The Battle is the Lord’s
Our Awareness
Story: There was once a boxer who was getting pummeled in the ring by his opponent. Battered and bruised, in b/w rounds, the boxer tells his trainer, “Throw in the towel, this guy is killing me.” The trainer says, “No he’s not, he’s barely laid a glove on you.” The boxer replies, “Then I wish you would keep an eye on the referee, b/c somebody in that ring is killing me.”
Truth: We are in a war. It is not a physical fight like what is going on in Iraq, but a spiritual war. And it is a war w/ tremendous consequences. Unfortunately, many people don’t believe or recognize the war and their lives are beaten and bloodied and they don’t know who is throwing the punches.
Insert: How do I know? Just take a look around…
Trans: Fuzzy Memories (Jack Handey) – There used to be this bully who would demand my lunch money every day. Since I was smaller, I would give it to him. Then I decided to fight back. I started taking Karate lessons, but the instructor wanted $5 a lesson. That was a lot of money. In fact, I found it was cheaper to pay the bully, so I gave up Karate.
Truth: Too many Christians find it easier to pay the bully than to learn how to defeat him. Over the next few weeks, we are going to learn about spiritual warfare, our enemy, and how to overcome by the blood of the Lamb.
Trans: If we are going to succeed in this war, then we are going to have to possess a keen awareness as to the reality of the war and its various elements.
I The Enemy of the Battle
Verse: Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places. Eph. 6:11-12
A The Enemy’s Identity
1 Satan
Note: While I will go into much greater detail in a couple of weeks – Satan was God’s highest created being who fell b/c he wanted to be greater than God.
Insert: Survey: 62% agreed Satan is not a living being but a symbol of evil.
52% of born again Christians deny Satan’s existence.
72% of Catholics deny the existence of Satan.
2 Principalities, Powers, Rulers of the Darkness – Demons
Note: Fallen angels who are foot soldiers in Satan’s army – including such hardened criminals as anger, rage, lust, dissension, greed, lying, murder…
B The Enemy’s Ambition
Verse: The thief comes only in order to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come in order that you might have life---life in all its fullness. Jn. 10:10
Be alert, be on watch! Your enemy, the Devil, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. 1 Pt. 5:8
Truth: Satan has but one desire for all of God’s creation, including you and me and our church – to destroy us and bring us under his authority.
C The Enemy’s Strategy
Truth: He will lie, cheat and steal. He will use any means to gain control. He will attack you from the front, flank or rear – and he will attack from w/in.
Verse: Even Satan can disguise himself to look like an angel of light! 2 Cr. 11:14
Note: Look at how he attacked Adam and Eve – “You won’t surely die, you’ll become like God.”
Look at how he attacked Jesus – “If you submit to me, I will give you authority over all – lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.
Note: The bottomline of Satan’s strategy is that he wants you to think that he is right so that you will pledge allegiance and follow him instead of God.
II The Environment of the Battle
Note: The battlefield of spiritual warfare is fought in heavenly places.
Note: When we think of heaven we generally think of the third heaven - the place where God abides. But the Bible speaks of heaven on two other levels.
The first is the earth and the visible universe – the first heavens.
The second is a spiritual realm where angelic beings abide – and where Satan can approach God to ask for permission to move (Job). It is on this level that spiritual warfare takes place and the Kingdom of God finds itself at odds w/ the dominion of Satan.
Analogy: In Washington D. C. sits Capitol Hill, where Congress makes decisions that affect you no matter where you live. On Capitol Hill, 2 parties are vying for power. These two parties have competing philosophies and desire to lead the country in two different directions.
Heavenly Places is a reference to the Capitol Hill of the universe. It is where spiritual decisions are made that affect our lives. There are two opposing parties – the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan – each seeking to promote their own agenda.
Our party is headed by Jesus – who occupies the spiritual White House and has ultimate veto power. Satan’s party seeks to undermine, sabotage, and destroy anyone who has aligned themselves w/ Christ. At the same time, Satan seeks to keep his own party from switching their allegiance to Christ.
Note: Some people have decided to cast their vote for Satan and will in turn spend eternity in hell, while others have decided for Christ will spend eternity in heaven. Nonetheless, every day while we remain on the earth, we must decide whose kingdom we will cast our vote and follow their rule.
Note: Here is the scary part. This is important to understand, b/c even though you are a Christian, it is possible for you to live this life under Satan’s rule even though you have received Jesus as your Savior. Every day, when we choose sin over righteousness we are choosing Satan’s rule over God’s rule.
Insert: Here is how it works: Oppression Everyone is oppressed
Obsession Giving Satan a foothold
Possession Giving Satan allegiance
Verse: Blessed is the person who does not follow the advice of wicked people, take the path of sinners, or join the company of mockers. He delights in the teachings of the Lord and reflects on his teachings day and night. Ps. 1:1
Note: The progression – the same is true in Satan’s tactics – he wants dominion. And he gets it when we punch our ballot for his kingdom.
