Dakota Community Church
September 9, 2007
Behind Enemy Lines
When I started announcing that I was going to teach on Spiritual Warfare what came to mind for you? Was it prayer, fasting, or maybe worship or some other church type of discipline?
Those things are a part of spiritual warfare but they are far from all there is to it, probably less than half of what is really involved.
Ephesians 5:8
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.
Here is the calling Paul received:
Acts 26:17-18
I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
Here is how Jesus describes God’s plan in sending Him:
John 3:16-21
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."
People are not our enemies, if they have flesh and blood Jesus died to save them.
Ephesians 6:12
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Spiritual warfare is what happens everywhere truth invades deception, everywhere light invades the destructive forces of darkness.
Spiritual warfare thus permeates all of creation.
As Christians we need to start seeing the world as it really is, to do that we need to address some of the Pollyanna theology that is so popular.
We know that the fall of man is what messed up humanity, we know about the need for free will in order for love to exist, but, most Christians beyond that think everything else is as it should be, as God wants it to be and that everything that happens in creation is the will of God.
Folks – it just ain’t so.
Slide VI: Tangshan China
At 4:00 a.m. on July 28, 1976 the city of Tangshan, China ceased to exist. A magnitude 7.8 earthquake was generated by a fault that passed through the city and caused 85% of the buildings to collapse or to be so seriously damaged as to be unusable, and the death toll was enormous. The earthquake caused the failures of the electric power system, the water supply system, the sewer system, the telephone and telegraph systems, and radio communications; and the large coal mines and the industries dependent on coal were devastated. The railway and highway bridges collapsed so that the city was isolated from the external world. Before the earthquake Tangshan had 1,000,000 inhabitants and it has been estimated that about one half were killed.
Slide VII & VIII: December 26, 2004 Indonesian Tsunami – Death Toll - 295,608
Slide IX: Katrina – Aug. 2005 – Death Toll 1,000 – Property Damage est. $25 Billion
Is this how God intended the planet to function?
Mark 4:39
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
He rebuked the wind, this is the same word used to describe what he (choke) did to the evil spirits. He commanded them to function properly in submission to God, to stop their destructive actions.
There is a corrupting influence in nature that is demonic in its roots.
Slide XI: Shrike
A shrike is a passerine bird of the family Laniidae which is known for its habit of catching insects, small birds or mammals and impaling their bodies on thorns. This helps them to tear the flesh into smaller, more conveniently-sized fragments, and serves as a "larder" so that the shrike can return to the uneaten portions at a later time.
Slide XII: Carnivores
Lions are voracious carnivores; they can require up to seven kilograms (15 lbs) of meat per day. Large mammals, like this African Buffalo, comprise an important part of their diet.
Slide XIII: Hyenas
These vicious little beasts both hunt and scavenge, they take their time on the kill eating a large part of the animal alive and they devour everything – bone and all.
Is this how God intended the animal kingdom to function?
Genesis 1:29-30
Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.
Slide XV: Parasites
Common parasites of the human body
(1) The hookworm latches on the walls of the colon with its sharp teeth where it feeds on blood.
(2) The tapeworm is the longest parasite. A mature adult can lay a million eggs a day. (3) Tapeworm eggs embedded in the colon. (4) The roundworm can grow to be 20 inches (50 cm) long and lay 200,000 eggs per day. (5) Pinworms migrate outside the colon during the night to lay their eggs around the anus. This causes the nightly itching of many unsuspecting victims.
I could not find a picture of a human suffering from parasites that I thought would be okay to show in church.
Slide XVI: Starvation and Famine
854 million people across the world are hungry, up from 852 million a year ago.
Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--one child every five seconds.
In essence, hunger is the most extreme form of poverty, where individuals or families cannot afford to meet their most basic need for food.
Hunger manifests itself in many ways other than starvation and famine. Most poor people who battle hunger deal with chronic undernourishment and vitamin or mineral deficiencies, which result in stunted growth, weakness and heightened susceptibility to illness.
