The Battle of the Ages
The Battle of the Ages
“Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.
Stand firm therefore, having belted your waist with truth,[of the Word and Gospel] and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
and having strapped on your feet the preparation of the gospel of peace;
in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
With every prayer and request, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be alert with all perseverance and every request for all the saints.” Ephesians 6:11-17
“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not wage battle according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying arguments and all arrogance raised against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10: 3-5
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This is being written to and for the benefit of believers in Christ,
Believe it or not, like it or not, the above scripture is teaching us that there is a real battle, a battle on the earth and from the heavens between good and evil. It is between the Triune God (Father, Son, & Holy Spirit) and His enemy, the devil. We, individually and as part of the Body of Christ on this Earth, are in the middle of the battle and God has elected to battle with His power through us, Christ’s Church which is His Body, [Jesus is on His throne in Heaven and the believers on the Earth are His corporate body on the Earth. (See Ephesians 2: 19-22; Colossians 1:18-28)].
The devil battles through demonic power, evil spiritual forces, and his captive humans. The devil uses people, under the influence of the devil and his rulers, to defeat us when we fail to realize that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the devil’s “rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places.” All of the weapons are first spiritual and not physical. Eventually however, the devil’s own may use physical things, the world systems, and the elements against us. As the father of lies, the devil’s chief weapons are lies, accusations, and half-truths. His first weapon is doubt, “Has God said?” was the question he posed to the first humans, Adam and Eve, which weapon is as dangerous and powerful now as in the beginning. Of course, that weapon causes humans to doubt God and His word. Perhaps, the thought is, “well, although the word of God is true, this may not be applicable to me right now. Maybe, it’s not God’s will for me right now or I have misinterpreted or misunderstood it.”
Another major blockbuster weapon of the devil is if he can cause us to doubt our salvation or our assurance of salvation. This ground of the certainty of our salvation is primary and essential to the devil’s defeat. We must stand firm that the Lord has done everything needed to make us righteous and in right-standing with our God. When we are convinced that Jesus is seated on His throne in Heaven praying for us and that we are “in Him” by the act of God, then we know we have a perfect man as our representative before God, in whom God has his final rest as to His wrath against our sins because of Jesus’ death on the cross as us and for us and we are accepted by God because of our position in Jesus. That is our assurance, and with it, we can be invincible to the attacks of the devil because nothing he can accuse us with or throw at us can reach us because we know that our salvation is not dependent on anything in us or that we have done, but all has been accomplished by Jesus Christ and has been accepted by God and us in Him.
The next weapon from the devil is to stir up our pride, as pride is the deep root of almost every sin in our lives. Another weapon of the devil is if we have unconfessed sin, then the devil will immediately use that sin to accuse us before God and man, or expose it, and then down we go with a major injury and no longer have any effectiveness in the battle. We have all seen this happen in public figures in the Christian faith.
The first and principle weapon in our arsenal that is necessary to animate all the other weapons is faith in God. Every part of our relationship with God begins with faith in Him. None of the other weapons can be effective without faith. Faith is like the power of our hands and grip in order to possess and use the other weapons. It is the “taking up” or “putting on” that the above scripture tells us to do.
Another weapon we can use in the battle is our unified praise of the Lord. This is what Israel used as they went into battle and it can cause confusion and self-defeat of the enemy as they can’t stand praise of the Lord. Another weapon is to pray and speak to these devils the word of God and His promises to us. You may have noticed that all but one of the weapons for the believer are defensive. We are to stand and hold defensively our position of the cross and resurrection that has defeated the enemy. If we ever move off that the ground of the cross and holding that position, then we will have lost and gone down in the battle. The offensive weapon that is mentioned is the sword of the word of God to proclaim to the devil his defeat and to slay the enemy onslaught of demonic powers.
