Speechless

The last few blogs we have talked about spiritual warfare and specifically talking to Satan.  Many are thinking, I don’t know what I'd say if I ever did talk to him.  Well, let me tell you, you are talking to him everyday.  Now you may not be addressing him directly; but he or one of his demons are listening to and watching you.  Most of us don’t think about this; but, the author of Job tells us when God asked Satan, “What have you been up to?”  Satan answered God, “Going here and there, checking things out on earth.”

Most of us would acknowledge that God is watching us all the time, even if we don’t act like it; but never consider that Satan is also watching and listening.  Most of us have thought, at least once in our lifetime, “Is God listening to my prayers?”  God is listening to you even when you are not praying, why would He not hear you when you pray? 

“every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”

Satan is also listening.  Since he is listening, why don’t you give him an earful?   You ask, “What do you mean?”   If he, Satan, is eaves dropping, give him something that he can not stand, THE WORD of GOD.  When you pray, pray the Word.

I can think of at least three good reasons to pray the Word:

1.    Satan cannot stand up to it, The Word wins every time! “The sower sows the word. And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts.”

2.    God’s Word is His will.  If you pray the Word, you will be praying according to God’s will.

3.    It is always effective. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

When you can’t think of anything to say in that awkward time of silence, speak the Word!  When Satan attacks, speak the Word!  When you don’t know what to pray, pray the Word!  When you think Satan is listening, speak the Word!

In short, when is doubt, speak the Word!

Don’t stand there looking stupid, speak the Word!

You are now engaged in “spiritual warfare”!

We Don’t Do That In Our Church!

After my last blog, I’m sure many of you are saying or thinking, We Don’t Do That In Our Church!  We don’t talk to Satan or his demons.  Well, let me tell you something, you may not be talking to him, but he IS listening to you.  If you think that if you can just ignore him, you are dead wrong! 

Jesus could not ignore Satan.  What makes you think you can?

Satan talked to Jesus in the wilderness and said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”

What did Jesus do?

He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

Three times Satan spoke and three times Jesus answered back.

Three times Jesus answered back with scripture.

In Matthew Jesus rebuked His disciples when they could not heal a little boy: “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.”

After Jesus finished rebuking the disciples, He “rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.”

Demons talked to Paul:

 “Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. ¹⁷This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” ¹⁸And this she did for many days.

AND

“Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And he came out that very hour.” (Act 16:16-18)

I don’t find any scriptural basis to think that Satan’s mode of operation has changed since then. AND, I know Jesus has not changed.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and for ever.” SO “be not carried away by divers and strange teachings”.

MAYBE,

It’s time you started imitating Jesus, like Paul did!

After all, We are His body!

Can You Hear Me Now?

Most of you recognize this phrase from the Verizon commercial in which the guy goes around with his cell phone, repeating this phrase checking if the parson on the other end can hear him.  The point of the commercial is that wherever he goes, he has cell phone reception with Verizon.  Most of us with cell phones have used this phrase since having our first cell phone, moving around the house or walking outside to get better reception while on the phone.

 Why do I bring this up?  We have been talking about putting on “the whole armor of God”.  Many of you may have been asking; OK, I’m a Christian; but how do I “put on the whole armor of God”.  My parents taught me how to tie my shoes, get them on the right foot, button my shirt, put on my jacket, tie a tie, all the things that go with getting dressed; but nobody has told me how to “put on the whole armor of God”.

I think we have, but it either it did not register with us or we were not observant enough to know what was going on.  I will definitely say that is not taught in many churches.  We were blessed to have been taught this years ago and I want to share it with you.

Part of the problem is that we do not recognize what things are the result of Satan.  If you have ever read through New Testament you have been taught how to “put on the whole armor of God”.   You may not have recognized it as such; but you were taught it.  Jesus and the apostles demonstrated the “putting on”, use, application and wearing of the armor, multiple time.  How, you ask.