(Bread for the World 2007)
Slide XVII: Disease
In 2005 alone, AIDS claimed an estimated 2.9–3.3 million lives, of which more than 570,000 were children.
The federal authorities are preparing to face a possible avian flu pandemic in the United States by contemplating a worst-case scenario, under which more than 92 million people will become ill in the space of four months, US Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said.
The projections are based on the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic that killed about 50 million people around the world and emerged as the most serious pandemic of the 20th century.
(Breitbart.com)
Did God create these diseases, viruses and germs to infect, rot, cripple and kill both humans and animals?
Proverbs 20:12
Ears that hear and eyes that see; the LORD has made them both.
Quote:
Every square inch of this cosmos is at every moment claimed by Satan and counter-claimed by God.
– C.S.Lewis
If you stick your head in the ground and ignore the facts it will not keep you from being subject to the reality. Everything is not okay, there is a war going on and we are caught right in the middle of it!
In his book “The God Delusion” Richard Dawkins uses the argument of all the disorder and carnage to say that there is no evidence of intelligent design or if there is it not by a benevolent God. When Christians buy into the “all is well, God is in control”, theology they feed his argument. All is not well, many things happen that are clearly completely outside the will of God. The rebellion in the heavens resulted in an ongoing war that rages today with real and painful consequence throughout creation.
So what then does that leave us with as foundation for our position in spiritual warfare today?
Here is what we need to understand:
1. God created a peaceful planet.
Genesis 1:31
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
Eventually His peace and order will be restored.
Isaiah 11:6-10
The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious.
2. The angelic rebellion affected this planet first.
Ezekiel 28:14-17
You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, O guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth.
Revelation 12:7-9
And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
Luke 10:17-19
The seventy-two returned with joy and said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name."
He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy
So there was a war in heaven, satan and his angels lost and were hurled down to the earth. Jesus said He saw it happen. Now what happened here on earth between that fall and expulsion and when God planted a garden in the east, in Eden and placed man in it we are not told.
The fossil record indicates that it was violent in every way imaginable, all we know is that God decided to take it back by giving man, created in His own image, dominion over the garden and a mandate to tend it and multiply it and to subdue and fill the whole earth.
We blew that about as badly as is possible.
3. In the fall of man the earth was further cursed.
Genesis 3:17-18
"Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
In the fall of man God’s plan to take back this planet was thwarted, the creation fell into the hands of the one who fell from heaven. The fall invited the heavenly battle into our human experience. The fall set up the condition we find ourselves in – behind enemy lines.
4. God is not the author of the works of darkness.
We have got to stop slandering God’s name and reputation by saying that all the horrible things that happen are Gods will. I know some of you have a hard time getting your head around this but it is true, God has set this whole thing up this way.
Stop looking for the hand of God in natural disasters.
Hebrews 2:14
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil
Humanity gave the devil the right to bring that war into creation.
Acts 10:38
Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
This doesn’t mean that every sickness has a direct demon behind it but some do and the entire realm of sickness and disease exists because of the fallen state of the planet. In heaven there is no sickness. When Jesus comes on the scene he demonstrates how God intended it to be. He never once comes upon sickness and says, “Sorry I can’t heal this one, this one is part of the mysterious will of God”.
James 1:17
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
5. All of creation is included in the plan of redemption.
Romans 8:19-22
The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
The groaning is not just about pain, it is also about birthing.
There is a new day coming!
Right now it is war time not vacation time!
Whenever you fight the evil effects of nature on earth you are doing spiritual warfare.
- fund famine relief
- dig wells
- teaching farming, reading
- recycling
- fighting poverty in any way
- caring for animals and people
Everything that brings light and expels darkness is spiritual warfare.
Adapted from a message by Dr. Greg Boyd entitled “War Torn World”
Hear it Preached: www.dakotacommunitychurch.ca and click "Listen".
PowerPoint available (Free of charge) on request dcormie@mts.net
