The Weapons of Our Warfare, Part 9

When we visited Staten Island, NY recently, we had the pleasure of sharing a few minutes of fellowship, between church services, with Rev. Dr. Daniel Mercaldo, senior pastor of the Church at the Gateway. We discussed spiritual warfare and in exchange for the address of this blog, he gave us a few Cd's of his teachings on spiritual warfare. We think we got the better end of that deal. I mention that because in the first of those teachings, Dr. Mercaldo talked about the armor of God from Ephesians chapter 6. That is where most people would start discussing spiritual warfare. I know it comes as no surprise to anyone that this series did not start there. We do have a tendency to do things differently sometimes. Although we did mention the armor in an earlier post (Part 2, July 14, 2009), we did not mention it piece by piece. In the interest of completeness, we probably ought to discuss it.

The thing to remember about the armor of God is that each piece represents a portion of our preparation for spiritual warfare. They are all necessary to completely protect us as we pursue the battle. Any professional in the world will extol the virtues of proper preparation for any endeavor. Spiritual warfare is no different. We cannot really overestimate the value of proper preparation and we dare not underestimate it either. Were we to go into battle without proper preparation, we would likely be injured at the least. We could be the cause of the whole battle turning against us as happened in Joshua chapter 7 when one man's disobedience resulted in numerous deaths and defeat for the army of Israel.

The full armor of God (Ephesians 6:14-18) represents everything we need to protect us in battle. On our refrigerator at home hangs a photograph of our nephew, Army Sergeant Thomas Miller. Tom is a medical services specialist with the 101st Airborne. The photograph was taken during a tour of duty in Iraq. In the photograph, he is dressed in battle gear complete with body armor and weapons. This series is primarily about weapons, but we also need the armor to protect us. We will see that each piece has it's own function in protecting us and is integral to each of the others. What is being described in these verses is the armor of the Roman soldier. Roman soldiers were everywhere at the time the New Testament was being written so the analogy would have been easy to picture.

The belt is the first thing thing a Roman soldier would have put on. The belt is likened to truth. Unless we are doing the truth--the right thing at the right time--we will be battling in vain. God has a right time for everything. We did mention in an earlier post that when we get ahead of God we go in our own strength rather than His. The results of that are always less than they should have been. Going ahead of God without His direction is actually called presumption and God calls it sin. There is no way we can prosper in any endeavor while we are sinning. It is a violation of God's justice for Him to help us sin. A word of caution may be in order here. Sometimes it will appear that we have gained victory in spite of our sin. Beware, our enemy delights in disguising his traps so that we do not see them until is it to late to avoid them.

The belt holds the scabbard for the sword. Without truth, we have no ability to hurt the enemy at all. The belt also supports the breastplate. Note the Roman soldier had no armor on his back. He was expected to stand and face his enemy in a fight to the death. Without getting too philosophical or ethereal, our fight is more important than most of us realize.

The breastplate is attached to the belt. The breastplate is likened to righteousness. Righteousness simply means being right. When we have the truth, we have a basis for righteousness. Conversely, without truth there is no basis for righteousness. Being right protects our internal organs. Psalm 51:6 tells us that God desires truth in the inward parts. He desires truth to work throughout our whole being and to radiate from the inside of us. It should be able to be seen by others in the way we live our lives. Those who read the first posts may remember us talking about "hypocritical liars". They have outward truth, but it does not match up with what is on the inside. We trust the readers of this blog understand that truth is absolute. A thing is either true or it is not. Truth is not situational or relative. If a thing is ever true it is always true. That is a basic law of the universe. It will change about the same time the law of gravity is repealed and we all fly away from the earth. No, we are not talking about the rapture of The Church.

The Roman soldier had two kinds of footwear. His everyday sandals had flat, smooth souls for walking on roads and smooth terrain. His battle shoes had long spikes on them to provide traction in soft or loose ground. Just as we see today with athletes who compete on grass or softer ground, the spikes provided traction when the smooth soles would not. When it was necessary to stand and defend a piece of ground the soldier would stomp the spikes into the ground and he would become virtually immovable. In any event, his feet were ready for the battle. He literally had is feet fitted with readiness.

We have all seen shields carried by soldiers, knights or warriors. Our shield is the shield of faith. When we have faith and know God will be victorious, it does not matter what our enemy throws at us. We deflect all those doubts and fears with our faith. Remember, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. (Romans 10:17)

The helmet is our salvation. It does not have to do with being born-again as we often think of salvation, but rather our deliverance from the enemy we are facing in the battle. The helmet, of course, covers our head and our brain which we know is the seat of our soul. Do not get lost here. The helmet of deliverance, or salvation, protects our mind and emotions. When we are inclined to think joining the battle was not such a good idea after all, the helmet helps us not be swayed by what we think or feel. As a personal example, I am having a very difficult time focusing on writing this week. Writing this blog is my part of the battle so far. Maybe it really was not such a good idea to start this? No, regardless of what I might think or feel, this is the right thing to do. We will be delivered out of this war in victory.

