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.

Where Are Those Who Weep Over Santa Maria

As promised, another title in the form of a question. It is also the last one of the titles I heard during worship last Sunday. That could be a good thing since it is already Saturday evening and who knows what might come up tomorrow. Of course the Lord does speak at other times than during the worship time on Sunday mornings, but that is a good time to hear Him if you are listening. We would suggest that if you are having difficulty at that time, you might try reading some scripture before you go to church. At those times when I have had the most difficulty hearing from God, I have found that reading even a few verses before church seems to open me up just a bit more to whatever the Lord has for me there. It seems to even work better to read a few verses just before bed Saturday night then a few more Sunday morning before church.

"Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, 'If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will...surround you and close you in on every side...because you did not know the time of your visitation.'" (Luke 19:41-44)

Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem. He was not just weeping over a city though. Jerusalem was the capital of a nation, the nation of Israel. Depending on who you think is right, He was either the first or second person to fill the office of prophet in the New Testament. Some think John the Baptist was the first New Testament prophet. Others would argue that he ended the line of Old Testament prophets. (There is no extra charge here for that information.) Our position is that it really does not matter. John came as a prophet to prepare the way for Jesus. Jesus came as prophet, priest, and king. As such, He changed all the rules of spiritual life between God and man.

Jesus wept over Jerusalem and Luke is very specific as to why He did that. He was weeping because they had no spiritual insight. They did not recognize the Messiah, the promised One. Throughout the Bible, beginning with the protevangelium in Genesis 3:15, God had promised to provide a Savior for the sins of mankind. The leaders in Israel had failed to recognize Jesus even though they knew the scriptures from the inside out, forward and backward.

The nation of Israel was in distress. They were under the iron fist of the Roman Empire. They were free to exercise their religion only as long as the Romans allowed it. The Romans recognized Herod as the legitimate head of Israel. That is another teaching all together. The Jewish ruling body, the Sanhedrin, was the group that ran the Jewish religion. They were the ones who decided Jesus should die for the good of the nation. We have discussed their reasons for that in a previous post. With the possible exception of Herod, all Israel was awaiting the revelation of the Messiah on earth. They expected a king to come and throw off the yoke of Roman bondage. When Jesus came, humbly, riding on a donkey (Matthew 21:5) He did not fit the picture they had. God was building a spiritual kingdom from the ground up as He had from the time He called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees. The Jews were looking for a physical kingdom to come on earth. They missed God, missed what He was doing in their midst because they erred in their theology. Let us not make the same mistake.

Where are the people who are weeping over the Santa Maria valley as Jesus wept over Jerusalem? Where are you? We know a few of you. God is seeing your tears and hearing your prayers. It took us over twenty years to get to this place. No doubt some of you have been praying a good portion of the time, possibly even prior to that. We know God called us to this city and to this valley for such a time as this. Although it took twenty years to figure out exactly why He issued that call, at least we can now say we know. These are exciting times in Santa Maria. Let us not miss what God is doing. He is at work in ways we do not yet see to demolish the strongholds of the enemy wherever they exist. We will tell you the first place to look for those strongholds in the next post.