How to Do Spiritual Warfare Without Obsessing About Demons

How to Do Spiritual Warfare Without Obsessing About Demons

Jennifer Anne Cox

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2020 by Jennifer Anne Cox

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Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Contents

Preface

Introduction

The Victory of Christ

The Origin, Status and Destiny of the Devil

Introduction to the Devil’s Strategies

The Devil’s Strategies 1: Accusation

The Devil’s Strategies 2: Temptation

Temptation Part 2: Specific Sins That Are Traps of the Devil

The Devil’s Strategies 3: Deception

Deception Part 2: Teachings of Demons and False Apostles

The Devil’s Strategies 4: Fear

Submit to God, Resist the Devil

The Armour of God Part 1: Preliminaries

The Armour of God Part 2: Individual Armour and Weapons

Conclusion

About the Author

Preface

The Story Behind This Book

During 2000, I was given the opportunity to lead a Bible study group at church. The topic I chose was spiritual warfare. Back then, I neither owned a computer nor knew how to use one. I did all the work of thinking through spiritual warfare using a large hardcover concordance to the King James Version and wrote my notes in a spiral-bound notebook. I used coloured pencils to organise my thoughts. As crude as this method was in comparison to the Bible software I now possess and the version I have on my computer, the paper version nonetheless captured the main points that are to be found in this book.

In the years that followed, I was led towards a long time of theological education. This consisted of a degree in theology followed by an honours degree in theology and then a PhD in theology. Over the fifteen years of study, I have learned a great deal about central Christian doctrines, biblical interpretation and church history. Most fundamentally, I have come to understand that all good theology must be biblical and Christ-centred.

In 2018, I thought it would be a good idea to type up my Bible study in case the handwritten version was lost. In the course of this exercise, I decided to update the Bible study and subsequently produced a better version. I was invited to work through this study with a house church over much of 2019. It was well received and my time in that small church bore fruit.

One night late in 2019, I had a dream about this Bible study. I dreamed that I should write the study into a book and it should be called How to do spiritual warfare without obsessing about demons. Prior to this dream, it had not occurred to me that I could or should write such a book. But the dream was so specific that I took it to be from the Holy Spirit and began work on this book. I pray that it will produce fruit as the study did.

My Claims

There are books and sermons and videos beyond number on spiritual warfare. My Google search turned up forty million results. Much of what is written and preached about spiritual warfare is, to quote a blog I read on the topic, bonkersness at a black belt level. Many have gone so far as to name different demons and to specify how to fight these various demonic beings. There are some who claim to have fought the battle and overcome these demons. Far too much that has been claimed goes beyond what has been revealed in Scripture. The reader who has not heard or read these claims should be thankful. Others are well aware of what I am referring to.

In contrast to many teachers on spiritual warfare, my claims are modest. I make no claim to new revelation or downloads from God. I make no claim to have experienced manifestations of demons, nor do I believe that such experiences are central or even necessary to the practice of spiritual warfare. There is every reason to be sceptical regarding such claims. God has revealed to us what we need to know and no more. The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law (Deut 29:29). Instead of making unscriptural, unverifiable and overblown claims, I have done my best in this book to stick to what is revealed clearly in Scripture and to carefully interpret relevant passages. The reader can decide if I live up to these modest claims.

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Introduction

If you are a genuine follower of Jesus Christ, then there is no avoiding spiritual warfare. The devil makes war on the saints (Rev 12:17; 13:7) regardless of whether we fight back or not. It is not a matter of whether we enter into the battle but whether we know the means given to us by God to fight the battle effectively. To grasp the truth about this we must have the right priority.

The Focus

First of all, we need to decide where to focus our attention. C.S. Lewis observed: There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight (C.S. Lewis, Preface to The Screwtape Letters). The Bible mentions the devil only occasionally, yet we are warned to be aware of his schemes (2 Cor 2:11). It is one thing to be aware of the devil’s schemes and another to spend your life fixated on the devil and all his demonic cohorts. How are we to keep from being outwitted by Satan while at the same time keep from focussing and obsessing about demons and their work? The answer to that question lies in keeping our eyes on the one who is central to the biblical story, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Because the Bible is about Jesus from beginning to end (John 5:39), it is on Christ that we must focus. Consequently, this book about spiritual warfare is not focused on the devil and his minions, but on Christ and his glory. This is the way theology is intended to be done. Instead of trying to figure out how to fight against the devil, we look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Heb 12:2), who has already won the victory for us. The Bible gives Christians quite clear instructions about how to live the Christian life. Ours is to be followers of Christ, not chasers after the evil one.

