Two Armies

How many of you feel like you are engaged in a war right now? There are the literal wars that America is involved in, like the one in Afghanistan, which I follow closely because I have friends who live there. We have the War on Terror and the ongoing War on Drugs. The language of warfare is used in so many ways, isn’t it? Sporting events are all about defense and offense. We speak of battling cancer or depression. Maybe you feel like you are “fighting a bug” right now. Millions of people around the world are trying to defend themselves against the recent onslaught of natural disasters, such as in Florida even today. Some people find family relationships to be like warfare, with attacks and defenses and allies and verbal ammunition.

Politics, of course, has always been a battleground. Recent incidents highlight how America as a nation is at war with itself. There have always been sharp divisions, to be sure. Abraham Lincoln gave his famous “house divided” speech about slavery in 1858, three years before the start of the Civil War. That one issue was enough to split the country in two and cost the lives of over 600,000 people. America is still a “house divided,” but now there are a myriad of issues that people take strong and inflexible positions on, for and against. I was reading an article this week about political polarization in America and how it has increased over the last 20 years. Some people blame the internet, social media, fake news – any means that allows people to focus only on the information that supports their position. Psychologists call this “confirmation bias,” our tendency to pay most attention to the data that confirms our existing beliefs. People on both sides seem to readily ignore the reasons why the folks on the opposite side may feel the way they do.

As Christians, how should we be engaged in these “culture wars,” as they are referred to in the media? We can certainly take Stephen Covey’s advice and “seek first to understand, then to be understood.” We need to listen before we speak. We don’t need to compromise the truth, as it has been revealed in God’s word, but we can be careful to express it in the context of truly caring relationships. But most importantly, we need to always remember who our real enemy is – as expressed in the verse from Ephesians 6 that seems to be at the heart of this series of messages, verse 12:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.—Ephesians 6:12

Our struggle is not against flesh and blood. In the culture wars or in any other kind of conflict, people are not the enemy. We need to look beyond them to the lies that they are believing and where those come from. Ultimately our enemy is Satan, and we need to see the battle on a spiritual plane. We need to love the person – love our enemy in that sense, as Jesus commanded – but do whatever we can to rescue them from the influence of the Evil One. Therefore Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.—I Corinthians 10:3-5

What are the weapons of the world? Of course there are the physical weapons of the world: guns and bombs and missiles. Down through history these kinds of weapons have been deployed in the service of religion. Islam was forcibly spread by the edge of the sword, and people have unfortunately been killed in the name of Christianity, too. We reject that kind of violence, but there are other weapons of the world that we need to avoid, too: psychological and emotional manipulation, shame, intimidation, deceit, flattery, slander, bribery. These are perhaps more difficult to abandon completely. But if we begin to rely on any kind of human or worldly power in The War, then we will become ineffectual or even counterproductive.

God’s weapons, on the other hand, are infused with His divine power to demolish strongholds of wrong thinking, worldly values, or sinful compulsions. Take the truth of His word, for instance, a powerful weapon in our hearts and mouths. Paul says that it has the power to demolish arguments and expose pretensions that stand in the way of people truly coming to know God. We take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. God has given us reason and creativity, imagination and ingenuity, but these can easily lead us astray unless they are sanctified and used under the control of the Holy Spirit. Are your thoughts as well as your actions obedient to Christ? The two go together.

This passage reminds us that spiritual warfare is a matter of power. Satan has a measure of power in the world – we can certainly see that – but we have the power of Almighty God on our side, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. The redemption that we have received through His sacrifice on the cross is what makes us worthy and equips us to fight in The War. It is only because of Him that we are able to take a stand, and if we lose sight of our position in Christ then we are setting ourselves up for defeat.

I want to come back to that concept of power, but our main topic for today is the immense spiritual scope of this war that we are involved in. There is so much going on that we are only dimly aware of. We get glimpses of what is happening at a spiritual level, but there is much that we will never fully understand. While we don’t want to go overboard and begin attributing everything to the interaction of angels and demons, we do want to keep in mind the types of allies and adversaries that we have.

Last week, when Carl introduced us to The War, this meta-war that encompasses all the other wars that have ever been fought, including those we fight within ourselves, he mentioned that it began even before the fall of Adam and Eve. God created angels along with everything else and they were with him in heaven to worship and serve him. Job chapter 38 poetically describes their observation of the earth being formed. God is asking Job

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.…On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?—Job 38:4, 6-7

We don’t know exactly why God created angels, but they are referred to as His servants in several places. We see them bringing important messages from God to people, such as when they announced the birth and the resurrection of Jesus, and acting on his behalf in other ways, such as guarding the tree of life after Adam and Eve were banished from Eden. God appointed angels to rescue Lot and his family from Sodom, to bring food to Elijah, to stop the lions from harming Daniel, and to save his three friends from the fiery furnace. It was an angel who blocked the path of Balaam and his donkey. It’s interesting in that story that only the donkey could see the angel until God opened Balaam’s eyes to see him, standing in the road with his sword drawn. The angel says that he would have killed Balaam if the donkey had not seen him and turned aside. We see the power of angels in the one that killed 185,000 Assyrians in one night in 2 Kings 19 and in the angel of death who killed every firstborn in Egypt, sparing only the Israelite families covered by the blood of the Passover lamb.