Start by looking for times when Jesus or His disciples confronted or talked about: Satan, the devil, demons, or evil spirits.  Examine closely what they did and/or said.  (Reminder, you will never find something if you are never looking for it.)  Every time Jesus or His disciples confronted them, He spoke to them.  He also tells us to bind things on earth; and, then they will be bound in heaven.  What is there to bind, other than Satan and his cohorts?  They talked to, or at Satan and his cohorts. 

Obviously, part of wearing this armor involves the tongue.  Nowhere will you find that they did this by just “thinking” the command. 

God is omniscient, all knowing.  Satan is not.  God knows your thoughts.  I cannot find anywhere where Satan has the ability to read your mind.  He can put thoughts into your mind; but I cannot find support for his ability to read what you are thinking.  Satan, however, is very observant.  Look at the book of Job and you will see this.  Satan listens and watches.

To summarize, “putting on”, wearing, using and spiritual warfare requires recognizing how Satan operates, when he is operating, what events or things are caused or influenced by him and then speaking to him and/or his demons.  If you proclaim to be a follower of Christ, wanting to become more like Him and to carry on His work, you must be willing to operate like He did.  His disciples had to.  Are you any different?

“Put on the whole amour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. ¹²For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. ¹³Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”

You can try to do it some other way; BUT you will not STAND!

Stand up; stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross!

Satan has to obey when God speaks! 

Clue to “spiritual warfare”, SPEAK the WORD of God.

Satan can stand up to you; BUT he cannot stand up to the WORD!

CAN SATAN HEAR YOU NOW?

It’s All Greek To Me!

I’m not a Greek scholar; but, I did stay in a Holiday Inn last night. Naw! That’s not true either.  I do, however, know what a concordance and a Lexicon are.  And, I also find it fun and helpful to use them.  In doing today’s blog, I started by looking online to see what the definition of “whole” was according to Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster defines “whole” as:

         -Free of defect or impairment (intact)

         -Having all its proper parts or components (complete unmodified)        

         -All of the …..

         -Constituting an undivided unit (entire)

         -Total

         -Directed to one end (concentrated)

         -Very great in quantity, extent or scope.

I thought this very helpful when considering Paul’s instruction/command to the church of Ephesians:

“Put on the whole armour of God” (Ephesians 6:11).

Then it dawned on me, I wonder what the Greek word for “whole" meant.  I went to my trusty, http://www.biblestudytools.com.

I found that there were multiple words for “whole” used in the New Testament.  Strangely, none of them were found in Ephesians 6:11.  In fact only a single word, “Panoplioa” was translated into the English for the phrase “whole armor”.  (If there are any Greek scholars reading this, I welcome your input at this point).  According to my lexicon this single word refers to a full, complete armor, a suit of armor, if you will.

Again, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, most of the known world was ruled by the Romans, at the time this letter was written.  For the average person reading this letter, they comprehended what this meant; yet, the Holy Spirit deemed it necessary to elaborate on what was included in this suit.  You think, maybe He knew that 2000 years later, the average person reading Ephesians 6:11, would not have the slightest image of what this meant.  I think that is very possible, as well as probable.  Plus,since the suit of armor had many components, He did not want us to forget to put them all on.  Unless they are all “put on”, the suit is not complete, sort-of-like a tux without a cummerbund, only much more important.

I, for one am glad that the translators saw fit to add the word “whole”.

I need all the extra instructions that I can use!  When we are young, our parents dressed us and as we got older we took more of the responsibility.   By the time we became teenagers, we knew it all.  As we become senior citizens, we realize that one of the reasons God gave us spouses, is so that they can help us, sort-of-like substitute parents. If we live long enough to end up in a nursing home, someone else dresses us.  I can’t give a complete scriptural basis to think that God’s armor works the same way; but I do know that little children have a special value to God and that their angels are ever in the presence of God.  Jesus said:

“Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.” Matthew 18:10

I know this definitely refers to little children in age physically; but I tend to believe that babes in Christ are special.  God, however, never intended us to stay babies.  That is why Paul sets the stage for Ephesians 6 in Ephesians 1.  He makes it clear that he is talking to mature Christians.  Part of maturing is putting on the “whole armor of God”. 

 Get up!  Get dressed! “Put on the whole armor of God”!

YOU”RE NOT A BABY ANYMORE!

