Spiritual warfare is a term that gets thrown around a lot, but it’s rarely understood. From the moment that you accepted Christ as your Savior, you were enlisted in this battle. On one side of the battle, you have the Triune Godhead, an angelic host of soldiers, and everyone who has placed their trust in Christ. On the other side of the divide, you have Satan and his horde of demons, the result of the angels who chose to leave Heaven with Lucifer on the day he was expelled for trying to overthrow God.
Today, thousands of years after that initial battle took place, there is still a war being waged in the unseen. If you could see the levels of spiritual warfare going on around us at all times, you would be horrified and awestruck. The things that take place in the unseen realm are not able to be grasped by our human minds. However, just because we can’t see them and can’t fully understand them doesn’t mean that God wants us to fail to understand them.
It is important that we understand as much as possible about spiritual warfare so we can fully embrace the role that each of us are called to play in the battle. While there is certainly not enough time or space to fully understand spiritual warfare in a single day or a single study, we can look to God’s Word to gain a better understanding of what spiritual warfare is.
Angels and Demons
Jude 1:6 (NIV)
And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling-these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgement on the great Day.
Matthew 26:53 (NIV)
“Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”
At the very core of the spiritual warfare that we are all a part of, there are angels and demons who fight vehemently for their side of the battle. Long before the creation of the world, Satan served as an angel in Heaven named Lucifer. Pride, which has been at the heart of many sins over the millennia, was the reason that Lucifer was kicked out of Heaven. He tried to lead a revolt in which he would become the ruler of Heaven and Earth.
1/3 of the angels bought into his ideas and they were expelled with him. Today, they are demons. While it sounds alarming that 1/3 of Heaven’s angels fell and are now working for the prince of darkness, the fact remains that 2/3 of the angels stayed in Heaven and are now engaged in the battle on the side of light.
One of the greatest misconceptions about angels and demons comes from their use in movies, TV shows, and other works of entertainment. We often see a cartoonish looking devil on one shoulder trying to get a character to do something bad while there’s a cartoon angel on the other shoulder prompting the character to do something good. Angels and demons are very real, and they most certainly do not look like adorable cartoon characters.
While we don’t have a ton of information about the physical appearance of these supernatural beings, we do know that they are massive and do not look like humans. If they did, people wouldn’t have been so terrified when angels appeared to them.
Demons are also regularly discussed in Scripture, but they are rarely seen. However, we can read plenty of stories about how they caused people physical, mental, and emotional harm. One of the most popular stories involving demons in the Bible is found in Luke 8, when Jesus interacted with a man who had multiple demons possessing him, forcing him to live among the graves on the outside of the city. Christ cast the demons out of the man and forced them into a herd of swine. The swine promptly ran down the hill and drowned themselves in the sea.
The presence of angels and demons in the Bible is a theme that runs from Genesis to Revelation. Both forces are still actively at work today and play a crucial role in spiritual warfare.
How Do We Engage in Spiritual Warfare?
2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (TPT)
For although we live in the natural realm, we don’t wage a military campaign employing human weapons, using manipulation to achieve our aims. Instead, our spiritual weapons are energized with divine power to effectively dismantle the defenses behind which people hide. We can demolish every deceptive fantasy that opposes God and break through every arrogant attitude that is raised up in defiance of the true knowledge of God. We capture, like prisoners of war, every thought and insist that it bow in obedience to the Anointed One.
In addition to this passage, Ephesians 6 is another part of Scripture that speaks openly about how we engage in spiritual warfare. The most important aspect of this warfare is found in the fact that it is spiritual. With that in mind, no amount of physical armor or weaponry can help us. Everything that we wear as armor and every weapon that we use in this warfare are spiritual.
In Ephesians, Paul spoke openly about the helmet of salvation. This is because our thoughts are one of the most powerful areas where Satan and his demons try to destroy us. If he can skew our thinking, he can destroy us from the inside out. However, when our minds are set on the saving power of God, they are impenetrable. The breastplate of righteousness guards our hearts against unrighteous living. The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God ensures that we combat the lies of Satan with the truth found in God’s Word.
That leads us to the weapons of our warfare that Paul spoke about in the passage that we just read. While he doesn’t list different types of weapons here like he does with armor in Ephesians, there are some basic concepts that we can recognize. As we’ve already established, Scripture is a powerful weapon against Satan’s lies. In fact, after Christ was baptized and went into the wilderness to fast, Satan came against him with lies and deception. Time after time, Christ relied on Scripture as a means to rebuff Satan’s attempts. Prayer, worship, and connecting with other believers are also powerful ways that we can combat the attempts of Satan.
What’s At Stake?
Finally, it’s important to understand what is at stake in this spiritual warfare. Humanity has free will. However, God and the powers of light are battling against Satan and his forces of darkness for the souls of those humans who have the ability to choose.
Eternity is at stake in this spiritual warfare. Since we know that the Bible is true and have read the back of the book, we know that God wins the final battle. However, all of those who don’t choose light are doomed to spend eternity in darkness. The battlefield is in the hearts and minds of every human everywhere.
As children of God, we are called to use our weapons and our armor, not only to protect ourselves, but also to spread the Gospel so others can make the right choice.
A Closing Prayer:
Heavenly Father, while I know that I cannot see the battle that rages around me, I can see its impact. Help me to effectively use each of the the weapons that You have given me and the armor that You have provided me with. In Christ’s name, Amen.