Spiritual Warfare And The Prophetic

There is a spiritual war going on. The forces of Heaven and the forces of Hell are actively engaged in a spiritual battle. Daniel 10 gives us some insight into the angelic side of this battle. God sent an angel to interpret Daniel's vision, but he could not come to Daniel for three weeks because demonic forces opposed him and prevented him from reaching Daniel. Another angel finally came to help him fight, and then he was able to break through. Daniel chapter 10 shows us that God's angels are at war with Satan's army. But the battle is not limited to angelic realms. God has also enlisted us, His children and servants, into His army. God wants to advance His kingdom, and He uses us to do it. And each time that we lead a person to Christ, each time that a person is healed or set free from some type of demonic oppression, Satan's kingdom has just lost some ground.

Satan considers it a personal attack each time we deliver a prophetic word and release God's power through our spoken word. Prophecy causes real damage to Satan's interests, and he will not take that laying down, he will try to fight back; he will counter attack. In fact, the more God uses you in the prophetic, the more the enemy will counter attack you. The more damage you do to tear down his kingdom, the more he is motivated to try and get rid of you, to try to stop you, to try to take you out.

Satan has developed a whole arsenal of spiritual counter attacks designed to take out God's prophets, so that we won't tear down his kingdom. And God knows about this, so He has given us spiritual armor to defend against these enemy attacks. Eph 6:14-17 details that armor for us. We already looked at the defensive pieces of armor in lessons 6 and 7. Now let's take a look at the one offensive piece of armor, "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Eph 6:17).

SWORD OF THE SPIRIT

There are two important points about the sword. First, the sword is not our sword, it is the Holy Spirit's sword. That means that when we wield it, we need to be under His direction and follow His lead. We are not to fight spiritual battles on our own, we are to get our battle direction from God and only do what He is doing. In human armies, soldiers don't individually go off and engage the enemy anytime they feel like it. It is the same for us in God's army.

There are two times when soldiers fight. One is when their commanders organize them and lead them into a battle. E.g., they fight when their commander and chief tells them to fight, following his strategic direction. When that happens, they fight together as a unit, the soldiers work together and watch out for each other. They all take their direction from their chain of command. And if we want to wield the sword of the spirit effectively, we can't go off as renegades and engage the enemy whenever and however we feel like it. We need to under the Holy Spirit's direction and we must follow His orders. In other words, we must be spirit-led if we want to be effective in spiritual warfare.

The second case where soldiers fight is when the enemy ambushes them, and they have to fight because they are being attacked. This is a case where they did not choose to fight, but battle came to them. That can happen to us as well. The enemy will ambush us (e.g., counter attack us) when God uses us to actively advance His kingdom. When the enemy attacks us, we are not to close our eyes and hope he will go away. We are to fight back! God expects us to defend ourselves when Satan attacks us.

In fact, Jesus defended Himself each time that Satan attacked Him. (There was one exception to that, which was when Jesus was crucified. But Jesus was under strategic direction from God at that time, He was instructed to lay down His life so that the rest of us could experience eternal life through His death and resurrection.)

All of the other times that the devil attacked Jesus, Jesus fought back. For instance, the devil attacked Jesus at the start of His ministry by tempting Him during His 40 day fast in the wilderness. And Jesus used the word of God, written Scripture, to defend himself. Jesus was hungry and the devil told him to turn stones into bread and eat, since He had the power to do so. Jesus countered with scripture, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God'" (Matt 4:4). Then Satan misquoted Psalm 91 to Jesus, trying to get Him to throw Himself off of a very tall building. Jesus' response was to use scripture again, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test'" (Matt 4:7). Then the devil tried to tempt Him to worship him. "Jesus said to him, 'Away from Me, Satan! For it is written: "Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only."' Then the devil left Him, and angels came and attended Him" (Matt 4:10-11). Jesus used scripture to drive away the enemy's attack. He wielded the sword of the spirit. And that was effective enough to force the devil to break off his attack and leave for a season.

