Spiritual Warfare’s Forgotten Side

I mean this with the deepest respect but I don’t care so much about your politics. I care about your morals and your soul’s alignment.
Spiritual warfare is the war for the hearts and minds of people. This means anything that impacts how you live your life such as the way you think and the political thoughts you have are ultimately lumped into the category of spiritual warfare. Think of it as one of many battlefields in the war for the soul. In war, the highest of objectives is victory. This is done by winning and holding territory. In the most basic of terms, it is bringing people to God through the revelation of Jesus Christ. This revelation shows the depravity of human nature and the many ways we are in rebellion against God. Paul puts it simply in Romans 3: 23 that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. Other translations will say fallen short of God’s glorious standard. A standard which is God’s perfect and uncorrupted nature.
Our only way to escape sin’s power is to have our human nature crucified with Christ by professing Him as our Lord and Savior. This is the first half of Christian life. His blood cleanses us of sin when we accept it. But the second half of that task is to live in obedience to the morals laid out in the Bible. The words of Jesus in Luke 9:23 “Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” This means making the choice each day to be better than before and bringing our thought life closer in alignment with God’s morals.
When we hear the Holy Spirit convict us of wrong doing we must obey that conviction lest we disreguard the warning in 1st Thessalonians 5:19 against quenching the spirit. Silencing Him by ignoring the guidance He provides.
This is done by reading the words of God in the Bible and studying them to understand what is being taught to us in them. In addition to personal study we need fellowship with others causing us to receive two things. The insights from others who have made it their personal focus to understand scriptures and encouragement to keep fighting against our sinful nature for we also learn they struggle as well in the personal battle.
By prayer we open ourselves to the Holy Spirit so He can be active in our lives. Allowing for Him to be our strength when we suffer and struggle against the temptations within our own life. Old habits we want to leave behind that still yet pull on us with an allure that seems impossible to escape. As we strengthen our connection to God He gives us the power to escape from those temptations that exist in our lives.
The church is good about speaking on the topic of personal struggle with sin. That is a vital part of our life and it should not be neglected but there is a different part of our world that has also been neglected.
The place of neglect is the outward battle against corruption by the culture which puts forth ideas that will be counter to the scripture. To bring them up and provide biblical refutation once analyzed.

For a long time, our society had a deep respect for the word of God and believed it wholeheartedly.
But in the 1800s Charles Darwin did a voyage to the Galapagos Islands which caused him to put forth a theory of evolution. A theory he admitted had gaps in it and wasn’t sound. He was more honest than those who would come after him. He sought to figure out how the things he’d observed on the Galapagos came about. But time would see this theory of change over time applied to all creatures as an alternative to the need for God to explain the origins of it all. Because man is sinful wanting to replace God in our hearts and souls we will latch on to anything that makes it possible. Evolution would replace Intelligent Design and Divine Craftsmanship for the widely believed origins of existence and we find ourselves in the current culture.
Atheism is common and many people don’t have much respect for the scriptures calling them outdated. This includes some of our political officials who don’t care much for morality but only in keeping power through the position that they have. Right now, the biggest Biblical principle being attacked is the Nuclear Family.
God founded human society on this principle. A man and wife caring for children together while working to provide for them.

“Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
“God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Genesis 1: 26-28 (NIV)

As I’ve observed trends in society I’ve come to the belief that demons and the forces of Hell are quite involved in politics and gaining places of influence. But there is also something else that has occurred to me. Many people don’t like to admit to this idea because there is no “blatant” evidence of demonic activity. But in a closer reading of Ezekiel 28, we see that spiritual forces can and will have an effect on the leaders of nations. Verses 1 through 10 are about a ruler of Tyre who is called a mortal after he is told that he will die but verses 11 through 19 address one who is called the “King” of Tyre. This king is described as a Cherub who served God but fell to corruption and was cast out of heaven away from God’s presence.
I am not saying anything bold in my statements that demons desire power and will use any way possible to get it.
Congress members don’t go around saying that they are supporting this idea because it comes from a demon who promises them power. Instead, they believe that what they are doing is good and that this is their own idea. What has actually happened is that a demon has used the sinful nature of mankind against them and played on certain human desires so that ideas sound like something good. I’ll use abortion since it’s a hot-button topic right now and I have an example to help make my point.
Morally speaking, killing an innocent life is wrong and the most innocent of innocent lives are the unborn children our women carry within their womb. The advocates justify it by saying things such as it goes against their freedoms to be forced to carry their child to term when they don’t want it. One of the most recent ones I’ve heard was from Janet Yellen, the U.S. Secretary of Treasury, who claimed it would be economically bad. Politico covered the story and it reveals that Yellen justifies abortion by saying that it allows women to focus on their education rather than raising a child. From that education, they could participate in higher-paying jobs that can keep them out of the poverty they would be in otherwise due to the financial burdens of raising a child. Her worldview on this subject, while morally questionable, is internally consistent and I believe reveals something more than we might initially realize.
In 1967 an event called “The Summer of Love” occurred at San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district and Golden Gate Park. It was a gathering of maybe a hundred thousand individuals for a month or two. It was a mix of young people from different parts of the country. Some had been part of the original group of music and artistically inclined which had gathered while many others were folks who came to see what was happening as the media was reporting on events. Finally, we have those who happened to simply pass on through the area and decided to stay for a little while.
As many counter-cultural ideas were shared the idea of “Free-Love” was also passed along. Up until this point there had been a strong cultural stigma against pre-marital sex but with time this stigma faded. I don’t have any data to back this up but a part of me speculates the “Free-Love” idea had already been spreading around the country before this event took place. It was merely this event that popped the cork and began to make headway against the stigma that held its origins in Christian culture and beliefs. Many things were also happening in the spiritual landscape of the USA as well at that time. Eastern religions and practices were gaining popularity along with Astrology and other forms of beliefs that we’ve now categorized as “New Ageism” were beginning to form. Christianity was losing bits and pieces of its hold on society and so too was the stigma on premarital sex. Thus 1973 came about when a court case overruled the previously standing president that each individual state got to make its own laws about abortion’s status of either legal or illegal and made it legalized nationwide.

