What Is Spiritual Warfare? Keys To Victory On The Worldwide Battlefield

Spiritual warfare, for some reason it always brings to mind for me, the Lord of the Rings. Specifically the siege of Minas Tirith. If I were trying to compare our situation right now in this country to the Lord of the Rings, there is one battle that comes to mind, the battle of Osgiliath. Faramir whispers “To the river quick!” He’s got about 500 men defending Osgiliath, late at night. But the enemy is crossing the river in a sneak attack. Faramir and his men fight on the shores bravely, but are soon overwhelmed, and must retreat to Minas Tirith. Though defeats come, and the enemy attacks us from all sides, we know that in the end we will have the victory, and Satan will be crushed under our feet.

Today we address the important topic of spiritual warfare, on our journey through Key Issues of the Faith. Spiritual battles are draining, and intense. So we ought to fight them doggedly, refusing to give up, and we ought to fight heroically in them.

We are in a battle right now as Christians that has been going on for two thousand years and beyond. Ages and ages of past Christians over the centuries have fought this battle. This battle is a spiritual battle. The battlefield is the world, in which we fight for the lost souls of humanity, who need salvation through Jesus Christ, and to be freed from the dominion of Satan and hell.

The goal of spiritual warfare from the standpoint of our enemy and his forces is to stifle, stop, slow down, or defeat the work of Jesus Christ, as he works through the church. This is accomplished in various ways by the forces of the evil one. The goal of our side is to spread the gospel far and wide through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

On one side you have the historic church, on the other you have the forces of evil. We find ourselves at a slight disadvantage due to the fact that every person born is born under the dominion of Satan, and we are challenged to try to win these people one by one to the cross of Christ, and make them into Christians. For this reason it often seems like we are constantly fighting a losing battle, it seems that there are so many people, and so little time. And each person has free will, the ability to either embrace salvation, or reject the offer of salvation. Yet we also find ourselves at an advantage because our enemy is already defeated. He was defeated by Jesus at the cross. And our God’s victory is sealed.

Each of us were once members of the world system, under the control of Satan.

Ephesians 2:2-4 says, “In the past you were spiritually dead because of your disobedience and sins. 2 At that time you followed the world's evil way; you obeyed the ruler of the spiritual powers in space, the spirit who now controls the people who disobey God. 3 Actually all of us were like them and lived according to our natural desires, doing whatever suited the wishes of our own bodies and minds. In our natural condition we, like everyone else, were destined to suffer God's anger.4 But God's mercy is so abundant, and his love for us is so great, 5 that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience he brought us to life with Christ. It is by God's grace that you have been saved. 6 In our union with Christ Jesus he raised us up with him to rule with him in the heavenly world.”

So we were all once part of the selfish worldly reality. We did what we wanted, and lived in sin. But now things are different. God has adopted us as his sons and daughters. And we’re now soldiers on the battlefield, attempting to win the world to Jesus before time runs out.

So how does spiritual warfare play itself out? To answer this question all you need do is study the book of acts. The book of acts catalogues the activities of the early church in spreading Christianity, and clearly shows us how spiritual warfare takes place between the church and the forces of evil.

In our scripture today we see how spiritual warfare tends to play itself out. First of all, we see that Peter has been thrown in jail by Herod. Typical, the enemy finds a way to shut us up, to keep us quiet. The enemy will use church leaders that he can manipulate, or governmental leaders to hurt us sometimes, like with Peter.

What does the church do in response? It says in verse 5, “So Peter was kept in jail, but the people of the church were praying earnestly to God for him.”