Your New Birthday Suit

Yesterday I talked about the “Emperor Has No Clothes”.  Today I want to talk about our birthday suit in relation to “the armor of God”.

The writer of Ecclesiastes, in bemoaning the futility of man’s wealth, writes:

“ He arrived naked from the womb of his mother;

   He’ll leave in the same condition—with nothing.”

I realize that the writer of Ecclesiastes, Solomon, was the wisest man that ever lived; but, most people, regardless of whether they have ever read Ecclesiastes 5:15, knows this fact; even though they may not live like they know it.  Everyone knows about his or her birthday suit, especially as we get older; we realize that it is not made out of Perma-press.  As we get older, we also become more aware of our mortality; and, whether we like it or not, this suit is wearing thin!

There is another birthday suit that all Christians are given when they are born again.  It is a full set of clothes than covers us completely.  It is not like the clothes that God clothed Adam and Eve with after they sinned. 

“God made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them. “

Those were a temporary covering, symbolically covering the nakedness as a result of their sin.

The clothes that God gives us at the time of our accepting His Son, Jesus, are permanent.  They are the garments of Salvation spoken of by the prophet in Isaiah 61:10:

       “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,

        My soul shall be joyful in my God;

        For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation,

        He has covered me with the robe of righteousness.”

ALL Christians have on these clothes, regardless of whether they are aware of it or not.  IT IS automatic by virtue of their right standing with the Father.  This is completely different than the “armor of God” that we talked about in my last blog. 

As we continue talking about “armor of God”, it is important to distinguish the two.

If you are a Christian, you are not naked, you are clothed with the “garments of Salvation”.  This is our new birthday suit.  The “garments of Salvation” are sort-of-like the undergarments for the armor.  The “armor of God” must be put on over “the garments of Salvation”.

If you are reading this blog and have not accepted Christ as your Savior and Lord, the armor of God will not fit.  At this time of year, Christ in the manger, is in every nativity scene; but a Christ apart from the cross is meaningless.  The Christ of Bethlehem was born to die.  It is meaningless to celebrate Christmas without the cross!  It is meaningless to celebrate Christmas without the resurrection.  The birth of a baby was and is not unique.  The cross was not unique to Christ.  Many people died on crosses, only one person however arose from the dead!  Jesus, the Savior Christ, the Anointed one!

Celebrate the One who bought “the garments of Salvation” for us with His blood, the ultimate Christmas gift.  When we open gifts this Christmas, keep in mind the original Christmas present.  A Heavenly Father gave His Son to die, so He could give us a new birthday suit!

The Emperor Has No Clothes

This saying is based on the 1837 Hans Christian Andersen short tale.  As the tale goes, a “vain Emperor who cares for nothing but his appearance and attire hires two tailors who are really swindlers that promise him the finest suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or "just hopelessly stupid". The Emperor cannot see the cloth himself, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and the Emperor then marches in procession before his subjects, who play along with the pretense. Suddenly, a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others.”

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor’s _New_Clothes)

Today, I fear many Christians are walking around like the emperor, in respect the armor of God.  Walking around naked, without the benefit of God’s armor.  I fear it is a common belief that once a person identifies as “Christian”, they are fully armed.  I will go as far as to venture that many “born again” Christians consider themselves fully armed, by virtue of their “born again” status.  This is not Biblically supported. 

Paul, in his letter to the church at Ephesus, addresses them as “the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus”.  Paul told them that they were “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”  There were “adopted by God as sons through Jesus Christ.”  They were “accepted in the Beloved.”  They had “redemption through His (Jesus’) blood, the forgiveness of sins".  In fact, Paul, sitting in prison in Rome over three hundred miles from Ephesus, had heard of their faith.  How many of us can have this said about us?

Yet Paul explicitly tells these saints to “put on the whole armor of God”.  If it was automatic by virtue of their standing with Christ, they would not have to “put on the whole armor of God”.  It was not automatic by virtue of the fact that they were “blessed us with every spiritual blessing”.   They were adopted and accepted by God.  They were redeemed through the blood of Jesus.

