Spiritual Warfare (3 page)

God gave Adam and Eve everything in the Garden of Eden. Yet, the devil pointed them to one single tree which God had told them not to eat from. He made them feel like they were missing out on something.

Men, you can be married to one of the best women in town, yet the devil can make you think that you don’t have all that you really need. You might be living in a beautiful home, yet the devil can trick you into thinking that you need a better home. He always causes you to think that you don’t have enough or that you don’t have what God has already given you. That is why he is the father of lies.

Don’t Buy The Devil’s Lies

Let me tell you another story to illustrate my point. One evening, a guy strolled into a small village. He walked straight up to the village chief and declared, “I have a magic stone that can make everything perfect. For example, if you put this magic stone in your food, it will taste delicious.”

The chief was very excited. “Really?” he asked.

“Sure,” said the man.

“Sir, can I have this stone?” the chief asked.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said the man. “Normally, I don’t let people use my stone, but I’ll make an exception for you. But you must promise me that you will follow my instructions.” The chief agreed.

So the man told the chief to get ready some ingredients. Then, he said, “Take this chicken meat and that rabbit meat, and mix them with potatoes, carrots and onions. Add these spices and those herbs, and throw my stone into the pot. Finally, stir it all over a small fire for an hour.”

When the meal was ready, the chief tasted it. “My goodness, this is delicious!” he said. The chief’s family and all the villagers ate the food. They invited the man to eat it as well. Everybody ate the food until they were full.

When they had finished, the chief said to the man, “Excuse me, sir, but may I please have the stone?”

“With all due respect,” replied the man, “is it not enough that I let you use my stone in your food? And now you want me to let you have it?”

“Yes, I’d like to buy it from you,” the chief said.

“Well,” said the man, putting his arm around the chief, “I kind of like you, chief, so I’ll sell it to you.” The chief was overjoyed and offered him a big sum of money for the stone.

This man had just eaten a good meal at the villagers’ expense and now, he was also being offered money!

The next morning, he took the money and left the village. Towards the evening, he came to another village. But before he entered the village, he spotted another stone by the roadside, picked it up and entered the village looking for the chief!

How many of you know that this man was simply a good cook who received a free meal, a bed to sleep in and some easy money every day? The devil tries to do the same thing with you and me. Even when everything has already been given to you, he makes you think that you still need something more.

Who Is Your Real Enemy?

Ephesians 6:11 says,
“Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”
The devil is very, very wily! Verse 12 adds,
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

Don’t see people as the problem. Your battle is not with flesh and blood.

My friend, there is a hierarchy in the powers of darkness. There are levels of power in the spiritual realm. There is a chief demon and there are his underlings. There is a “gangster-boss” devil and there are “gangster” devils. That is how it is in the kingdom of darkness. If you are starting to feel a little fearful right now, don’t! We don’t need to worry about these dark powers because God has given us His armour to protect ourselves from their wiles and attacks. Notice that the first phrase in verse 12 says that
“we do not wrestle against flesh and blood”,
but against powers of darkness.

If you are a believer, you need to wake up and realise this. Your battle is not against your boss at work. You may say, “Pastor Prince, my boss is the problem. For some reason, he picks on me all the time. I do everything right, go the extra mile, work overtime and he still doesn’t like me!” Listen, if that is the case, his dislike for you is probably supernatural. So what do you do? To start with, don’t hate him. Instead, love him and forgive him. If you are going to attack anyone, attack the devil in the name of Jesus. Your battle is not with flesh and blood. It is not with your boss. Your battle is with the powers of darkness behind him.

I have seen couples quarrelling in front of me. Now, you can just look at the situation in the natural and try to find out who is at fault. But this is how I respond: I say, “In the name of Jesus, I bind the spirit that is causing this strife!” I find that after a while, the couple stops quarrelling and they begin to make up. They begin to talk nicely to each other.

Some years ago, there were some poisonous and defamatory email messages being circulated. They were about me and my church. The Lord showed me that the devil was trying to stop my ministry and the effectiveness of the church to impact more lives. You see, we were really impacting many peoples’ lives by the grace of God. So I could see that the devil was trying to stop us. One day, I came to know the identity of one of the writers of those email messages. But my heart was not filled with bitterness towards the person because I knew that my battle was not against flesh and blood, but against the powers of darkness behind the person.

Don’t see people as the problem. The problem is not of flesh and blood. In Daniel 10, Daniel had been praying for some time and yet his prayer did not seem to bring results. In fact, the answer to his prayer didn’t come until 21 days after he began praying. In Daniel 10:12–13, we see that an angel appeared and told Daniel:

¹²
…“Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words. 13But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia
.

From day one, God had heard Daniel’s prayer and had sent the angel to give Daniel the answer. But the prince of Persia, a power in the air over Persia, stopped the angel from going to Daniel. You know, it was only in the last century that the British began to call Persia, Iran. There is a power above Iran and Iraq because these nations were once known as ancient Babylon. The problem has not been Saddam Hussein. You can kill Saddam Hussein, but another “Saddam Hussein” will just rise to power because the real power is a demonic force. We must understand that the answer is in prayer. If Christians will bind that power of darkness, it will not be able to operate.

