Lord, Is It Warfare? Week 1, Day 3
We are to Day 3, in the first week of Kay Arthur’s Lord, Is It Warfare? study guide. You need fair warning to know that this entry
today will force you to think through some matters that are facing our society
today. One of the spiritual battles that
we face on a regular basis is when a there is a developing fearfulness of
speaking about these things and how that you will be perceived among your
friends. It is very interesting the
subtle peer pressure that is prevalent in the church these days both among
ministers and members when we speak something that is solidly Word-based that
is opposed to a humanistic bent. Say
what you will but this is spiritual warfare!
The same spirit pushing on Jehudi to take a penknife to Jeremiah’s words
in the Old Testament (Jeremiah 36:23) wants to do the very same thing
today.
To combat this and other attacks, Paul gave us some
instructions:
·
Be strong in the Lord—v. 10
·
Put on the whole armor of God—v. 11
·
Take the whole armor—v. 13
·
Stand—v. 13
·
Stand—v. 14
·
Put on the belt of Truth—v. 14
·
Have the breastplate of holiness/righteousness
in place—v. 14
·
Put the shoes of the Gospel on your feet—v. 15
·
Take the shield of faith—v. 16
·
Take the helmet of salvation—v. 17
·
Take the Sword of the Spirit, the Word—v. 17
The following format is the manner that I have recorded
these notes in my journal. It does not
follow an active paragraph style.
-Ephesians—centers on spiritual warfare more than any
other epistle.
-Ephesus—fourth largest city in the Roman Empire during
Paul’s day. It was dependent on two
things for survival: 1) Its geographical
position as a center for trade; 2) The worship of Artemis/Diana.
-Ephesus was driven by the money that both of these
avenues brought in. All societies of any
size are driven by money. This is why
the enemy wants to get in the middle of it.
The silversmiths earned their living by their involvement with the commerce
of the temple of Artemis. They sold
their idols there and prostitutes sold their bodies (both male and
female). Innkeepers and restaurant
owners were also in the mix. They grew
rich from those traveling to worship there.
It was a lucrative thing for all to get involved for the sake of
religion.
-Also had a huge library called the Library of
Celsus. It was the third largest library
and the most important one in that time.
But there wasn’t a single copy of the Old Testament. If the Word had not been lost to them if
would have saved them and helped them. (NOTE:
Am I as a pastor, “losing” the Word on a self-help, feel-good,
warm-fuzzy, americanized, apple pie “word”?
Or am I a solid biblical preacher who is willing to forgo the uncomfortable
position that my solid, steady, systematic preaching of the Word will bring to
me?)
-Home to Artemis/Diana.
Fertility deities that exalted sensual practices. (NOTE: I was at church on Sunday night Jan 26 when
the Grammy’s were being awarded but the next day, the news was full of coverage
over what took place. If you cannot make
the connection between the 1st century activities behind the worship
of Diana and the 21st century activities of Beyonce and Katy Perry,
you have your head in the sand. We are in a spiritual war! Can you with an honest and spiritual mind
condone watching this kind of thing?
Most pastors hear crickets chirping when they preach against this in our
times because the saints have gotten so desensitized to this kind of traffic in
their homes they no longer can even sense that it is wrong in its influence and
the detrimental spiritual effect it has on our souls. Could that explain some of the spiritual
attitudes, general lifelessness in prayer and worship, and malaise toward
preaching, prayer, and worship in our day?)
-Excerpt from Clinton Arnold’s book, Powers of Darkness:
Spiritual warfare
is therefore resistance. It is a
defensive posture. It involves
recognizing the supernatural power of temptation and being prepared to face
it. It also implies appropriating God’s
power to progress in eradicating moral vices that already have a place in one’s
life. (pp. 154-155)
On the one hand,
they (truth and righteousness) need to be understood as divine endowments for
the task of spiritual warfare. On the
other hand, they are to be regarded as virtues that need to be cultivated in
the lives of believers. (p. 155)
In contrast, the
devil is the archadversary who uses many schemes designed to misrepresent,
deceive, and trick. Believers need to be
convinced and assured of the gospel’s truth and what it affirms about them as
God’s children. By implication,
believers need to conduct their lives in a manner consistent with the truth of
the gospel. Lying and deceit can have no
place in the believer’s life; they are an affront to the God of truth. Consequently, in Ephesians, Paul told each
Christian that he or she “must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his
neighbor” (Eph. 4:25, cf. 5:9). (NOTE: Contrast in this Eph. 4 passage the things we
are to “put on.”) (p. 155).
The development of
personal holiness and integrity is part of the preparation for engaging in
victorious spiritual warfare.
Conversely, a lack of integrity and personal holiness will certainly
hinder a believer’s ability to resist the onslaught of Satan’s minions
successfully. (pp. 155-156)
-No deity was more sought after than Diana. Her temple was four times the size of the
Parthenon. People traveled from all over
the world to gain a sense of worship. It
involved drunkenness, sexual immorality, and general debauchery of all
kinds.
-There was a treasury in the temple that served as a
bank. It would lend money to travelers
(worshippers) that needed it. For all
the wealth it brought to Ephesus if left men with a huge void in their souls.
1 Corinthians
10:18-22 KJV Behold Israel after
the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the
altar? [19] What say I then? that
the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any
thing? [20] But I say, that the
things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God:
and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. [21] Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the
cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of
devils. [22] Do we provoke the Lord
to jealousy? are we stronger than he?
-This passage indicates that behind every idol there is a demon associated with it.
v. 18—Those
who eat off the altar of God become partakers of Him.
v. 19—Idols of
this world cannot be ignored.
v. 20—What the
world sacrifices on its altars are things that are given to demons. We cannot fellowship with this kind of
thing! (You fill in the blanks here
about all of the American altars. . . like I had to. If you love this world, you can feel the convicting
sting of the Word here.)
v. 21—I cannot
drink out of both cups. Either I am a
participant at the Lord’s table or I am lodged at the devil’s table/altar.
v. 22—Do my
actions provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are
there spiritual and carnal paradoxes in my life?