It’s like Republicans and Democrats who look, talk, and act like loyal members of their party, but who go behind the curtain to vote, and secretly vote for the other party. It is not their talk that matters, but their vote.
III The Essence of the Battle
Verse: For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Eph. 6:12
A The Battle is Spiritual – Not Physical
Define: Spiritual warfare is that conflict being waged in the invisible, spiritual realm that is being manifest in the visible, spiritual realm.
Note: Spiritual warfare is b/w invisible, angelic forces that affect you and me. The cause of the war is something we cannot see, but its affects are something we cannot miss.
Story: A few months ago, I received strange phone calls that when I answered all I heard was chanting – we gathered together one evening and prayed, read God’s Word and anointed our church property – it stopped.
Truth: I share this b/c our battle is not w/ flesh and blood but w/ principalities in heavenly places. Our enemy is the Devil and his fallen forces – not people.
Idea: People can be conduits for Satanic purposes, but they’re not the enemy.
B The Battle has Ramifications in the Physical
Reality: Everything we see in the visible, physical realm is caused, provoked, or at least influenced by something in the invisible spiritual realm.
Note: Daniel 4:26-32 states that heaven rules over all the affairs of earth. Thus, until we address the spiritual causes of a problem, we will never fix the physical effects of that same problem.
IV The Effect of the Battle
Truth: Too many people’s lives are hemorrhaging as a result of spiritual conflict and their inability to put up a valiant fight.
A Personal
Idea: Whether they have given way to anger, lust, drunkenness, or lying – too many people have devastated their lives b/c of their self-seeking desires. This insatiable appetite for more pleasure, power, and possession has crippled too many lives. And yet it still devours today.
Story: He wanted more money so he parlayed inherited wealth in to a multi-billion dollar pile of assets. He wanted more fame, so broke into the Hollywood film scene as both a director and star. He wanted more sensual pleasures so he paid handsome sums of money to indulge his every sexual urge. He wanted more thrills so he designed, built, and piloted the fastest aircraft in the world. He wanted more power so he secretly dealt political favors so skillfully that two US presidents became his pawns. All he ever wanted was more. He was absolutely convinced that more would bring him true satisfaction. Unfortunately, history shows otherwise. Instead, he finished life emaciated, colorless, sunken chest, fingernails in grotesque inches long corkscrews, rotting black teeth, tumors, innumerable needle marks from a drug addiction. — H. Hughes
He died believing the myth of more would be enough?
B Family
Note: Not only does Satan want to destroy you, he wants to destroy your family. He longs to create divisions and diversions through deception to divorce husbands from wives and to disenfranchise parents from children.
He does not want your house to be a haven but to be hell. He does not want selfless love to abound but selfish lust to lurk.
Make no mistake, Satan and his army are trying to infiltrate you home.
C Church
Note: Not only your biological home, but also you spiritual home. He longs to create discord and disease and to turn our hearts inward instead of outward. He wants us to focus on our kingdoms instead of God’s Kingdom. He wants us to abide in holy huddles that resemble scrums instead of being holy people who live and proclaim the saving life of Jesus Christ.
He will do anything and everything to get us to focus on the brick and mortar instead of the cross and the blood. He wants us close to the steeple but far from the cross.
And he gets us there through personal agenda and political correctness – through denominations and church polity – through adhering stronger to Robert’s Rules of Order rather than through Scriptural Commands.
D Cultural
Note: Through the dumbing down of morality and ethics we begin to get turned upside down b/c we think that loving people requires accepting and allowing their sinfulness.
Just the other day I was watching Good Morning America, and they were promoting three new TV shows propagating the homosexual lifestyle. President Bush was railed b/c he said that marriage was only intended for male and female. And we don’t even want to start on MTV, TNN, or all of these reality TV shows.
Note: Church – we are under attack – and it’s time we stood our Ground.
V The Energy for the Battle
Question: Where do we find the strength to battle?
Truth: In the Lord.
Song: He my rock, my sword, my shield…
Truth: The battle belongs to the Lord.
I cannot defeat the enemy in my own strength – but only through God’s power in accordance w/ His Word under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
Reality: The lack of spiritual victory only testifies to our lack of spiritual understanding as it relates to spiritual warfare – and yet 2 Pt. 1 tells us that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness.
Trans: In the next few weeks we will investigate our God given source of energy so that we might overcome and stand victorious in our Christian lives
Concl: We are in a war. It is not w/ flesh and blood, and it is certainly not w/ one another – it is w/ the Devil and his fallen angels.
Problem: 1 – We have too many Christian civilians and not enough Christian soldiers.
2 – We have too many Christian streakiers – they only want to wear the
helmet of salvation.
Let me explain something – if you are a child of God, you have enlisted into his army. And unless you want to become a casualty of war, you had better put on more than just the helmet of salvation.