Another weapon, which is not usually thought of as a weapon, is to act upon the Kingdom of the Heavens’ rules laid out in Jesus’ discourse during the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5. I will only mention a few of the most important ones, such as “I say to you , do not resist him who is evil, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any one wants to sue you, and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. And whoever shall force you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of you Father who is in heaven.” And then later in Matthew chapter 16, Jesus said, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his [soul life] shall lose it; but whoever loses his [soul life] for My sake shall find it.” These actions can be powerful weapons against the enemy in that they are disarmed by the Holy Spirit from the spiritual power of these words and actions through the disciples.
The devil also has other allies in the battle and they are the world and the flesh (not mainly our physical body but our physical flesh, corrupted by the devil and the fall of man , creating the lusts and sinful desires of our flesh, along with our independent from God selfish and self-centered lives; our soul-life, which resists our spirit-life.) We people were made in the image of God and part of being in that image is that since God has three entities that are distinct but not separate (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), we also have three distinct but not separate parts: our body, soul, and spirit. Our body is our physical body, our soul is our mind, will, and emotions, and our spirit is our conscience, our intuition, and where we communicate with God through the Holy Spirit that resides in us. When we are born from above the Holy Spirit enters and resides in our spirit. From the Holy Spirit’s residence in our spirit, He is always trying to break out of our spirit and transform our soul into the image of Jesus and cause it to be in submission to the Lord. When we properly pray in the spirit, the Holy Spirit is causing the prayer to be correctly made so that God hears us and then communicates with us through the Holy Spirit in our spirit to our mind by various ways.
The world system is what the word “world” means in the Bible. The world system of money and all the different kinds of property people possess, as well as government, business, and organizations of people. The world system for now lies under the control of the devil. As Christians we are told to be in the world but not “of” the world. This means that we are not to be controlled by the world’s systems but we may use them “lightly” but not become entangled in these systems. To live in the world, we must interact with these systems but must not be overcome by them in ways that violate God’s word and will.
In our lives and in our situations in the world, the devil will seek to use various ways and means to entrap us into violating God’s will for our lives and to compromise our relationship with God. So, we are to be strong in the strength of the Lord’s might. This means that we are to depend totally on the Lord’s strength to enable and support our cooperation with Him as He works in us and as His instruments in the battle.
The full armor of God that we are to take up described in the above verses are all metaphors for the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the battle against the evil one. The most important thing about the verses above is to know that every time we face opposition from a person or organization, we must realize that the real enemy is the devil and the forces described in the verses that are influencing and empowering the people or organization opposing us. If we look past the person or organization to the reality of these evil forces behind them, we can avoid being pulled into a battle with the person or organization in front of us and be detracted from the real enemy we are fighting, the devil and his demonic powers in the heavenly places. If it helps us in battle to think about the truth, righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the word, as weapons, then that is fine. However, in the battle we must set our mind and spirit on Jesus through His Holy Spirit and stand against the enemy. The scripture above instructs us to “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” This means that every errant thought should be measured by Christ and if it is outside His boundaries it should be directed to Christ through the Holy Spirit to be properly handled and defeated. Our chief aim is to stand in the truth of the victory of the cross and resurrection over sin and death. We must not let the people in front of us opposing or attacking us draw us to act outside the leading of the Holy Spirit, which is chiefly bound up in the love of our Lord. Also, we need to realize that the armor is mainly for the Church- Body of Christ fighting and standing against the wiles of the enemy, although each of us stands shoulder to shoulder in the Spirit and in prayer with our brothers and sisters of the Church as the body of Christ. God is like a mighty locomotive with tremendous power that uses rails to move forward. Likewise, God, with His tremendous power, has chosen to use the “rails” laid by His children’s prayers to accomplish His will on the Earth. Jesus made it clear when He said, “without Me you can do nothing.” And similarly, even though the Lord could do something with out us, He has chosen not to do so regarding His will and work involving us on the Earth. When people wonder why and what is the purpose of prayer on the Earth, that is their answer. Many times, God could move but He is waiting on His people to lay the rails of prayer concerning bringing His will for His kingdom on Earth. As Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s prayer, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”
