The Cost Of Healing

We Are Warriors, Not Victims

In our last lesson, we learned that spiritual warfare is a part of any believer's life, because the devil's kingdom is constantly at war with God's kingdom. We discovered that The devil will attack you simply because you belong to God, because the Holy Spirit resides within you. We saw that the bible considers this to be a normal part of the believer's life.

Let's revisit the two of the verses we looked at in that lesson, and examine them more closely. Let's start with Revelation 2:10. Jesus is speaking directly to His own, telling them that even though they are in the center of His will, they are about to experience an very nasty attack from the devil. He said:

Revelation 2:10-- "Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life."

Note that all of the bad things that Jesus said were about to happen to them (being thrown into prison, being killed) actually happened at the hands of men. Yet, Jesus attributed these things to the devil, not to the men who actually did them. Jesus did not say, "Men will throw you into prison..." He said the devil would do it, working through these men. In short, Jesus acknowledged that the "bad things" that were about to happen to them were a form of spiritual warfare launched by the devil against them.

Why was the devil about to attack them? If we look back to verse 9, we see that it was because of their works. They were doing the things that Jesus wanted them to do; their work was advancing God's kingdom and tearing down the devil's kingdom. The devil did not like that, so he choose to fight back. He counter-attacked them for their godly works, and his attack was very hard on this church...some of them even died during it. Yet God permitted it. In short, the devil was allowed to harm them in this life, but not in the "life to come."

It might startle you to learn that God permitted this, but He did. That is because His vision and perspective are much broader than ours. He is able to see in all times and on both sides of death. From His viewpoint, physically dying is not really being "hurt." That is because your spirit goes to be with Him for all eternity, where He keeps you safe and sound (and blessed) in Heaven.

We have limited vision and can only see on this side of the curtain of death, so death seems like a very big deal to us. But God doesn't see it that way. Here is what He said to those who He was asking to die for Him: "Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death."

God's perspective is different from ours because He has an eternal perspective. As a result, we might be a bit surprised by some of the spiritual warfare attacks that He may allow us to face.

Let's look at one more verse from our last lesson: 1 Peter 5:8-9. It says,

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world."

This verse tells us that the devil causes sufferings as a form of warfare, and he is on the warpath looking for victims. Some of his attacks are unavoidable, such as the one Jesus warned about in Revelation 2:10. But for other of this attacks, we can counter them by being "sober and vigilant," and by "resisting him in steadfast faith."

In other words, we don't have to be hit (and taken out) by everything that the devil throws at us. We are not helpless targets, we are soldiers in the army of the Lord and the Lord has given us equipment to protect us and weapons to fight back. We already know about the defensive armor, and the offensive sword of the spirit, as per Ephesians chapter 6. But knowing about them is not enough...we need to use them. According to 1 Peter 5:8-9, we need to be vigilant (aware) and we need to be sober (clear headed and understanding the nature of warfare). If we do this, then it will be much harder for the enemy to waylay us with surprise attacks and take us out.

The Devil Manages His Resources

The devil is the general and master strategist of his demonic army. Unlike God, he is not all-knowing and he does not have unlimited resources. In fact, many theologians believe that 1/3 of the angels fell from Heaven with Satan, leaving God with 2/3 of them. They get this from a combination of Revelation 12:4 and Revelation 12:7-9.

Assuming they are correct, the devil has considerably less resources at his disposal than God does, not to mention the fact that the devil's power is limited and finite while God is all-powerful and completely unlimited. In short, both God's power and His resources far exceed what the devil has available to work with. That means the devil has to be very smart/careful in deploying his resources for maximum efficiency.

This is kind of an aside, but Jesus talked about kings going to war in Luke 14:31... He said, "Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?" Jesus went on to suggest that if the king realizes he is outnumbered, he will send a peace-making delegation while the other king's army is still far away. Unfortunately, the devil doesn't have the option to make peace with God. That means he is forced to carefully manage/allocate his resources.

So what does that mean to you? It means that the devil is going to allocate more resources against you when you are a bigger threat to him, especially in those times when you first start stepping out in a new level of authority or anointing with God. Don't get me wrong--all believers are dangerous to him. But someone who is healing the sick and sharing the good news of Jesus is more dangerous than someone who is so caught up in his own problems and carnal concerns that he forgets to let his light shine. Likewise, people with a big scope of influence will usually get more of the enemy's attention and resources than those whose lives only touch and influence a few people. And those who are passionately obeying God and moving in faith are much more dangerous to him (and thus deserving of more enemy attack) than those who are disobedient and pursuing their own agenda instead of following God's.

Does that mean that we should be afraid? Should hesitate to step out in obedience to God to move in His power and authority and advance His kingdom? Of course not.

But it does mean that we should be aware of the dimension of spiritual warfare; that we should take appropriate measures to protect ourselves against the enemy counter-attack that we know will be coming as we begin to move in greater levels of God's power and anointing.

We will be talking about how to do that later in this teaching series. We will look at how to prepare ourselves for the attack, so that we are less likely to be taken out by it when it comes. But for now, I just want to make you aware of this, so that you can start being sober and vigilant, and less likely to be an easy target for enemy counter attack.

We really do need to be aware of the enemy's strategies against us. Rodney Hogue recently shared an insight that I thought was really keen. He said, "The devil isn't in a hurry to hurt you. He likes to wait until you are at the peak of your influence first. But you have to put your guard up way before then, so that you will be ready when the big attack comes."

What Rodney means is that you shouldn't wait until you are in the midst of a fierce attack to learn how to fight and to begin protecting yourself from enemy attacks. You should get your protection in place early on, before the big onslaught comes, so that you will be prepared and ready when it does come. And that is basically what 1 Peter 5:8-9 says as well.

In short, it is true that the more we pray for (and heal) the sick, the more likely it is that we will get some enemy counter attack. But that shouldn't scare us away from praying, it should just motivate us to learn now to war more effectively, so that these attacks don't disable us.