Spiritual Warfare

Many believers are also feeling the effects of spiritual warfare In their families. The devil messed up the first family in the Garden of Eden, and we have been dealing with the effects of Adam’s and Eve’s sin ever since.

Let me give you an example of family relationships and spiritual warfare.

Paul wrote to husbands and wives in 1 Cor. 7:5, “Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time that you may devote yourself to prayer, and come together again lest Satan tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”

Paul is saying that when a husband and wife don’t have a fulfilling sexual relationship, the devil sees that lack as an opportunity to come in and bring about moral destruction in the family. So this thing of spiritual warfare gets right down to the nitty-gritty aspects of everyday life.

3. This Battle Effects Life

Spiritual warfare also has an impact on church life. Paul told Timothy to watch out for “doctrines of demons” that will infiltrate the church (1 Tim. 4:1). The church is being undermined in many places today by teachers who claim to teach the Bible, but are teaching doctrines from hell.

Anyone can quote the Bible. But we need to be like the Bereans, who checked out what Paul and Silas were teaching them to see whether their teachings agreed with Scriptures (Acts. 17:11)

4. This Battle Effect Culture

Finally, spiritual warfare affects the life of a nation, the culture in which we live.

According to passages like Daniel 10, entire nations are influenced by the invisible battle in the angelic realm. Satan is called “the prince of the power of the air” with good reason (Eph. 2:2)

There is no place we can go to escape the effect of spiritual warfare. We need to learn how to fight. Our ability to deal with the spiritual realm will determine whether we win or lose in the physical realm.

Satan’s job is to get us to ignore the spiritual realm or give it low value. If he can divert us from the spiritual realm, he can divert us from finding spiritual solutions.

THE LOCATION OF THE BATTLE

Where in the universe is this great battle called spiritual warfare being fought?

Paul tells us it is “in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12), which means the spiritual realm.

THE HEAVENLY PLACES

In the Bible, the word heaven describes three levels of existence (see 2 Cor. 12:2).

The first heaven is the atmosphere that surrounds the earth, the environment in which we live.

The second heaven is what we commonly refer to as outer space, the heavens where the stars and planet exist. This is also a realm in which angels operate, because in the Bible angels are often called stars. (Job. 38:7)

The third heaven is the throne room of God, the place we normally think of when we here the word heaven. It is about this heaven that the Bible has the most to say.

In the book of Ephesians alone, we find numerous reference to heavenly places in addition to the reference in 6:12.

Ephesians 1:3 tells us:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”