Spiritual Warfare 2

I think that now we are ready to get down to some specifics. What are the spiritual weapons, the mighty super weapons that change the whole world? I don't know them all but let's look at the few I do know about.

First up is Confession. Confession just means being up front, especially about something that you would rather hide. The world around you is built on the belief that anything that you can hide gives you an advantage. If you hide your weaknesses, especially what you really think and feel, then no one can use them against you. If you hide your strengths you can use them at an unexpected time. To that way of thinking the ultimate power is invisibility, but Christ was never more powerful than when He was most visible, most vulnerable. The more He is exposed the more He conquers His enemies. Letting those that we deal with see us as we really are, instead of posing for them, sends an unmistakable message that we deny that hiding things is an advantage. It says that we would rather have the truth out than cover our bad side while preparing a sneak attack.

To use the warfare analogy, it picks the entire battle up and moves it to a new battlefield.
We move from the Old Fallen World to a New Redeemed World. A world where mistakes aren't held against you. A world where people care more about each other than about winning. A world where it is ok to risk being hurt because it is enough for us to be like our Lord and He was hurt. Confession takes us to a world where fear is pointless because any good thing that is lost rises again the third day-the world of the Power of His Resurrection. Pretty neat weapon.

⁹ Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. ¹⁰ Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; ¹¹ not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; ¹² rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; ¹³ distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.
¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. ¹⁶ Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.
¹⁷ Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. ¹⁸ If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. ¹⁹ Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. ²⁰ Therefore

“ If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
If he is thirsty, give him a drink;
For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”

²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12

Spiritual Warfare 1

There is probably nothing more common among Christians than to hear or read about Spiritual Warfare.(I said that in my spiritual voice.) And whenever you do they will trot out that old verse,
³ For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. ⁴ For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, ⁵ casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ 2Corinthians 10

And then you hear about the war for our hearts and minds and you REALLY think you are gonna go put a whooping on the devil. They tell you over and over that if you just have faith then you would be putting some kind of holy kung fu on everything that came your way and laugh at all your problems and a bunch of other bull. And the message that you really take home is that you don't have faith, you are a crappy Christian, and it is all your fault. We've been down that road.

It occurred to me not so long ago, that I really didn't have any idea what these super weapons were supposed to be. I mean I decided a long time ago that repeating the same prayer fifty times a day, or praying "HARDER" wasn't the answer. Repeating prayers is forbidden by Christ.(Matthew 6) And the whole idea of praying harder or making God do something because we have enough faith is ridiculous. We can't be so stubborn or persistent that we change the unchangeable God, and faith isn't heavenly dollars that we flash at God to open doors. But what are the actual weapons? I can't answer that for sure but let me try and point us in a little better direction than all that.

Now in the verse we are looking at Paul is not talking about wrestling with some kind of demon. He is talking to his fellow Christians about "5b bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, ⁶ and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled." The warfare he is talking about is about helping believers become more mature, helping them grow up into the kind of Christians they are meant to be. And he does this with his God given ability to teach and encourage and correct, with discipline if necessary. So this is a person to person thing, and frequently but I don't think always between two believers. Before we talk about specifics I think we need to understand what the general idea is.

¹⁸ There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. ¹⁹ We love Him because He first loved us.
²⁰ If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? ²¹ And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.1 John 4

The big battle of spiritual warfare is really a contest between love and fear. Think of every relationship you are in as a box. The closer the relationship the bigger the box. So there is a certain amount of space there and it is all filled up with a combination of love and fear. The more love, the less fear. The more fear, the less love. So your relationship with somebody at work is a pretty small box, not much love, not much fear. But a closer relationship like with a parent or spouse or child is a much much larger box. And there can be way more love in it. Or way more fear...

Now there are lots of kinds of love and there are lots of kinds of fear. Doubt or anxiety or worry are all names for different kinds of fear, and I am sure that there are lots more. Although we wouldn't like to admit it in so many words, most of the time some kind of fear is the main thing guiding our lives. We go to work because we are afraid of what happens if we don't bring home a paycheck. We keep our real thoughts and feelings hidden because we are afraid of what will happen if they come out in the open. Most of the way we treat one another is because when we acted some other way in the past we didn't like the results and are afraid it will happen again.