BUT,

They were as naked as the emperor in respect to “the armor of God”

We have a choice to, arm ourselves with the armor of God or, walk around naked, assuming we are armed by virtue of our right standing with the Father.

Pretending does not make it so!

The Government Will Take Care of It!

That is the attitude of a large portion of Americans today.  The 2012 election will tell us exactly how many people believe this.  If you believe this, you also probably believe that the "check is in the mail".

Many Christians have this same attitude toward God.  I just give everything over to God and let Him take care of it.  It is true that that we are told to cast all our cares on Him; but, that does not mean that we have nothing to do.  We are not to be couch potatoes spiritually.  We are not to worry or fret; but we are to be engaged in "spiritual warfare".  What then is the proper role for us as Christians in this "spiritual warfare"?

Let’s just examine our actions.  Do you go to work each day to meet the needs of you and your family?  Yes.  Do you think that it is appropriate to go to the doctor when you are sick?  Yes.  Do you believe that, as a Christian, it is our duty to evangelize the unsaved?  Yes.  I could go on; but I think you get the point.

Some of you are now thinking about a Don Francisco song from the 70’s called “Jehoshaphat”, which is based on 2 Chronicles 20, where Jahaziel, a priest tells King Jehoshaphat, “Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God’s”

I love the song. The lyrics are great:

Now Jehoshaphat was King in Jerusalem a long, long time ago
When the children of Judah all worshiped the Lord from the high on down to the low
Judah was a wealthy kingdom-- everybody's children were fed
Because Jehoshaphat studied the Word of the Lord and did everything He said

But out the east came an army one day after Jehoshaphat's gold
And they were marching right straight to Jerusalem and Jehoshaphat soon was told
So he called all the people together and everybody fasted and prayed
The Lord God answered the people and said, "There's no need for you to be afraid.

"Because the battle is mine tomorrow-- it's not yours and it's not the king's
And all you gotta do is just stand and watch to see the salvation I bring
Just believe that what I told you is exactly what I'm gonna do
And go out tomorrow against them because the Lord's gonna fight for you
Great jumpin' Jehoshaphat!

The army rose early next mornin', and they marched on out with the king
Jehoshaphat chose some singers, and he told those singers to sing
They praised the beauty of holiness, 'stead of shoutin' out a battle cry
And all the way down to the enemy's camp they sang to the Lord on high

They were singin'--
Praise ye the Lord for His mercy endures forever and ever
Praise ye the Lord for His mercy endures forever and ever
Praise ye the Lord for His mercy endures forever and ever
Praise ye the Lord our God His mercy will never end

The Lord God set up an ambush-- He got the enemy all turned around
And they started in killin' each other, you know, 'til they all lay dead on the ground
And the riches and the jewels that they left behind it took 'em three whole days to haul
The children of Judah all praised the Lord 'cause He saved them one and all

They were singin'
Praise ye the Lord for His mercy endures forever and ever
Praise ye the Lord for His mercy endures forever and ever
Praise ye the Lord for His mercy endures forever and ever
Praise ye the Lord our God His mercy will never end

If the parallel's not real obvious, now, I'll spell it right out for you
When you see trouble comin' to rip you off here's all that you need to do:
Pray to your heavenly Father, and believe that His Word is true
And then step out and shout the salvation of God 'cause He'll win that battle for you

(And) praise ye the Lord for His mercy endures forever and ever
Praise ye the Lord for His mercy endures forever and ever
Praise ye the Lord for His mercy endures forever and ever
Praise ye the Lord our God His mercy will never end-- it'll never end!

The truth is, the battle is the Lord’s and Christ has defeated Satan; BUT, even though the outcome has been decided, Satan is still fighting.

Christ assigned the task of binding Satan and his fallen angels, to His church:

“I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. ¹⁹And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

If we were not intended to fight in the warfare, we would not need God’s armor.  We were not intended to sit around allowing Satan to run free. 

When we ask:  “Why did God allow that that horrible thing to happen?  

God is saying: “Why did my people allow Satan to do that horrible thing?”