-Behind every American idol there is a demonic influence
but my mind is often clueless to this!
This has happened because I am so spiritually sluggish and blind, that I
cannot even see it! Send revival to my
life, O Lord!!!!
-Consider the whole drive of our American society’s
altars/idols and consider the dark forces behind them:
1. Entertainment—According to hollyreporter.com,
this industry is projected to top $2 trillion by 2016 globally.
2. Sports—According to Bloomberg.com, this
industry is projected to have a revenue of $67.7 billion in the US alone.
3. False Religion—Set your own taste for
your religion.
4. Education—An ominous press toward
humanism and atheism.
5. Fashion—Another profitable industry.
6. Materialism—The discontentment of the
soul presses for more, more, more.
7. Sometimes even avenues of “ministry” can be
idol altars—Spiritual life is more than just filling seats and offering
plates. Our job is to encourage
conversion, transformation, and
8. Individualism—I will go it alone and no
one will tell me what to do.
-So God sent a man, Paul, into the middle of the whole
arena. I have no doubt that when Paul
stood in front of that massive temple that he felt increasingly overwhelmed by
it all. I am sure he thought he had no
chance to even begin to have an influence on this.
-The devil roared when Paul stepped into Ephesus. This very well could be the reason that Paul
said he fought the beasts at Ephesus (1 Cor. 15:32).
-The next instructions in the study was to go through
Acts 19 and pick out the main events in this chapter. I am not going to put all that I wrote down
but I will share a few of them:
19:9—Truth hardens
the heart of people. Don’t be surprised
by this. They would not believe it and
they spoke evil of what Paul tried to tell them. He left them and took the disciples with
them. Sometimes it is best to just move
on!
-I wrote this prayer out to myself at this point after 19:20. . . O God forgive me for all the
times that I have not been sensitive to the Holy Ghost when these promptings
have come to me. I am convicted and
ashamed that it has taken me 40+ years to get to this place and I still feel
inadequate for the task! Help me do Your
will. . .
19:24-26—Demetrius
organized a group of silversmiths who fought against the Truth. Throughout Asia, Paul’s preaching had turned
their hearts back to God. O God, breathe
on my preaching! Breathe on my mind to
take the Word in! Breathe on my efforts
at rigorous discipline! Breathe on my
prayer life and grant it passion and depth!
-The Truth will always bring some kind of conflict to
those who are opposed to God. These demons
behind the scenes in Ephesus in Acts 19 were interested in one thing—bringing total
destruction and causing great chaos.
-The next area the study guide encouraged was to work
through Deuteronomy 18:9-14 and Leviticus 19:26-28, 31. I am working through these passages in the
ESV. They are the pagan practices to be
avoided.
Deuteronomy
18:9-14 ESV "When you come
into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to
follow the abominable practices of those nations. [10] There shall not be found among you anyone who
burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination
or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer [11] or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or
one who inquires of the dead, [12]
for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because
of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you. [13] You shall be blameless before the LORD your
God, [14] for these nations,
which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners.
But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this.
Leviticus
19:26-28 ESV "You shall not
eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell
fortunes. [27] You shall not round off
the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. [28] You shall not make any cuts on your body for
the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the LORD.
Leviticus 19:31
ESV "Do not turn to mediums
or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I
am the LORD your God.
-These practices are to be avoided:
·
Idolatrous altars
·
Witchcraft
·
Sorcery
·
Necromancy
·
Wizards
-The Leviticus passage reiterates the Deuteronomy one
except it adds cutting and tattooing. (NOTE:
Here is the great question. . . Where in our society do we see these
things coming at us in a very concentrated way?
It is going to be the media influences and what Hollywood promotes. I routinely tell the folk I pastor that they
may have a vague enough sense of discernment to see through all of this and know
that it is wrong. However, their
children have unfiltered minds and have not been able to form a sense of
spiritual discernment well enough to make the right and wrong choices. Your children are to be a heritage of the
Lord but they are being baby-sat by the enemy.
No wonder our failure is so high!
This does not mean we are to be reclusive and communal but we are to
march in the world to the beat of a different drummer as did the 1st
century church!)
-Every saint ought to have a desire to be free from this
kind of influence!!!!
-Concerning the idea of spiritual warfare, Ephesus was a
hotbed for it. People lived in fear of
what they could not see but what they could feel. Because of that fear they turned to all sorts
of magic, fortunetelling, etc.
-Western culture is enthralled with a fascination of the
occult. Vampires are increasingly
popular and prominent in our times. At
my local Barnes and Noble, the teen section for girls is one of the darkest
sections in the whole store. Black covers,
black bindings, red blood, and vampires who are pictured as romantic
interests. Paul noted that these were
demons and our society is trying to develop a romantic fling with them. Themes of the occult move through the
cartoons, music, and clothes that people wear.
I am sure the devil loves the direction that America is heading.
-There are prayers of affirmation in Ephesians. It is important that we not only put on the
whole armor of God which provides discernment but also to develop a skill in
learning to pray in the same manner that Paul prayed. This will be discussed at a later point in
this series.
On a closing note, I would like for you to know that I
have used a fair amount of additional resources for this whole study. Along with books that were listed in the first
post, I have also used the ESV Study Bible published by Crossway. There are some wonderful notes under the
Ephesians 6 passage and the others that I mentioned in this post. Also the Expositors Bible Commentary is
loaded with historical information that I mentioned today. Much, much more is there if you choose to do
so.
Thanks for reading. . .
More Tomorrow. . .
Comments