Another time, when Jesus passed by some tombs in the region of Gadarenes, the devil sent two violent demon possessed men to try to attack Him physically. Jesus defended Himself by taking authority over those demons and casting them out of the men. The story is recorded in Matt 8:28-34. Once the demons were out of the men, they were no longer a threat to Him, they no longer wanted to attack Him. Over and over again, we see that Jesus defended Himself when the enemy came against Him to harm Him. And God expects us to do likewise. He expects us to use the armor He has given us and the authority He has given us to defend ourselves when the enemy counter attacks us.

The weapon that God has given us is the word of God, which is actually three things: the Bible, the gospel of salvation and the prophetic. (And that is the second point about the sword of the spirit -- it is the three-fold word of God.)

The bible is very important to us; it is the word of God. We have already seen how Jesus used the bible to counter the devil's temptation attack against Him. The bible is God's word and it is extremely powerful. We need to be familiar with it, so we won't be derailed when the enemy tries to deceive us. Scripture shows us what God is like and how He would respond in a given situation. Scripture shows us how to avoid some of the enemy's snares by showing us how to think and how to behave. The bible contains God's truth, sets people free from darkness, changes their behavior and shows them the way to go. Scripture makes it clear to us that we are not condemned, breaking the power of the enemy's accusations that he constantly throws at us. Scripture teachers us the authority that Jesus has given us over the devil and shows us how to use that authority effectively.

The gospel of salvation is also a part of the sword of the spirit. It has incredible power to defeat the devil. It is the "Good News" of what Jesus did for us. Nothing takes ground from the devil like getting people saved. When they are transplanted into God's kingdom, they stop working for the devil and start working for God instead.

Look at the life of Apostle Paul. As Saul, he was one of Satan's biggest tools to persecute the church. He tried to tear down the church by arresting Christians and dragging them off to Jerusalem to be executed. He actually went out and hunted down believers, like a bounty hunter. What a transformation took place in his life when he was converted and became the Apostle Paul. As an unsaved man, he single-handedly did more to destroy the church than any of his peers. But once he had an encounter with Jesus, he did more to build the church than any of his peers. He began to preach the gospel and get people saved. Instead of traveling to hunt down Christians, He traveled to make new believers -- he became a missionary. He also established and wrote much of the doctrine that we still go by today. He wrote a large portion of the New Testament.

What a change the gospel of salvation made in Paul's life! And what a change it made to the devil's kingdom. One of the devil's best workers became one of his worst enemies.

Likewise, the gospel still has power to transform lives today. The best way to get rid of enemies is to turn them into friends and allies. That is what the gospel of salvation does. When enemies are saved, they stop tearing down God's kingdom and start building it up. Gary Sheldon is a powerful worship leader who frequently travels with Randy Clark in ministry. Gary was a drug addict before he was saved, who would be willing to lie, cheat or steal to get drugs. In that role, he used to tear down God's kingdom and build up Satan's. Now the roles are reversed and Gary has a big hand in building God's kingdom and tearing down Satan's. Todd Bentley was a bully and an "acid head" before he was saved. He used to actively build up Satan's kingdom. Now he goes around preaching the gospel and healing people. He takes souls away from Satan's kingdom and brings them into God's. I used to go around debating that God could not exist and damaging people's faith. Then one day I had an encounter with this God who I did not think existed, and now I am His dedicated servant.

I could go on with story after story of changed lives -- of people who used to tear down God's kingdom before they met the king. And now they are in a love relationship with Him, and they dedicate their lives to build up God's kingdom, which tears down Satan's kingdom. The gospel of salvation is a very powerful piece of the sword of the spirit.

Finally, the prophetic is also part of the sword of the spirit. The prophetic is when God speaks His word through His servants, who have been gifted and commissioned to speak for Him. New testament prophets are human beings, and as such, they are fallible. That means that we must always bounce the prophetic against the bible. If there is ever a conflict between the two, we take the Bible over the prophetic word, because we recognize the bible to be infallible.

