Spiritual Warfare (Part 1 of 2)

The in any military together intelligence about your opposition comes to spiritual warfare.

Christians don't understand what we are up against.

Today on Truth for Life Alastair Begg begins a new series that explains what every believer can expect to face in spiritual, or in Ephesians chapter 6 while we find ourselves now at the 10 Ferris in our studies and at what is obviously the concluding section of Ephesians.

The prevailing notion is at least skepticism and perhaps even a total disregard for the ideas that Paul is addressing the notion of a devil. The idea of demonic personal intelligent forces, and so on.

And yet at the same time as people find it easy to either poke fun at the idea or to disregard it entirely that they continue to make movies about these very subjects and one of the questions that we must inevitably ask is why preoccupation with these things. Why the interest in these things. Unless of course the very source of the preoccupation is an indication of the reality of the one about whom contemporary man likes to make fun in 1978 25 November 1978, the economist magazine ran an article under the heading is Satan dead and it was on the heels of the mass suicide of the James Joan cult who all took their lives in Guyana and the writer of the article is expressing the fact that in the vacuum that has been created in and he's thinking, especially in British terms in the vacuum that is been created by the increasing decline in the influence of Christianity the abuse that in terms of attendance at church on numbers of young people involved, and so on. He says what what we've had. Then is the vacuum and then the desire for people to fill that vacuum because you know eyes.

Dostoyevsky said you know when people cease to believe in God. They don't believe in nothing, they start to believe in everything, and he said, but perhaps it is mortal, perhaps it is worse to come. Is 1978. Some of you weren't even born.

I was 26. What happened in Jonestown, Guyana is a ghoulish cautionary tale for all these different people who in these differing ways are seeking God in a secular world in here's a sentence in that search for God, it is all too easy to blunder into the arms of Satan himself, and he concludes his peace is Satan not dead after all four of Satan in some sense is not dead.

That implies that God is not either. Here are all these years later, and that which was so staggering and 78 has repeated itself again and again and again. And when we turn to the Bible, we discover that the Bible is alert to these things that the evil one is that is widely asked.

He is most skillful in his scheming when he succeeds in persuading people that he doesn't actually exist. He then may be a figure of fun. A conjecture of the imagination, but he is not a reality.

There is one thing for a secular world to have that perspective. What makes it all the more challenging and dangerous is the fact that within the framework of the church. Big C within the framework of the church. Little is known about the devil. Little is known about the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places because you remember that is how Paul has begun his letter.

If you turn back a couple of pages to the way in which he begins his letter he's addressing, not the man on the street in Ephesus because the man on the street in Ephesus would think this was absolute nonsense. The way the man on the street in Cleveland things is nonsense. This is for the believer who has been verse three of chapter 1 last in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places not notice that phrase because what Paul is making clear now as he comes to Ephesians 6 is that that is the realm in which this great spiritual battle is being fought because the same grace that reconciles a man or woman to God antagonizes that man or woman to the evil one to Satan, so that we then find ourselves immediately engaged in what the Westminster confession refers to as a continual and irreconcilable war to think about it when we say the Lord's prayer together, it makes sense of one of the phrases in the prayer doesn't it where Jesus says to his disciples, and you should pray this leader is not into temptation but deliver us from evil, or is it may equally be translated, but deliver us from the evil one that is a prayer for a Christian to pray why because Peter, who was on the receiving end of that instruction for Jesus when he writes to his readers in his first letter reminds them that the devil is a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Therefore, he says you need to know that and your response to it needs to be resisted in firm in your faith again. You see what faith faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, so that my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ has now introduced me to a battleground. Verse 10 follows verse nine and verse nine follows verse eight and if you track back up through the beginning of the chapter and back into the fifth chapter you will rehearse what we have been dealing with the practical implications of the Christian life live in the realm of marriage in the home and in the workplace and it is in that context that Paul now goes on to say, and I need to let you folks know that the spiritual warfare in which you find yourself engaged is not a warfare that exists outside the realm of these things, but it is a warfare that is there in the midst of thereby reminding us that we would be foolish if we were to be naïve concerning the desires and designs would leave us with a pass when it comes to marriage or to family or to work and to do so would be to give to him an opportunity which Paula said in 2704. Make sure you do not give him an opportunity. One of the ways to give them an opportunity is to say, all this will never happen to me or this would never be a concern for me to wonder why it is that sometimes in your marriage. It just seemed like a royal war. He didn't mean to say that and having said it. When you should've said soaring this and now I'm going to back it up and it was all my all my doing.