What does praying in the Spirit have to do with spiritual armor? I think we will leave that for Part 10. God bless. See you soon.

The Weapons of Our Warfare, Part 2

"For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

There is a common misconception amongst many who teach on spiritual warfare that we have only one offensive weapon, the Word of God. Without doubt this misconception comes from Paul's teaching in Ephesians 6 about the armor of God. In that passage (Ephesians 6:10-18) "the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God" is the only offensive weapon mentioned. Some of the other offensive weapons are, the Name of Jesus, prayer, praise, worship, and commands. Before we look at some of them in detail, let us first look at what we are trying to accomplish with them according to the verses above.

A spiritual battle is fought with spiritual weapons. Those weapons are effective for pulling down the strongholds of the enemy. They are able to silence arguments against the works of God, or even arguments against the very existence of God. These weapons bring down everything that attempts to put itself in the place of God. We sometimes miss the fact the thoughts being brought into obedience at the end of these verses are not ours, but those of the enemy we are fighting. Our thoughts should have already been brought into obedience. However, if they are not, we need to stop and make sure they are before we join the battle. This is not really as difficult as it looks at first glance. We simply need to be sure the idols we talked about in a recent post (The Idols in Our Hearts; 7/6/09) have been removed and we are constantly striving to follow Jesus to the best of our ability. He will do the rest. We are to "...work out (y)our own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you (us)..." (Philippians 2:12-13, parentheses mine).

Salvation is not really a topic of this post, but we need to remind ourselves that being born again is only the first step in our salvation. Salvation actually means to be made whole and complete in every way, spirit, soul and body. The new birth saves us from the guilt of sin. The new birth is an essential prerequisite to being able to participate in spiritual warfare. As we walk out our salvation, we are progressively saved from the power of sin in our lives. No soldier would go into battle unless he understood his weapons and how to use them. We usually do not go to war at all or we go to war in the flesh or the soul as mentioned in Part 1. We have had no need of spiritual weapons because we have not discerned the spiritual battle. We hope to change that with this blog. There is a spiritual battle going on right here in the Santa Maria valley. Actually it is more like an occupation. A religious spirit has been occupying the area and we, The Church have allowed it to happen and to continue. If anyone else is fighting it, please make your presence and activities known to us so we can join forces.

We have a friend who was among the first people we introduced to this blog. He asked us to leave him out of this. He did give me a compliment. He said, "You are either a prophet or you are crazy." (Incidentally he is not the first person to say either one of those things--the latter being the more common statement.) Then he said, "I am a man of peace and I am called to live at peace and walk in love toward everyone." If you are reading this, we also have been called to walk in love toward everyone. We have also found what it is we are supposed to be doing and we are doing it with all our heart. The two are not contradictory. Let us be clear. We are not saying he is doing anything wrong by not fighting alongside us. Everyone is not called to the battle. May that also be an encouragement to those of you who are interested and supportive of what we are doing, but do not feel called to take up arms against the religious spirit that is blinding the hearts and minds of people across the Santa Maria valley. We heard a report the same spirit has also been identified in the Santa Ynez valley. That, we think, is interesting.

When we returned in 1987 from an extended time away from Santa Maria, we met some Christians who were amazed at the spiritual battle they thought we must have faced. They were familiar with the Davis, CA area and its spiritual dullness and deception. When we left we had the upper hand in the spiritual battle. The community hospital that had previously done abortions, but no live births was changing that policy. Planned Parenthood was involved in legal issues that would eventuate in their closing up shop. A Christian based, crisis pregnancy center had been established. Even the church of Scientology had left town due to lack of finances. We are not saying we were the reason for those things happening, only that we were a part of it. We chuckled at the notion the spiritual warfare was any more intense in Davis than it was in Santa Maria. Coming into town, we knew there was spiritual warfare going on. We had not identified the enemy as a religious spirit at that time. The saints of God here thought they were winning the spiritual battle. It is almost twenty-two years later and perhaps the battle is just now beginning in earnest.

Obviously there will be at least three parts to this series on the Weapons of Our Warfare. We will discuss the various weapons and how they are used in Part 3.

We need to solicit your prayer covering. It is already becoming more difficult to write this blog. The spiritual interference is beginning to be felt. Please pray the forces of the enemy will be dealt with so we can pursue this writing and this battle.