Hebrews 1 mentions that angels are meant to serve us as believers:

Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?—Hebrews 1:14

You probably recall the story of the angel rescuing Peter from prison in Acts 12. He touched Peter and his chains fell off, and the doors of the prison opened by themselves as they went out. The angel disappeared when he was no longer needed. There are so many stories throughout history of angels helping Christians, often appearing as ordinary people but then inexplicably disappearing. A friend of mine who grew up in Pakistan tells the story of walking home alone through a rainstorm when he felt someone touch him on the shoulder. He turned around, wondering who it could be, out in the driving rain, but there was no one there. He hesitated but then turned to carry on – just as lightning struck a tree right next to where he would have been on the path if he had not stopped. He was convinced that an angel had saved him, and that experience gave him courage at many difficult moments in his life.

Have you heard of God being referred to as “the Lord of Hosts”? That’s a good King James phrase, isn’t it? The verse that I think of is from Psalm 46: “The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.” The Hebrew phrase is transliterated as “Jehovah Sabaoth,” but the NIV translates it as just “the Lord Almighty.” However, it does seem to refer to Yahweh as the leader of a vast army of angels in heaven. We read in Revelation that they number “thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand” – in other words, basically innumerable. Angels play a key role in bringing judgment on the earth, and we read in Revelation 12 what happens when the enormous red dragon appears on the scene in John’s vision:

Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.—Revelation 12:7-9

So here we have the two armies referred to in the title of this message: angels versus demons, the forces of good against the forces of evil. They are at war with each other, under the leadership of Michael on one side and the dragon on the other. Michael is one of the few angels named in the Bible. He is described in the book of Daniel as “the great prince who protects your [Daniel’s] people.” Therefore the Jews think of him as their special advocate. The book of Jude refers to a puzzling incident where he is disputing with the Devil over the body of Moses.

But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” –Jude 9

We don’t know exactly what that was about, though people have conjectured several possibilities. Michael is also mentioned in chapter 10 of Daniel, where he comes to the rescue of Gabriel as he struggles with the “prince of the Persian kingdom,” presumably a demon or spiritual power of some kind trying to influence the Persian king. Verse 20 mentions a “prince of Greece” as well. This has led some people to believe that there are territorial spirits that dominate certain geographical areas or political entities. These would be included in the rulers, authorities, and powers of this dark world that we read about in Ephesians 6. Some charismatics believe that it is important to identify these specifically and pray against them. In any case, according to Michael’s example, we turn to the Lord to rebuke them rather than confronting them ourselves.

We read in Revelation 12 that the dragon and his angels were hurled down to the earth. Earlier in that chapter it describes how the dragon’s tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to earth. Some people interpret this to mean that one third of the angels rebelled with Satan and were cast out of heaven. Regardless of their number, these fallen angels make up the enemy army that confronts the angels of God – and us as believers.

We see Jesus very active in casting out demons as a demonstration of his power and authority. In Matthew 12 the Pharisees accused him of driving them out by Beelzebul, the prince of demons. That was when Jesus pointed out how impossible that was, since a house divided against itself could not stand. He ends by saying, “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” He was showing that he was indeed the Messiah, the Son of David establishing his throne forever. His victory over death would seal the fate of Satan and his demons.

Nonetheless, in the “already, but not yet” paradox that Carl talked about last week, despite the victory of the cross and the empty tomb, we still experience evil in many forms. Traditionally, Christians refer to “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” We are tempted and harassed by each of these. Satan is the father of lies and the accuser of the brethren, and he will do whatever he can to convince people that he is to be feared and followed. We don’t encounter demons very often these days in America – or at least we don’t recognize them as such. Satan uses other means to attack people and hold them under his thumb.

Demons are more commonly recognized elsewhere in the world. I remember one Christmas service at our church in Nepal, where a woman came in and immediately began causing a commotion. Someone with her quieted her temporarily, but after the service several people gathered around to pray for her. She began crying and screaming, and someone recognized it as a demon tormenting her. He rebuked the demon in the name of Jesus, and she was immediately delivered. The experience not only led to her own conversion, but also to her whole family coming to the Lord, along with others in her village, because of the dramatic change in her. Many people in Nepal have been saved when they see that the power of Jesus is greater than that of the demons that they have traditionally lived in fear of.

