Spiritual Warfare And The Prophetic

God knows that we engage in spiritual warfare every time we prophecy. He knows that we tear down Satan's kingdom as we build up His. He knows that the enemy will try to counter attack us, so He has given us spiritual armor to withstand those attacks.

The Apostle Paul described this armor in Eph 6:14-16, which reads, "stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."

We already looked at the first two pieces of armor in our last lesson. So let's continue to look at each piece of the armor and the type of enemy attack that it is designed to protect us against.

GOSPEL OF PEACE

The word gospel literally means "good news." It is the story of how much God loved us and made a way for us to be in right relationship with Him.

One of the devil's strategies is to attempt to drive a wedge into our relationship with God, to try and make us feel alienated from Him. We get that vague feeling that God is somehow displeased with us but we don't know why. This is one of the devil's favorite strategies and he loves to use it against us, particularly against prophets. He wants to make us think that our personal relationship with God is not quite secure. (The devil knows that is not really the case, because our relationship with God is not based on our behavior or performance -- it is based on what Jesus did for us on the cross.) The devil wants to play with our perception and thinking and emotions to confuse us on this issue, to make us feel less secure in our personal relationship with God.

So the devil subtly attacks God's character, and we don't even realize he is doing it. He suggests that God is unpleasable and no matter how hard you have tried, you have somehow missed it and He is not happy with you. Then the devil tries to make you feel that it is your fault God is displeased (when God isn't really mad at you at all). The reason that strategy works is because the devil suggests that God is not faithful to keep us, despite Jesus' promise in John 6:37, "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never drive away." The enemy gets us to question God's character without even realizing it. Satan tries to convince us there is a breech in our relationship with God. And if he can make enough leeway, he can even get some of us to question our salvation. He can make us forget Jesus' promise to keep us in John 6:39, "And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me, but raise them up at the last day." Despite God's promises, the devil can play some really nasty mind games against us.

The gospel of peace is our defense against this. It assures us that we have relationship with God based on the death and resurrection of Jesus. This relationship is not dependent on how well we serve God. It is not based on whether or not we make mistakes. "The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7) That is the gospel of peace and that is what our relationship with God is based on. We are God's children because of what Jesus did for us. We have been adopted into His family and He is not going to disown us if we make a mistake -- because He is faithful and He keeps His promises. And we have the promise of intimacy with the Father in Galatians 4:6, "And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, 'Abba, Father!'"

SHIELD OF FAITH

Faith is one of our biggest defensive weapons. Paul made this comment about faith in Eph 6:16, "above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one."

So what is a fiery dart? It is "doubt" that Satan tries to introduce. He first used that with Eve in the garden of Eden, in Genesis 3. He suggested she eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and she reported that God said not to eat it or you will surely die. So the devil contradicted what God had said to her. He said, "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen 3:4b-5).

Simply put, doubt is when the devil calls God a liar and we listen to him. Doubt is questioning or contradicting what God has already said to you. When you walk in doubt, you question God's word and you question His intent to keep His promises. That is what doubt is.

I looked the word doubt up in the dictionary. Some of the definitions included, "fear and suspicion," "a lack of confidence in," "distrust." When Satan gets you to doubt, he is getting you to distrust God, to tell God that He is not trustworthy. And the devil does this in such subtle ways that it is easy to fall into his trap. He will say something like, "Did God really tell you that?" or "did God really call you to do that?" And you begin to question it.

God may lead you into the midst of a fiery battle. You may hardly notice it at first, but then you look around and see all the arrows and swords and enemy soldiers and you ask yourself, "What am I doing here?" Doubt begins to creep in. Doubt happens when you take your attention and focus off of God and His promises, and you begin to place your attention and focus on yourself.

Doubt is what caused Peter to sink after he had successfully walked on water. Look at the story from Matthew 14:29-31. Peter asked Jesus to let him walk on water. "'Come,' Jesus said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, 'Lord, save me!' Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. 'You of little faith,' he said, 'why did you doubt?'" Peter did fine while He had his eyes fixed on Jesus. But then he began to look around at the wind and the waves. That is where doubt entered in-- when he took his eyes off of God and put them on his circumstances. And that is when he began to sink.

Satan loves to attack prophetic people with doubt. He tries very hard to get our eyes and attention and focus off of God and onto the circumstances. As soon as he does that, he has us. We begin to struggle with doubt.

Faith is ignoring the circumstances. It is saying, "I don't care what it feels like, God promised and God will keep His word." That is the shield of faith in operation, We never put our faith or our attention on ourselves and on our own abilities, we put it on God. God is faithful. God will come through. And then He does! The shield of faith is what enables us to simply believe what God says. And that takes away the power of the enemy's fiery darts of doubt and unbelief. The devil may launch these darts at us, but they can't hit the target because the shield of faith is firmly in place.

The neat thing about faith is that it enables us to do with God what He is doing. Jesus did only what He saw the father doing (John 5:19). This included healing the sick, casting out demons, opening blind eyes, doing physical miracles (multiplying food, calming the sea, walking on water) and it included speaking forth the words of the father. In John 14:12-14 Jesus tells us that faith will let us do the same things He did -- we can see what the Father is doing and then do it with Him in His power and authority. Jesus said, in John 14:12, "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." Faith is the key that allows God to use us powerfully. It is not a faith we muster up from our own resources, it is part of the armor that God has made available to each and every one of His followers.

HELMET OF SALVATION

The Greek word for salvation is "sozo." Jesus died on the cross to save us from eternal death. That is sozo. But it is more than just that. Jesus' death was all encompassing. He saved us from eternal death and restored our relationship with God, AND He saved us from physical disease (brought healing) AND He saved us from the oppression of the devil (brought deliverance). The word sozo is all-encompassing in these three areas, which makes it a very accurate verse to describe what Jesus did for us.

We see salvation from sins in Matt 1:21, "She will give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins." We see salvation from the suffering of sickness demonstrated in Mark 6:34 where He healed a woman and told her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering." At one point Jesus sent out 70 of is followers to precede Him where He planned to go. And He told them, Luke 10:9, "Heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God is near you.'" And we see salvation from the oppression of the devil (both from demonic oppression and from spirits of infirmity) in Luke 4:17-21. This is where Jesus read the passage from Isaiah 61 about the Spirit of God being upon Him to preach the gospel, to heal the broken hearted, to set captives free. Look at verses 18b and 21: "To proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed ... Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." In other words, He told them that His job description was to be their Savior and Messiah, and to heal the sick and to set people free from all types of demonic oppression. And that is what He did in His death and resurrection. Salvation is more than just the forgiveness of sin, it is also physical healing and it is also deliverance from the enemy.

So, when we take the helmet of salvation, we receive the fullness of what Jesus did for us in His death and resurrection. We receive forgiveness of sins and sonship (intimacy with God). We also receive physical healing and authority over demons. And that comes in really handy when the enemy tries to counter attack us in a physical way.

So when the enemy tries to counter attack us with sickness or demonic oppression, God expects us to take up the helmet of salvation that He has given us. God expects us to use our authority to rebuke the sickness. He expects us to take authority over any spirits of infirmity or torment sent to counter attack us. God wants us well so that we can serve Him. That is why He worked healing and deliverance into the work of Jesus. That is why He gave us the helmet of salvation as part of our spiritual armor.

[All of the armor that we have looked at in lessons 6 and 7 have been defensive armor to use when the enemy attacks us. God has also given us an offensive weapon, the sword of the spirit. We will look at that in our next lesson.]