Good Company

In my last couple of blogs, I have been talking about the spiritual warfare that is occurring around us and which is largely ignored by the average Christian.  I mentioned that the apostle Paul stressed this multiple times in his letters to the early churches.  After writing the last blog, I thought about why Paul chose to do this?  The simplistic obvious answer is that he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to do so.  Let’s consider this for a moment.  I don’t think that the Holy Spirit downloaded these letters into Paul’s consciousness nor do I think that the holy Spirit took control of Paul’s hand, like some puppet, moving his hand to pen those letters.  Although either is possible, I guess; I don’t find it to be consistent with how the Holy Spirit is shown to operate in scripture.  Based Matthew 28:20, I believe it is reasonable to conclude that the other apostles taught Paul this after his conversion:

“Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”

Paul was taught about the works of Jesus and he carried on Christ’s work.

I earlier entertained the thought that I was just being a “spiritual MONK, seeing a demon around every corner or behind every bush. I do not think so! To better understand and grasp the seriousness of this, I want to look at the gospels, observing Christ, since many of us call ourselves “Christian”, claiming to be one of His followers, striving to be “Christ-like” and having the hope of heaven before us.

In the four gospels the words: Satan, the devil, demon, demons, evil spirit or evil spirits, are mentioned 138 times in the New King James version of the Bible.

Compare this to the word “tithe”, which is mentioned twice.

It is not my intent to get into a theological discussion on tithing or giving in general; but I do want all of those reading this to consider what I just mentioned. 

We often bemoan the fact that God has been taken out of our government and schools.  I want propose that the devil has been taken out of our churches.  You say, “I didn’t think that he was supposed to there”.  The devil has been and is being largely ignored.  We “act like”, he is not there, is not real, he has no effect.  I think that he likes it that way: “Out of sight, out of mind”.

This is NOT how Jesus, Paul, and the other apostles operated.  Scripture tells to be aware, to resist, and to stand against him and his cohorts. 

Where do YOU stand? Are you in company with Jesus and Paul?

MONK

No not the kind that live in monasteries or on the top of a mountain somewhere in Tibet.  What other kind are there?  The guy on TV. MONK.  Most of you have watched him.  For the few that have not, he is a private investigator that is paranoid, germaphobe, obsessive and compulsive.  The theme song to the show is a catchy tune “It’s a jungle out there!”  The lyrics allude to his many fears and warn that some degree of cautiousness is necessary to stay alive, given life’s everyday dangers.

It's a jungle out there
Disorder and confusion everywhere
No one seems to care
Well I do
Hey, who's in charge here?
It's a jungle out there
Poison in the very air we breathe
Do you know what's in the water that you drink?
Well I do, and it's amazing
People think I'm crazy, 'cause I worry all the time
If you paid attention, you'd be worried too
You better pay attention
Or this world we love so much might just kill you
I could be wrong now, but I don't think so!
'Cause there's a jungle out there.
It's a jungle out there

In reality, IT IS A JUNGLE OUT THERE.  Many of you may think that I am a nut and seeing Satan around every corner or behind every bush.  I assure you that I am not a spiritual MONK!

Paul told the Romans:

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³²He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? ³³Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. ³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶As it is written:

“For Your sake we are killed all day long;

We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

³⁷Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, ³⁹nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Paul told the Corinthians:

^“3For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. ⁴For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, ⁵casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,”

Paul told the Colossians:

For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.

If I am crazy, I’m in good company!  Was Paul the MONK of the New Testament!  I think not!

For all the armchair, Monday morning quarterbacks out there:

IT IS A JUNGLE OUT THERE!  A SPIRITUAL JUNGLE!

Being Picky

In my last blog, I talked about the NFL fine for wear orange shoes.  Since orange shoes are not inherently better or worse than black shoes, I assume that the reason that they are illegal in the NFL, is that the NFL is “being picky”.  Since football is a team sport, they want everybody to look alike with no individual player standing out or drawing attention to one’s self. 

Is that why God want us to wear His Armor.  Is He just picky?  Does He want us to all look alike?

I DON”T THINK SO!!!

You are free to use any armor you want.  You will not be fined.  You will not be punished.  You won’t go to hell! 