My apologies to every preacher who has tried to make you afraid of God, afraid of the Judgment, or afraid of Hell, but 99% of Christianity is about battling fear, Spiritual Warfare. Christ endured unimaginable agonies to prove to you that God is not angry at you and that you should see Him as a Father and not as somebody out to get you, to eliminate your fear of God. Although the feelings a son has towards his father and the feelings a creature has towards his God are sometimes called fear they are very different from the fear of rejection, fear of punishment, fear of consequences that we are talking about. Your relationship with God is the biggest box of all. If it doesn't seem that way, maybe it is because it is so full of fear that you won't even get close to it. And fear of God, the unhealthy kind of fear that is the opposite of love, is the number one enemy we are fighting against.
To be Continued...

⁹ Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. ¹⁰ Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; ¹¹ not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; ¹² rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; ¹³ distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.
¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. ¹⁶ Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.
¹⁷ Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. ¹⁸ If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. ¹⁹ Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. ²⁰ Therefore

“ If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
If he is thirsty, give him a drink;
For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”

²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12

What are you feeding that boy?

I remember hearing a story once, how Billy Graham in later years came to the conclusion that the majority of people who were converted at his Crusades were never really converted at all. He said that had that many people come to know Christ it would have made an unmissable impact on the world, which it hadn't. I wish I knew where to find the interview where it happened but I can't track it down.
I am not trying to disparage Billy Graham's work in any way. I mention it because for a long time that was my belief and my attitude. I felt that someone with no fruit to show was probably not a believer. I always felt the difficulty with that belief, because I knew that I was a believer and I also knew that I had precious little to show. But I felt convinced that Christians wouldn't just stay where they were and never seem to grow in the Lord or have a ministry.
The question is:Are there real and genuine Children of the King, whose lives show no noticeable sign of change? For a long time, I would have answered that question with a resounding NO!, but perhaps I was undervaluing the importance of Christian Encouragement?

¹⁷ This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, ¹⁸ having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; ¹⁹ who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
²⁰ But you have not so learned Christ, ²¹ if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: ²² that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, ²³ and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, ²⁴ and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4

When a man is taken by Christ, a new man is born inside of him, and we are left with a somewhat bizarre situation. There is a grown man, or if a child still someone with years of experience and habit, years of doing things their way, of seeing things through the cynical, despairing, unloving eyes of the flesh. And there is an invisible, mute, newborn child occupying not only the same body but the same mind, feeling the same emotions, experiencing the same ups and downs of life. In some ways the baby is more mature and wiser than the Old Man, but it is still a baby. It is a seed, an incorruptible, immortal, spiritual seed, but just a seed.
When we think of Christ's parable of the seed falling on different soils, some on good ground, some on stony, some among the weeds, some on dry ground, we are accustomed to thinking of only the one that falls on good ground as being a Christian and the rest as never coming to anything. But where is our love and pity for those other souls? Perhaps some we can do nothing for, but I was once dry ground, and godly men and women did not say "Oh well dry ground". They watered and encouraged me. And if we wish to be like our Father, the Gardener, then pulling weeds is a good start.
So, back to Billy, perhaps the greatest seed planter of the last century. Some of that seed fell on ground that was just plain good. And it just sprouted up like nobody's business. And some of it fell in the weeds, and some fell on dry ground, and some fell on stony ground. Not Billy's fault, he scattered that seed into every ear that would listen. But is that the end of the story, or has God called some of us to be waterers and weed pullers? When we see a child who grows quickly we say, "What are you feeding that boy?!", recognizing the importance to growth of having the necessities. But when we see a Christian who seems trapped in worldliness, discouraged, and without hope we blame them, when we should look at those charged with encouraging them and say, "What are you feeding that boy?!"
I want to apologize now to my brother, Chris. for failing to encourage you all these years. For years, I have practically written you off as a Christian. I don't know what is in your heart, but I owe you better than what I have given you. I have seen your failures, and rather than helping you to get up and do better, or even hoping and having faith in you, I have chosen to doubt you, to talk about you behind your back. Let's not play, you have plenty of failures, you don't seem to be a very effective Christian. But it was never my place to run you down or write you off. Is it just a coincidence that you have so few people in your life who believe in you and encourage you? Why have I not stood beside you as a brother should? How much different would our world be if I had chosen to encourage you?