davidbowerkingwood

First of all, this is very serious business and you are fully involved, whether you realize it or not! We, that means you and me and all of us, will live out our entire lives on an ancient spiritual battlefield; we are surrounded, each day, by spiritual carnage that has claimed millions of victims. The media is filled with casualty reports which are disguised to appear as something entirely different!

Every living human being is involved in this warfare; there are no exceptions. The two sides of this conflict are God and Satan; the Bible reveals the ultimate outcome of this war, God wins and Satan loses!

While the final battle is yet future, the outcome is certain, Satan, and all his forces will spend eternity in the Lake of Fire! One important fact is the importance of identifying the enemy; the Bible makes that very clear in Ephesians 6:10-12 where it is written:

¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹ Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 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.”

Our struggle is against that which we cannot even see; not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces that are vastly more powerful than we are! There is no armor of this world that will be effective against these powerful foes; only the full armor of God can prevail and enable us to stand and fight! In Ephesians 6:13-17 it is written:

“¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

The Sword of the Spirit

This is the reality of the life we face as Christians, there is no escaping it, we are soldiers in the army of God, fighting for the souls of mankind! As soldiers, in a battlefield environment, it is our responsibility to be obedient to the orders we are given by Almighty God! Our Godly armor is ready, let us carefully put it all on and be obedient to the commands of God! I have written more on the Spiritual War in a multi-part series that starts with: “To the Soldiers in the Spiritual War”.

The Background

I have a daily prayer with which I start each day; I pray that I might be obedient to God, be found a good and faithful servant, and always view life from a divine perspective! In the Holy Bible, God has revealed to his children, a great deal about living life in a Godly manner while immersed in a Satanic world system and fighting a spiritual war!

As one examines the Old Testament, it is easy to discover the major source of mankind’s problems has been the failure to be obedient to God’s commands; time after time, disobedience has resulted in calamity, disaster, and death! By way of example, try and imagine life on this earth if Adam had only been obedient to God’s command.

Adam’s disobedience to the one command he had been given, resulted in his death and the death of everyone who would descend from him. I have written more on this in the essay “Is There One Unforgivable Sin?” All of us have been profoundly impacted by Adam’s disobedience; if you are the child of a human father, then you were born spiritually dead.

Also one might try and imagine life in Israel if only Solomon had prayed for the gift of obedience, rather than wisdom; it was Solomon’s disobedience that resulted in Israel being divided into two nations and the idolatrous decline and fall of the northern nation!

The contrast is clear, from the human perspective, the reign’s of King David and King Solomon were glorious high points in the history of Israel; from a spiritual perspective, they were times of crushing defeat; both kings were seriously disobedient to God’s commands in ways that adversely impacted Israel’s future!

On the other hand, it was the faithful obedience of Jesus Christ that resulted in salvation for all who would receive him as Savior! In Luke 22:42 it is written:

⁴² “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

Jesus deliberately choose obedience in spite of the terrible pain and suffering he would have to endure as he paid the penalty for the sins of the world! The work Jesus did at his First Advent changed the world forever; since that time, the world and it’s population have been changed at a very basic level.

It is by God’s grace that we cannot see the spiritual struggle that is taking place all around us; I suspect the frightful terror of the angelic conflict would be more than we could hope to cope with successfully.

This particular phase of the spiritual war will close with the removal of the true church from the field of battle; this event will call all born again Christians home to heaven and will be followed by the final phase which will conclude with the victorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ at the time of his Second Advent.

Next time, The Battle.

Image, Sparrow Publishing House, CH Spurgeon Sermon Excerpts Spurgeon’s complete sermon on the Sword of the Spirit preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on April 19, 1891, is available here.