Warfare Prayer

In Lesson 5, we talked about putting on the armor of God and how important that is. We need the armor to protect us. Then we began to entertain the notion that from time to time things seem to get through our armor. We will look at that now in more detail. We will look at a series of questions about why things can sometimes get through the armor and hurt us. We already asked the question, "Does it have to be put on a certain way to work correctly?" And we learned that the answer to that was, no, there is not a specific recipe or formula for putting on the armor of God.

There is another question we could ask if our armor doesn't seem to be holding up: Does it mean that I have deficient armor? Did God give me something that was a low grade? Am I a victim of false advertising here? What is the deal?

God's armor is not deficient. It is all powerful. II Corinthians 10:4 says, "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses."

God's armor is sufficient. There are no deficiencies. But sometimes something gets through. It is like we have a hole in our shield. Now how did that hole get there? One reason is that it may be an area of your life that you are not submitted to the Lord Jesus. Is everything in your life submitted to the Lordship of Jesus? Well I would say that maybe what, 70 percent? That's pretty good, that's passing. But that wouldn't work for me. God said He wants all of our life to be His. He wants to be Lord over everything in our life. Those little areas of our life that are not submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ will be a little gap, a little opening, a vulnerable space in there for something to get through.

Now why does God do that? He does it because you wouldn't give attention to that area if He didn't. If you had that protection, that covering on an area that wasn't surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus, you wouldn't give attention to that if something didn't get through. So God allows things to come through those holes so you will deal with the hole itself. Eventually you will get tired of things coming through. You will say "God, are we done with this?" He says, "Well give me that area." You say, "But I like this area. I'm kind of hanging on to it." And God will reply, "If you want to keep it, then you have to live with the darts." God allows the enemy to attack those holes, or the areas of our life that are not surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus. He will let those things stay and continue to hit us until we give it over to Him.

Another question we might ask is: "Does it mean that there are some attacks of the enemy that God is not adequate to defend you with?" The answer is obvious in this one, too. If God is your defender, what power is greater than God? Nothing is more powerful than God, right? Let me share four verses to affirm what Christ did and the victory we have in Him and what He did on the cross.

Colossians 2:15
God stripped the spiritual rulers and powers of their authority. With the cross, he won the victory and showed the world that they were powerless.

Hebrews 2:14
Because God's children are human beings -- made of flesh and blood -- Jesus also became flesh and blood by being born in a human form. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the Devil, who had the power of death.

1 John 3:8
"The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil."

(Let me comment on this verse. God is able to whoop up on the devil, to take him out. There are no inadequacies with God. He is able to defend you against anything. There are no attacks that are so great, so awesome by the enemy that you can't be shielded and protected by God.)

1 Corinthians 15:57
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

He has given it to us. Underline the word "us." We have inherent within our birthright the victory, Christ's victory. He won it on the cross. We appropriate it through our relationship with Him.

If something gets through the armor, does it mean we are simply out of God's will? Ah, we are starting to get closer with this on. Yes, we might be going somewhere with this one. This is definitely an area that we have to give attention to. You see, whenever God has called us into His will, there is His protection over us. There is a divine covering when we follow His will. Anything God calls us to do, He supplies everything we need to do it. He will cover us, protect us, and He will give us what is necessary to fulfill and carry out His will. Part of that is that there is covering and protection from the Lord.

So whenever we are doing something and one of those darts hits us, we may have to ask ourselves, "Have I gotten out of the will of God?" Now getting a dart does not mean that you are out of the will of God. But it is a question you do have to ask. "Lord am I out of your will?" Because that is one of the ways that God gets us back on track and gets us into His will. We get off track and bang, we get hit. "Ok God, you've got my attention now. What is going on here?" God says, "You got off track." "OK, now I will get back on." Those darts become motivators for us to get back in the will of God. Because when we are out there getting hit with that dart, we don't like it. "Can we change games here, God?" God says, "Yes, get back on track." Get back under His protection. Just because you get a dart does not mean you are out of the will of God, but it is a question that you do have to ask yourself. Am I out of the will of God? Is there sin in my life? Is there rebellion? Is there something going on with me? Am I surrendering to the rule of my flesh and letting it have its way with me? What happens is God protects us in the midst of authorities and coverings. God has established authorities in our lives, under the order of God.