BUT

The devil will eat you up! 

God’s armor is the only armor that works against the devil.

WHY?

“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.”

You are no match for the devil with any earthly armor.  You will fall every time.  He will run over you!  If you want to stand against Satan you must put on God’s armor.

“Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”

$5000 Fine For Wearing Orange Shoes

Ephesians 6:11-12

¹¹Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. ¹²For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

Paul used the example of the Roman soldier’s armor to describe the Armor of God.  To the people alive at that time, the Roman soldier was a common sight.  Everyone, reading the letter to the Ephesians, had a visual image in their mind as they read the letter Paul wrote to them about putting on the whole armor of God.  Today most of us have a hard time visualizing what Paul was talking about.  For the average American male, it would have been better if Paul had used the typical uniform worn by an NFL football or NHL hockey player.  The seriousness of the warfare would however be trivialized.  The Roman soldier was serious business; they had the power over life and death in their hands.

With this being the case, why am I stuck on football analogies?  I think the average male sitting in the average church in America, thinks more time thinking about football, hunting, fishing, golf or any hobby, than about “spiritual warfare”.  As to the average female in the average church in America, I do not feel qualified to make any comparison.  The females reading this blog will have to do that for themselves.

Getting back to the title of this blog, on Nov. 7 of this year, one of the Philadelphia Eagles wore orange shoes, violating the NFL Uniform Rules.  For this infraction he was fined $5000.  Why?  Do orange shoes give a player an unfair advantage? Nope!  It is just against the rules!

If the NFL has rules, do you think that maybe God does too?  YES!  Well, first and last, He IS GOD!  He makes the rules!  How many of us are wearing the wrong armor?  How many of us are wearing NO armor?  How many of us don’t even know that there is a battle going on?  How many of us could not care less?

AND

We wonder why the church today is an impotent church! 

Offense wins games, but defense wins championships

There is a football saying that “offense wins games, but defense wins championship”.  It is actually a miss-quote of something that Bear Bryant once said: "Offense sells tickets; Defense wins championships".  I want to ontinue on from the verse that I used to end my last blog:

Ephesians 6: 11-12  “So take everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials. And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws your way. ¹²This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.”,

 I want to look at these weapons that we have been given, both on defense and offense.   In fact I want to look at the whole concept of “spiritual warfare”.  I hesitated to use the word “concept”; because it is not really a concept, it is a FACT!  However to the average Christian, it is foreign.  In 1991, only 35% of American adults believed that Satan is a living being; while 60% saw him as a symbol of evil. Among Evangelical Christians, 47% saw him as a symbol of evil and 49% as a living being.  69% of Roman Catholics saw him as a symbol and 26%, as a living being.  Mainline Protestants were not much different with 65% as a symbol and 27% as a living being.

This poll was repeated in 1997, and it suggested that the belief in Satan as a living being was possible slipping.

Another poll done in 2007, found only 24% of people polled, believed that Satan is a living being.

From this, I would conclude that most people, including most Christians, don’t believe in the reality of “spiritual warfare”.

With the majority of Christians viewing Satan as a symbol, is it any wonder why America is in the state it is.  Satan is viewed as a sort of “mascot” for evil.  Football teams have mascots, evil has a mascot, a little guy in a red suit with horns, pointy tail and a pitch fork. 

NOT!

The first thing we need to do is get our theology straight.  Peter tells us, “Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour”.

Mark tells us”

“For forty wilderness days and nights he (Jesus) was tested by Satan. Wild animals were his companions, and angels took care of him.”

Jesus was not tempted by a symbol!  Jesus was not tempted by some mascot for evil!

Symbols don’t devour people!  Satan does!

How can we expect to fight Satan unless we believe that he is real?

He is as real as the chair you are sitting in and the monitor you are looking at.  The Internet is a symbol.  You can’t touch it.  You can’t feel it! 

Satan is 100 times more real than that thing we call the Internet!

IT IS TIME TO WAKE UP AND FACE REALITY!  IT IS TIME FOR THE CHURCH TO WAKE UP.  IF YOU CALL YOURSELF A CHRISTIAN, WAKE UP!!!