Every sin is an inside job. Every time I say and I said, but in the midst of the world in which I live in you live as a Christian believer. There are dark demonic spiritual intelligent forces that are seeking to undermine to destabilize to cause absolute chaos within your marriage within your family and within your work. That's what Paul is say before we consider the details, let's just fly by.

First of all, let's consider the fight or the war or the struggle or whatever you want to call it spiritual warfare. Look at verse 12. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the authorities and the cosmic powers and saw so another was the conflict in which we find ourselves rather than being a denial of our faith is actually in a strange way, and evidence of our faith.

I hope not as a fallen follow the kind of teaching that says you know if you trust in Jesus and become a follower of Jesus, you never have to fly in turbulence again or even viable way up there with the with the Gulfstream's reply way above it all.

That's the great benefit of being in Jesus.

If anybody has told you that I hope you have very kindly nudge them in the ribs. At least in several what world are you living in because clearly the world that I live in is not that way at all. In fact, I've discovered that since I became a follower of Jesus, the turbulence has apparently increased fresh air turbulence. Clear skies and younger seatbelts on. Why is this because we are no longer Ephesians 22 the sons of disobedience. We have been transferred from that we are no longer in the kingdom of darkness would be transferred to the kingdom of light, we are no longer following the ways of the Prince of the evil age we are now followers of Jesus, we are no longer in his camp wearing Christ's kingdom and having been placed in that kingdom. We now find ourselves in this intense struggle, not against human beings but demonic forces demonic intelligences houses pause and acknowledged better immediately to dangers when we read this and think about. One is that we just set it aside and deny we say will, theoretically, I suppose.

Or this is a wonderful metaphor of the fact that life is difficult, thereby actually denying the reality of what the Bible is teaching or on the other hand, we become amazingly preoccupied with it you will find other people whose whole existence is is explaining all the time I what the devil is doing the devil did this, the devil, that that the devil that the next thing and so on. And sometimes this is the scapegoat is just an inability to say it wasn't actually me. It was him, when, as I just acknowledged to you, every sin is an inside job. Another great danger is that were ignorant of what is an objective fact. The objective fact being the existence of the devil, who is an adversary who is an accuser and who has a complete array of fiery darts at his disposal.

That's what the Bible says. Now one of the ways in which we can always test something when someone is and what would you look at businesses in the Bible is to ask the question well how does this theory work in relationship to Jesus. So it was a very good question was a necessity is a work. How would that work in relationship to Jesus. While let's go to the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, Mark's gospel begins the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at and repent and believe the good news was the very first thing I have is a post he faces temptation in the wilderness. He goes into the temple precincts and he is opposed by demonic forces there, but if it was true of Jesus. Why would we be surprised if it was true of the followers of Jesus. Another word that is used here and is translated wrestle in our text verse 12. I think in the NIV. By memory it was struggle. But that's just memory.

For we do not wrestle in other words, it is descriptive of of hand-to-hand combat as I can.

A wrestling was in Greece and was in Rome by the evil one then comes in that kind of engagement. He comes to sneak up on us. He comes to ambush us. He comes to grab a hold of us and what he grabs all of us. He comes to insinuate he whispers in your ear. He comes to intimidate. He's the ultimate bully. He comes to whisper in your ear. Some things that you can't even believe you would ever think, what's the answer to that says my friend Sinclair were not aware how or why we faced times of temptation, stress, conflict and evil pressure. There is little doubt that some of our irrational thoughts, fears and doubts should be traced to the ambush in which Satan heights. I need to say this to you again. You need to understand the sphere in which this is taking place in verse 20 of chapter 1.

He worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him and seated us with him alright so we have been raised there and then verse six he raised us up with him of chapter 2 and seated us with him and then in verse 12 of chapter 6 and here we are wrestling against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Okay, that's the fight or the struggle from struggle to strategy what is the strategy of the believer in the circumstances. While is aptly summarized for as by the repeated statement or the repeated use of one verb and that is the verb to stand. Look at verse 11 where he talks about being able to stand and then in verse 13 that you may be able to withstand or the you may be able to stand your ground and then in verse 14 stand therefore having the belt of truth, and so on. Taken to Phillips paraphrases that so that when you are fought to a standstill. You can still stand your ground.