Many of us would hardly know what to do if we encountered a demon. I remember a story that I heard long ago from At the Foot of the Snows by David Watters. A western missionary had gone to an isolated tribe that was under the control of a witchdoctor. And this fellow did have some demonic power. In front of the whole group he confronted the missionary and showed him what he could do. He commanded an axe and made it rise in the air and spin in a circle. Then he asked the missionary, “So what can your Jesus do?” The missionary was initially nonplussed, since he didn’t want to appear like a magician. He silently called out to God for help, and an idea came to him. He said to the witchdoctor, “I will show you who is more powerful. In the name of Jesus I say that you will not be able to do that ever again.” And the witchdoctor immediately did lose his magical power, and the people around were in awe of Jesus.

So both God and Satan work within the worldview and the culture of people. We see that in the Old Testament and the way in which God dealt with His people (and their enemies) back then. New Testament times brought a different experience of God and understanding of evil. And over the centuries since then we see how the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan have continued to take different forms. Through it all the message of salvation by grace through faith has not changed. It is as relevant as when it was first alluded to way back in Genesis 3 and demonstrated in the lives of Abraham, Moses, David, and all the prophets. The problems of the world have changed, but they can all be traced back to sin, and Jesus is still the only answer.

Nevertheless, we need to keep in mind that other people around the world are going to understand spiritual warfare differently than we do. Generations ago, people in America would have been much more used to thinking in terms of angels and demons and ghosts and fairies and spells and everything that makes up that supernatural layer between us in the physical world and the ultimate spiritual reality of God and Satan and heaven and hell. We may think of ourselves as much too scientific for all of that. What used to be called demon possession was probably just mental illness – and so on. Of course secularists take it to the extreme and say that everything in the universe is just groups of atoms interacting in scientifically deterministic ways. Western culture is strongly influenced by that way of thinking. However, it is important for us to understand how many people in the world still interact with a very real and powerful spirit world that we generally don’t have much to do with. Missionary anthropologist Paul Hiebert called this “The Flaw of the Excluded Middle.” I don’t have time to explain his thesis in depth, but he illustrates how western thought has devolved into a two-tier view of reality that separates religion and science and ignores the invisible, supernatural layer in between that interacts with the world but defies scientific analysis.

 

 

If we ignore that middle layer in our witness to people who operate in it, either the gospel will not make sense to them or they may accept it but then turn back to their charms and horoscopes and diviners and so on when they do not receive answers to the questions of that middle layer: Why do bad things happen to good people? How can I ensure my children will do well? How can I avoid getting on a plane that will crash or running into a drunk driver?

There is so much more that could be said about angels and demons, about unseen conflict in the supernatural world. This is a huge subject. But I would like to close with a few thoughts about when and how we actually do spiritual warfare. This may be something missing in our approach to evangelism. The gospel needs to be so much more than just a rational argument. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:20

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.

Words by themselves will never be enough to convince people to follow Jesus. They need to experience his power working in their lives. This is not power that we generate or manipulate. It is the power of the Holy Spirit that we invite through prayer to work in people and situations. We need discernment from the Holy Spirit to figure out what to pray for and how to pray. And then we need to pray with the expectation that God will do something. One of our workers in Africa says that he wants people to PUSH with him: Pray Until Something Happens. If our lives are not lives of prayer then we risk becoming like those that Paul rebukes in 2 Timothy 3: “Having a form of godliness but denying its power.” Power is an essential aspect of spiritual warfare.

God knows that we hold his treasure in earthen vessels. He forgives everything, but He condones nothing. But most of the time it is Christians who disqualify themselves in spiritual warfare. They think they aren’t good enough to have a useful role in The War. I remember as a young man being in a group of guys and one of them said, “I think I could do something really good for God if I could just conquer lust.” Maybe for you it’s something else. If I could only be like X, then I would be useful to God. But think about how desperate the war is that we’re in. We need to throw everything we have at Satan. We’re wounded soldiers, but we don’t give up the fight. If we have to drag ourselves along the ground, we need to keep advancing. Satan wants us to give up. He wants us to think that we’re not good enough. But we mustn’t disqualify ourselves. Every time we say no to Satan and yes to Jesus we strike a blow in the battle. In this war, every little thing matters. Every time we pray, every time we speak a word of truth in love, every time we act unselfishly, every time we humble ourselves and ask for forgiveness, every time we do something God’s way and not the world’s way – we push that front line forward a little bit. We put Satan our enemy on notice and Jesus our commander-in-chief is glorified.