God can, and does, release strategic information through the prophetic and through supernatural revelation. We have a biblical precedent for this in 2 Kings 6:8-12, where Elisha told the king of Israel the battle plans for his enemy, the king of Aram. In fact, the information was so accurate that the king of Aram thought that an Israeli spy had infiltrated their ranks. And God can (and does) release strategic information through His prophets today. He lets us know demonic strategies and how to counter them.

Also, anointed prophetic words break the yoke of enemy oppression off of people and set them free to serve God. That is why we must not be afraid to speak forth God's words when He gives them to us -- it is a part of the sword of the spirit that we are to wield at the Holy Spirit's direction.

A FEW HINTS ON HOW TO FIGHT BACK EFFECTIVELY

Don't Be Afraid To Fight Back. I made a comment in lesson 1, and I would like to remind you of it now. "The interesting thing about battles is that you need to fight when you are in one, or the other side wins by default. Then they take you captive and they bind you up and they do their best to torment you for as long as they can get away with it." We need to recognize that we are in a battle, and be prepared for attack. We need to put our spiritual armor on and defend ourselves when the enemy does attack us.

Be Strategic. Don't volunteer information to the enemy that he might use against you. Do you remember the prophet from 1 Kings 13 who told the enemy spirit how to defeat him? God had commanded him to fast and not to backtrack while he was in Israel. The enemy had been looking for various ways to defeat him. He tried arresting him but that did not work. Then he tried bribing him, but that did not work either. However, at that point the prophet revealed his specific personal directions from God and the demon was able to devise a temptation to get him to disobey God. And as soon as he disobeyed, he was defeated.

We need to learn from his story and not give the enemy information that he does not need. Jesus knew that He would break the power of sin and death over us when He rose from the dead. He knew that was God's plan and strategy. But He did not tell that to the devil, because if He did, the devil never would have crucified Him. Be like Jesus. Allow yourself to be spirit-led in terms of what information you do and do not share. You are not accountable to the enemy, and you do not have to volunteer information to him.

Be Obedient. Our protection and covering in spiritual warfare comes from being in right relationship with God, and from obeying Him. Jesus let us know that He expects us to obey Him (John 14:15). We saw the negative consequences that came to the disobedient prophet in 1 Kings 13 -- he was defeated and he died. The disobedience lifted God's protective covering and the enemy took him all the way out. Obedience is paramount in spiritual warfare. Be committed to obey God no matter what He tells you to do.

Focus On God. Keep your focus on God and not on your feelings. The enemy is going to play with your feelings, he is going to lie to you. He is going to do his best to bring you a spiritual down shortly after you have a spiritual high. Right after God uses you powerfully, the devil will try to convince you that you somehow "blew it" and God does not want to use you anymore. The more you focus on your circumstances or on your feelings, the more convincing those lies will become. So remind yourself of what God is like - based on God's word and on your past experiences with His faithfulness. Fight to keep your focus and attention on God. Choose to believe that He really is Who He says He is, and that He will really do what He promises He will do.

Finally, be spirit-led and minister in love. Only do what the Holy Spirit tells you to do. Don't fight battles that God has not assigned you to fight. And when a battle brings you up against human foes, remember that they are not the real enemy -- they are just victims of Satan's deception; they are pawns under his oppression and control. The real enemy is the devil. The goal is for the people that He is using against you to be set free from his oppression. God wants to transform them like He transformed the apostle Paul, and use them to build His kingdom. Minister in love and remember who the real enemy is -- the devil, not the people who he uses.

Spiritual counter attack will most likely come against you when you prophecy. But don't be afraid of it. Don't let it keep you from speaking the words that God gives you to speak. Instead, be prepared for the counter attack. Make sure you have your spiritual armor on. Understand the strategies the enemy will use against you. Be spirit-led in the counter attack and keep your focus on God. Remind yourself of who you are in Christ and choose to believe God's word and His promises to you. Then you will be effective in standing your ground.