John MacArthur - Standing strong: how to resist the enemy of your soul

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the staff of Grace to You who lent their editorial expertise to this project. Particular thanks to Randy Mellinger, who arranged and edited this book from sermon transcripts.

Contents

Introduction

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail a materialist or magician with the same delight.

C. S. Lewis

Lewis was right. Unfortunately, strands of both errors exist in todays church. On the one hand, some Christians are materialists who fail to understand that the Christian life is a fierce spiritual battle.

One reason for a materialistic attitude is indifference. When your world is an easy place to live in, its easy to forget that a spiritual war is going on. Its easy to forget that millions of souls in the world are in the grasp of Satan. And its easy to forget that Satan always takes advantage of Christians who are lethargic, indolent, or spiritually stagnant. He loves it when Christians try to hole up in a sanctified environment instead of fighting the battle. Yet that is precisely the agenda of many churches today. People are trying desperately to enjoy fellowship while remaining indifferent to the battle.

Another reason for being materialistic is worldliness. Too many Christians crave earthly, temporal pleasures instead of the rigors of warfare. They seek a life of easea life of entertainment and activities, never realizing their role in the battle of the ages. A believer who invests his or her time and resources in mundane things wont understand spiritual warfare.

A Christian who had a deficient view of Gods grace said to me, The wonderful thing about the Christian life is that basically you can do whatever you want. Believers are not handed a free pass to do what they want. They are called to obey Christ, the Commander in Chief. In Matthew 16:2425, Jesus raised this call: If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

We cant let spiritual warfare rage around us without joining the fight. Its vital that we take spiritual inventory by asking, Am I making a difference in the fight? Too many will settle for indifference and worldliness. Satan has a heyday with such Christians. My prayer is that your devotion and commitment level will deepen when you understand how to meet the enemy.

On the other hand, there are also many in todays church who have an excessive and unhealthy fascination with demons. The following article, which appeared in the Los Angeles Times , illustrates this obsession:

Under the militant banner of spiritual warfare, growing numbers of evangelical and charismatic Christian leaders are preparing broad assaults on what they call the cosmic powers of darkness.

Fascinated with the notion that Satan commands a hierarchy of territorial demons, some mission agencies and big-church pastors are devising strategies for breaking the strongholds of those evil spirits alleged to be controlling cities and countries.

Some proponents in the fledgling movement already maintain that focused prayer meetings have ended the curse of the Bermuda triangle, led to the 1987 downfall in Oregon of free-love guru Baghwan Shree Rajneesh, and for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, produced a two-week drop in the crime rate, a friendly atmosphere and unclogged freeways.

This is not the cinematic story line for a religious sequel to Ghostbusters II, yet the developing scenario does have a fictional influence: interest in spiritual warfare has been heightened by two best-selling novels in Christian bookstores. This Present Darkness, by Frank Peretti, describes the religious fight against territorial spirits mobilized to dominate a small town. A second Peretti novel has a similar premise.

Fuller Seminary Prof. C. Peter Wagner, who has written extensively on the subject, led a summit meeting on cosmic-level spiritual warfare Monday in Pasadena with two dozen men and women, including a Texas couple heading a group called the Generals of Intercession and an Oregon man who conducts spiritual-warfare boot camps.

More and more Christian leaders seem to be championing such efforts. I know of a large conservative mission organization that is requiring all its missionaries to attend special training seminars to learn how to confront and assault the powers of darkness. Their strategy includes speaking to demons and learning techniques for exorcising them. It is becoming very popular to deliver incantations against Satan and supposedly rebuke or bind him.

What about this fascination? Do believers need to attend spiritual-warfare boot camps? Are we to break the stronghold of demons so we can regain cities and countries? Should believers speak to demons and cast them out? Can we actually bind and rebuke Satan?

Certainly Christians are engaged in a struggle against the powers of darkness, for in Ephesians 6:12, Paul said, Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Many of the practices of todays spiritual-warfare movement, however, are in stark contrast to the clear teaching of Gods Word. Dr. Archibald Alexander, the first professor of Princeton Seminary and a brilliant theologian, wrote:

There is nothing more necessary than to distinguish carefully between true and false experiences in religion; to try the spirits whether they are of God. And in making this discrimination, there is no other test but the infallible Word of God; let every thought, motive, impulse, and emotion be brought to this touchstone. To the law and the testimony; if they speak not according to these, it is because there is no light in them.

Gods Word must be our only guide for all we believe and practice. Lets examine what Scripture says about spiritual warfare in contrast to the beliefs, practices, and experiences of those in todays spiritual-warfare movement.

Notes

DRAWING THE BATTLE LINES

A senator concluded his resignation letter with this honest admission:

Over a period of years, as I drank the heady wine of power and influence, my priorities in office became distorted. Success and recognition were foremost; honesty and adherence to the law were not at the center of my focus. Like some others before me, I placed undue emphasis on raising funds, on achieving political status and on impressing my friends. Strict compliance with the law would have allowed me to perform my public service without becoming the center of one controversy after another over the years.

I wish my colleagues well and it would please me if someone benefits from what I have said and rededicates himself or herself to staying clear of the line.

When you are willing to walk close to the line, whether for political success, personal gain or to help your friends, you risk waking up one day to find out that you have long since crossed a boundary that you vowed you would never cross. That is where I find myself today. Goodbye. Good luck. Thank you. I apologize. Please include me in your prayers.