Part of the things that have been breaking down is the family structure with a married husband and wife. Yellen’s point is in part true. Being a parent is very demanding. And it gets far harder when you must do it alone and have no one to help you in the process of raising them or even watching them for a minute so you can do something else that’s important. The structure of marriage is designed to provide this ability to tag-team between the parents and still enable productivity in this demanding time.
When there is a lack of support or provision we often find ourselves panicking and looking for a way out. Men don’t have any biological commitment to raising the child. Women, however, have to carry the child in their womb for 38 to 40 weeks on average before they can even get rid of the child. In this state, we can be very susceptible to suggestion and are extremely quick to latch onto any advertised “Quick Fixes” to our problem. This has become a very lucrative industry and hidden cameras have revealed workers at clinics to be willing to deceive or hide the truth from the women who come to them. All of this worry and heartache would have been easily avoided by people simply being abstinent until marriage.
(I have links to many resources that can help you and potentially save your child from the abortion pill on our “Additional Resources” page. There are even links to counselors if you have regret from a past abortion. If you are contemplating having one listen to my Blogcast titled “The Battlefield of Abortion” which details the impact it has on a woman. I pray that these resources will be a light in your dark and trying time.)
So often we feel that we shouldn’t have to live with the consequences of our own actions and seek to simply avoid or mitigate their impact on us.
To conclude this little BlogCast, we can easily see in this example, abortion in the USA, that demons’ chosen lead for society is a combination of pride and greed. When it comes to ideas such as “wealth redistribution” through government policies envy and covetousness of other people’s success in life stand out as well. Demons don’t work hard they work effectively and use what accomplishes their goals.
Beyond just using our vices and personal dark desires they have other tactics effectively employed. Desensitization combined with creating pressure to conform to a newly established or being established trend is another one we may see a lot throughout life. In middle school, my church youth group did an exercise.
We had to be blindfolded while following a rope path to the end of it. We were allowed to let go at any time and take off the blindfold if we wanted to do so. I did let go of the rope but that’s when something I didn’t expect to happen happened.
One of the leaders came by and said don’t let go. But it was that soft correction type of voice that caused me to almost immediately grab back onto the rope and follow it along with the others. The time eventually went out and we all met up again to talk about the exercise. I, along with a few others, was asked why I grabbed the rope again. We all provided the same answer. Someone else had told us to not let go of the rope. The few people who hadn’t let the voice stop them from taking off the blindfold and letting go of the rope revealed that they saw there wasn’t an end to the rope. It just kept going on and there was no point in following it.
This exercise was about showing just how easy it is to forget what is true and to conform to someone else’s instructions. These people were telling me something wrong but the way they spoke without a doubt made me grab back onto the rope we were following. In the same way, people in our world will speak things that we know are wrong with such force that we obey them.
The forgotten side of spiritual warfare is the way spiritual forces meld with the self-proclaimed secular. People like to avoid politics when they can but that’s only because they know the connection between politics and spirit. Politics is downstream of Culture and Culture is downstream of the embraced Religion. Religion in this context refers to the value set, the ideals, and morals that are held together under a common name and lifted as the highest standard for life.
Our enemy, Satan, wants to make us weary of fighting against the work he is doing or to keep us from getting involved by making displays of those who act against him. The intimidation tactics can be effective but right now we need to remember that we are not alone in this battle. So long as we continue working to stay strong by personal disciplines that I mentioned at the beginning of this blogcast we will be better off than most others.
One final thing that must be emphasized. Intimidation, doubt, depression, and weariness can come from direct spiritual attacks by the enemy who wants us to give up.
When these times begin pray for God to reveal the nature of your situation. Should it just be a result of natural things look to make the needed adjustments to take care of your body. But if it is spiritual in origin confront those spirits in the name of Jesus Christ and command them to leave. The battle will most likely intensify when you begin to do this but adhere to the instruction in James chapter 4, “Submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”