Spiritual warfare
Spiritual warfare, in a Christian and biblical context, refers to the ongoing conflict between the followers of God and the spiritual forces of evil such as Satan and his demons. It's not about physical battles. It is about resisting the influence of these evil spirits on one's thoughts, actions and emotions.[1]
According the C.S. Lewis Institute:
| “ | That’s spiritual. Then you’ve got warfare. We have an enemy, Satan. The Hebrew word Satan means “the accuser.” The devil. Diabolos in Greek means, “the one who casts or throws at or hurls abuses.” The characteristics of this enemy: Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, the two scriptural passages that talk about his fall, say basically he is a rebel who entered into a state of utter madness, thinking he could become God. “I will be like the most High.” What could be more mad than that? Than to deny the central reality of the universe? Matter of fact, Milton, when he writes about this in Paradise Lost, do you remember what he named the capital of hell in that book? Anybody remember? Pandemonium. What does it mean? “All demons.” We think of the word as confusion, but it literally means “all demons.” Satan is living in utter madness. Very clever, but he’s mad. He’s self-deceived. He traffics in deception. In 2 Corinthians 11:3, Paul writes, “I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.”
If you follow some of the news, some of you have to be aware that there’s some relative madness going on, that we’re engaged in just all kinds of equivocation in our culture and so on. Jesus called Satan the father of lies, in John 8:44. In 2 Corinthians 11:14, it says, sometimes he disguises himself as an angel of light. He twists Scripture in Matthew 4:5–6, in the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. In the three recorded temptations, Jesus rebukes Satan with Scripture, all from the book of Deuteronomy, by the way. So then Satan, when he tempts Christ in one of the temptations, actually uses Scripture to tempt Christ. He’s a Scripture twister. He appeals to the world and the flesh, as if these could ever replace the eternal. There’s nonsense in what he does. James 1:17: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” He tempts us to engage with the things that are temporal and mutable, the things that moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. Why would we ever reject the God who is eternal, immortal, immutable, all sustaining, and all powerful for him? Psalm 16:11, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” God gives us right-handed pleasures for sure, but never to replace Him. And yet somehow Satan tempts us to think that these other things can ultimately satisfy. And they cannot. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth,” Jesus said, “where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal.” Satan is a fool and plays us for fools as well.[2] |
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See also
External links
- Spiritual Warfare in a Material World, C.S. Lewis Institute
- Understanding the Battle behind Spiritual Warfare, BibleStudytools.com
- What does the Bible say about spiritual warfare?, Got Questions Ministries