Now is this than to be done because and most of us would immediately sail. I'm not sure that I can stand or I can point to times when I have not stood when I have actually collapsed well. He is already given their directive in verse 10 finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. We pay particular attention in and beginning the letter at least to understand that Paul is saying to these Ephesians. The most vital thing for you to understand is your union with Christ that you have been united with Christ. We noted when we study chapter 1 that Paul wasn't referring to these folks as Christians, but he was constantly reminding them of their position in Christ. In him in the beloved and saw, and the reason that that is so important is because it is only a life lived in union with Christ that will be able to engage as required in the struggle Calvin in his institutes has a wonderful section on this, I may just read part of it for you, and you can find it on on your own if you choose the tendency of all the Scripture teaches concerning devils is to put others on our guard against their wiles and their machinations. In other words, what the Bible does when it teaches concerning these things is not in order to arouse our curiosity, give us something to debate and to discuss, but in order to warn us about what we're up against. For when Satan is called the God and ruler of this world. The strong man armed the prince of the power of the air, the roaring lion, the object of all these descriptions is to make us more cautious, and vigilant and more prepared for the contest. Being forewarned of the constant presence of an enemy the most daring the most powerful, the most crafty, most indefatigable letters not allow ourselves to be overtaken by sloth or cowardice, but on the contrary, with minds arouse endeavor on the alert, let us stand, not as a verb ready to resist and knowing that this warfare is terminated only by death. Since it is only terminated by death. That is study to persevere above all fully conscious of what our weakness and want of skill so that let us invoke the help of God and attempt nothing without trusting in him, since it is his alone to supply counsel and strength and courage and arms. In other words, all of that is given to us in Christ, and that is the challenge that runs from the beginning to the end of our journey were pilgrims when aliens were strangers were not out of the world in all of us disinterest and opposition to God and his truth.

Where in that world and we have an enemy and its as he was in Scotland as a sort of fact to the end.

It is a sore fight all the way to the end. As I was think along these lines and went back to reread the second part of the world's progress. I was so gratified that part one and part two come to a conclusion. In much the same way other pilgrims or they come to the enchanted ground and if you remember the enchanted ground was a place of tranquility and enchantment and I had a can of soporific quality to it. It could induce sleep and casualness and so on.

And the point the bunion is making is that right close to the entry into the heavenly kingdom. You have this place of enchantment and their place of enchantment is there in order to try and seduce the program to cause the program to fall asleep so close to the heavenly city and volume for truth and honesty are common into the realm of the enchanted ground and they come on a man who is on his knees and his hands and his eyes are lifted up to heaven and he's praying and he's praying for help in dealing with this enchanted territory in which he finds himself because he finds it very alluring and as he prays for help and the help comes in the form of valiant for truth and honesty and as the engage with him. They ask him sensibly.

What's the deal and he says the problem is Mme. bubble. So what's the problem with Mme. bubble whole he says she offered me her body. Her purse and her bed right on the threshold of the heavenly King, C bunion was so so aware of the truth of the Bible led he who thinks he stands take heed lest he falls in the progress of a lifetime may be brought to a crashing halt when unprepared for the battle naïve about the opponent with silly assumptions about one's own forfeiture we find ourselves collapsed to know what the fellow said to of been Mme. bubble. He said she's a witch, a representative of a cosmic struggle that takes place in the heavenly's that expresses itself in telling and in reality in the moment and so Paul says finally. I need to talk to about this. It's all about your marriage.

It's all about your kids, it's all about your jaw.

It's all about your entire life. How good of God, then to provide comprehensive armor for engaging in the back and to the armor we will come later.

It would be foolish to head into battle without understanding the opposition. What were up against. It's from today's message on Truth for Life with Alastair beg we are learning about the reality of spiritual warfare. Believers are in a continual irreconcilable war that endangers our marriage, our families, our jobs are very lives, so we need a battle strategy. Part of that strategy. As Alastair mentioned is to stay alert to stay ready to resist temptation as we stand united with Jesus.

We found a book to help you do just that book is titled the whole armor of God, how Christ's victory strengthens us for spiritual warfare. When you read the whole armor of God, you'll learn about each unique article of God's armor like the belt of truth through the helmet of salvation and then you learn how to put them on for spiritual protection. Sinclair Ferguson calls the book a battle manual for every Christian.

No believer should head in the combat without it so request a copy of the whole armor of God today you join our essential team of truth partners or when you make a one time donation to enrolled the Truth for Life.org/truth partner or call 888588788 and Bob Lapine.

Thanks for joining us. Listen tomorrow as we continue this message and discover why it's necessary for us to put on the whole armor of God Bible teaching of Alastair beg is furnished by Truth for Life. Learning is for Living