My friend, there is a spiritual war going on and it is not apparent in the physical realm. Our real enemy is not of flesh and blood, and he uses lies as his weapon because Christ has stripped him of his powers. We already stand on victory ground because of Christ’s finished work. And we can remain on this high ground and stand against the wiles of the devil because we have the armour of God!

chapter
3

The Belt Of Truth

chapter 3

The Belt Of Truth

“Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth.”

Ephesians 6:14

The Truth Holds Everything Together

T
ruth is your belt and it is the first piece of the armour mentioned in Ephesians 6. By the way, Paul often refers to Roman images. During his time, Roman soldiers were everywhere. If you have ever watched those religious epics like Cecil B DeMille’s
The Ten Commandments
or William Wyler’s
Ben-Hur,
it is very likely that you would have seen a Roman soldier in full armour. The soldiers wore bronze-coloured breastplates.

I remember watching
Ben-Hur
for the first time. I thought that the Roman commander Quintus Arrius, who adopted Judah Ben-Hur as his son, looked magnificent wearing his breastplate and helmet. But I was shocked when he took off his breastplate because his large paunch came sliding out! And, boy, did he look unfit! He should never have taken it off. As long as the breastplate and helmet were on, he looked cool.

Now, why is your belt important? For a start, your belt holds your sword’s scabbard. It can also hold your small daggers. There is another very important purpose for the belt — it is very hard to fight if your trousers are loose and falling down around your ankles! It is very hard to fight with one hand holding up your trousers and the other hand holding your sword! The enemy might stop the fight and say, “Hey, are you going to tighten your belt or not? It’s very distracting fighting a man with loose trousers!”

So you wear truth as your belt. If you don’t have much truth in your life, you will not be able to hold the armour of God together. In the same way that your belt holds everything in place, truth will hold the other pieces of the armour together. Without truth, the other pieces of the armour will not be secure.

The Truth Dispels Darkness

But why is truth the first piece of the armour mentioned here? Well, when you became a Christian, your life changed. It changed because you received the truth. You were set free because of the truth. Jesus made you free by giving you the truth. He said, “
And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
(John 8:32)

When I was a young boy, I used to play with small rocks. I would lift them up to see how strong I was. Sometimes, as I lifted the rocks off damp soil, I would discover small white ants and even a scorpion scurrying in all directions. You see, the ants and the scorpion loved the darkness under the rocks, and when light entered their darkness, they scattered.

It is the same with our lives. If I could take a spiritual X-ray of your head, there may be areas that are bright now because the light of God’s Word has entered those areas. For example, you were once fearful about being condemned in God’s presence, but that fear no longer exists because the truth of God’s grace has entered and scattered that fear.

But there may be other areas that are dark. That may be why you are fearful and full of worries in those areas. Those dark areas have yet to be saturated with God’s truth. All of us still have dark areas in our lives. That is why I pray this almost every day: “Father, unveil to me truths that I need to know so that I will be set free.” I pray this prayer because I still have areas of bondage in my life. But praise God when I look back at my life, there are areas in which I have been set free. In fact, the devil would be silly to attack me in those areas again, since I have already received lots of truth in those areas.

The more truths you receive, the more victory will manifest in your life.

How do you know if an area of your life is still dark? Well, whenever you have fear or worry in an area, it generally means that the light has not yet entered fully into that area. You need to pray, “God, there is this area in which I am still in the dark. Unveil Your truths to me in this area. Show me the truths I need to know.” My friend, the truth will set you free.

Do you know that in God’s eyes, truth and victory are synonymous? Let me show you evidence from the Bible. Quoting from Isaiah, Matthew says,
“A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench, till He sends forth justice to
victory
.”
(Matthew 12:20) Notice the last part says
“justice to victory”.
The actual quotation in Isaiah 42:3 in the Old Testament says, “
A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench; He will bring forth justice for
truth
.”
The original Old Testament quotation says “truth”. Yet, the New Testament says “victory”. What that tells us is that truth and victory are synonymous. In other words, the more truths you receive, the more victory will manifest in your life.

Once you know the truth, the devil cannot fool you any more. You see, he can only thrive in darkness. As long as you are in the dark or ignorant about something, you will be fearful and you will be vulnerable to the devil’s deceit. Let me give you an illustration. When you start to feel sick or pain in a certain part of your body, you start to worry about it. You don’t know what is causing the pain and your imagination runs wild. You become fearful and concerned. When you finally go to your doctor, he says to you, “This is very common. I have done some tests and you have absolutely nothing to worry about.” All of a sudden, your fears and worries disappear. How did that happen? The doctor revealed to you the truth that you were not aware of and the truth set you free.