I hope you learned something!

Dan