The Nature of the Battle

We are all in a battle, so we must understand the nature of that battle. Events are going on around us all the time. It is not unusual to find people who are antagonistic towards Christians and the Christian faith. Sometimes this is overt, as in the case of some famous atheists who speak out against Christianity regularly. Other times the opposition we experience is more subtle. Perhaps your boss reduces your hours at work, or your co-worker is promoted even though you work harder and more diligently for the company. Perhaps you are vilified for seemingly no reason at all. We must be careful in our responses to these attacks. To make the right choice here involves understanding the real nature of the battle in which we are engaged.

The Bible tells us that the nature of our warfare is not what one would normally expect from a human perspective. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph 6:12). Spiritual warfare is just that, spiritual. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. Flesh and blood is a synonym for human (see Matt 16:17; Heb 2:14). Although human beings are the ones who persecute Christians, steal our goods, hurt our bodies, curse us for being followers of Christ, and generally get in the way of the proclamation of the gospel, they are not the ones we are really wrestling against. The real enemy are the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

One important implication of this truth is that humans are not the enemy. Therefore, we are not being asked to harm other people or even to get revenge on them for what they do to Christians. God tells us to love our human enemies, to pray for them (Matt 5:44), and to do good to them. God himself will repay in his time any evil done to us (Rom 12:19–20). We therefore treat people, even evil people, as those for whom Christ died. Revenge is not an option. Don’t treat human beings as the real enemy.

The second implication is that human weaponry will be utterly useless in a battle against spiritual forces. This is why we must take up the armour of God (Eph 6:11). For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Cor 10:4–5). The only weapons which can be effective in the battle are divine. But human beings cannot wield divine weapons without divine assistance. This is precisely why we need to take care to see what the Bible tells us about spiritual warfare.

The Contents of This Book

Before I outline what is in this book, I will offer a word about what is not in this book. I have not discussed every aspect of spiritual warfare; most notably I have said nothing about casting out demons. The main reason for this decision is that I do not believe that Christians can be demon-possessed. Although there are many instances in the Gospels of demons being cast out in the ministry of Jesus and some in the ministry of the apostles in the book of Acts, these were in the context of people who did not yet follow Christ. Followers of Christ are indwelt by the Holy Spirit (John 14:17; Rom 8:9; 1 Cor 12:13). As in the case of Mary Magdalene, out of whom Jesus cast seven demons (Mark 16:9; Luke 8:2), demonic possession may be in the Christian’s past but not in their present.

I have also avoided discussing any of the popular teachings about spiritual warfare, such as binding demons and loosing angels. Possibly you have been exposed to some of these popular ideas. Many of these are false and have no biblical backing. It would be unrealistic to attempt to refute each false teaching individually. Even if I had time and space to do so, new false teachings pop up regularly. I prefer to concentrate on what the Bible does teach instead of what it does not. The best defence against false doctrines is knowledge of the truth. It also helps to ask a couple of questions of any teaching. The first is: does the person provide biblical backing for what they are saying? The second must be asked as well: when read in context, does the Bible verse say what the person claims? Don’t just accept what people teach; look carefully at the verses they use to see if they actually back up what is said.

Finally, I have come to the contents of this book and some advice about how to read it. This book is divided into eight main sections (some of which have two parts), each of which addresses a different aspect of spiritual warfare: the victory of Christ, the origin and destiny of the devil, four of the devil’s strategies (accusation, temptation, deception, and fear), what it means to submit to God and resist the devil, and the armour of God. Each section contains reflection questions so that you may consider how these teachings apply in your own life. In each section there are many Bible passages. Some are written out in full, some are summarised, and some are merely mentioned. I exhort the reader to take the time to look up each passage and consider its context. So many claims are made about what the Bible teaches that we must be like the noble Bereans of Acts 17:11, who searched the Scriptures to see if what was preached was correct. Every Bible teacher is fallible and I am no exception. So be diligent.

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The Victory of Christ

If we understand that we are in a spiritual battle, then it is not a large step to realising our own inadequacy in that battle. The enemy is fierce and relentless. We are mere sinners. What, then, are we to do? To be effective in the spiritual battle, we must begin by understanding three things: what the Bible has to say about our Lord and Saviour, what the Bible has to say about us as Christian believers, and what the Bible tells us about the enemy. The first two of these will be discussed in this chapter and the third will be the topic of the next chapter.

Focus on the Exalted Christ

The chief and primary matter of