41: Is Spiritual Warfare Optional? | S4E41

(00:01) Stephanie Warner: Welcome to Season 4, episode 41. Hello, Father.

(00:06) Marcus Warner: Hello, Daughter. We are back On the Trail.

(00:09) Stephanie Warner: We are back On the Trail and blazing right on ahead. Today we are starting a new topic, and this is prepping for we’re about to start – a new book study. But before we do that, I’m kind of considering the next two episodes like the prequel to that study. I considered calling it chapter zero, but you know, this is the prequel little mini-series to what we’re about to start: What Every Believer Should Know About Spiritual Warfare book study.

And you will see if you’re watching, I’m holding up [the book]. We have this in English and in Spanish. So if you would prefer it in Spanish, we had some very dedicated volunteers who helped us pull this together into Spanish, and I’m very excited that that is an offering. So anyway, the reason that this…

(01:03) Marcus Warner: Turns out they have spiritual warfare in Spanish speaking countries. Who knew?

(01:06) Stephanie Warner: Right well, and even in America and speaking Spanish. Yeah. Everywhere.

Marcus Warner: And America, which is yeah, it has Spanish speaking [people], yeah, all through it.

Stephanie Warner: And USA. Yes. So we yeah, so we just wrapped up Building Bounce. We’re going to start What Every Believer Should Know About Spiritual Warfare. And I’m also going to just preface this by every now and then Dad and I might shorthand it. Internally we tend to call it WEBSKA because it’s a very long title and if you take, you know, the first letters of most of that title, it’s WEBSKA, so if we say that, that’s what that is. So the reason that we’re doing a prequel little series is we want to address the Christians in our audience who will sometimes say, Okay, why should I care?

You know, in my everyday life, spiritual warfare doesn’t really seem to affect me. And/or maybe I don’t even like to hear the word demon, it kind of freaks me out or whatever level of that you are on, you know, some people are, you know, they don’t see evidence of it or they think people who talk about spiritual warfare maybe are a little kooky, a little seeing a demon behind every rock, you know, and there’s that gamut. So we just want to address some of these concerns, and this perspective, which is a very valid perspective. We understand it. So anything you want to say about that, Father?

(02:33) Marcus Warner: Yeah, my mind goes in a lot of different directions. But when you say demon behind every rock, I always think of what Grandpa used to say, and that was, he goes, “Well, there might be a demon behind every rock, but I don’t have to worry about all of them.” So, yeah, it’s true that if I hadn’t grown up in the family I grew up in, I could easily see myself feeling like spiritual warfare is sort of an elective for advanced Christians.

Like everyday Christians, you know, just study your Bible, pray, you try to be good, you know, go to church. Spiritual warfare felt like an advanced elective that some people took and it was like thankfully there are people who really get into this and help people, but not for me. I’m going to elect to stay out of it. So I can understand having that mindset and that perspective on it because, you know, it feels like you’re looking for trouble to go dive into this.

And so I think the perspective a lot of people have is like, you know, if you leave the devil alone, he’ll leave you alone. So don’t stir things up. My systematic theology professor in college actually said this. He said, “I advise you not to study spiritual warfare because every time I get ready for this section of the class, weird things happen around my house.” And I’m sitting there and I know more about spiritual warfare than he does as a college student just because of the family I’ve been raised in.

And I’m thinking to myself, there’s a reason weird things are happening in your house, and if you understood spiritual warfare, you could stop it. It’s like, so I get it. And I can see why people are there and I can see why people are hesitant because that’s what it feels like, right? It feels like, hey, why stir this up? Why open that can of worms? Let’s just keep the lid on it and keep living life the way that we’re already doing it. So what we want to explain is, you know, why? Why is this important? That’s kind of what we’re doing today. Do you want me to tell them? I can tell why.

(04:47) Stephanie Warner: All right, Father, why?

(04:49) Marcus Warner: Or you can do it. You want to tell them?.

(04:50) Stephanie Warner: Yeah, well I mean I would just say from the perspective as the next generation who grew up in a house like [ours], you know. You understood spiritual warfare from an early age and then I grew up in your house and I probably understood it from an even earlier age, because, you know, your parents were still figuring some things out as, you know, as you were growing up, and I think that understanding that we live in a world at war, that there’s a spiritual warfare context.

It is not the only context. And it’s not, I’m not so consumed with the devil that I’m putting more attention on the devil than God. We’re not in a dualist world. But understanding that helps me understand things like the problem of evil and it helps me understand things like, you know, I’m beating my head against the wall about this thing, but maybe it’s not me right now that’s the issue. Sometimes it is me that’s the issue, right?

But sometimes there’s another factor that I need to consider. And so ordinary problems that I’m trying to solve in the ways that everyone’s telling me, sometimes they work because it works. But if there’s a freedom issue or if there’s a spiritual warfare issue, only a spiritual warfare, you know, solution will help it. And so I think I’ve taken for granted, honestly, a lot of my life how to deal with spiritual warfare things. I’m grateful.

(06:14) Marcus Warner: Yeah, and you do. Once you have that worldview, you kind of take it for granted and you can forget that people aren’t wearing the same set of glasses and don’t look at life the same way. And so things that seem obvious to you, because you’re wearing warfare, you know, lenses, aren’t obvious to other people. And I would liken it to like, you know, germs, viruses, that sort of thing. And that is I don’t have to be a scientist who studies germs and viruses to understand some basics that I ought to know about how to keep them from really messing up my life.

And that’s kind of what we’re talking about here – like to completely ignore germs and viruses is inviting trouble, right? In the same way, to completely ignore spiritual warfare and treat it like it really is an optional, you know, elective in life is asking for trouble. Because what happens then is that you will have warfare issues arise in your life and you won’t recognize it, right? You’ll think it’s something else. And so you keep treating it like something else. And when only a warfare solution will solve that problem, you’re just leaving yourself in a bad place unnecessarily.

I can give you tons of examples [that] come to mind as I talk about this. Here’s a simple one that people might not think about. You know, most big stadium evangelists – their companies have done studies that show that something like one out of seven to one out of ten of all the people who come forward at these crusades, is there actually evidence that they continue on in their faith. So one out of ten is not real great.

There is a large stadium evangelism organization that the number is eight out of ten. Now that’s kind of enough to catch your attention. Like, what is different between the one out of 10 and the eight out of 10? And the answer is one thing. And that is that the prayer people up front who are inviting them to give their lives to Christ are also walking them through a freedom prayer right at that very first thing, saying, Let’s renounce all the ground that the enemy has in your life. Let’s get rid of all the demonic stuff that’s here, or at least as much of it as we can deal with right now. And let’s get you free.

And that one difference, that one difference, has eight out of ten people staying in the faith versus one out of ten. So there’s an example of something that you might not think about. Like who thinks about, there’s spiritual warfare involved in people, you know, becoming Christians, and that maybe we should have spiritual warfare fairly early in the discipleship process to help these people who are crossing the line from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. Maybe they’re bringing baggage with them that needs to be dealt with.

And then there’s also people like, well, I grew up in a Christian home, you know, I don’t have that kind of baggage in my life. And maybe you don’t. So that’s good and that’s great. And the chances are you’re going to run into less of this because of that, because there is kind of a covering in your life. But understanding what opens doors and what doesn’t is the same thing.

Again, I go back to the germs and viruses analogy because I don’t have to be a scientist to know I should wash my hands and to know that a certain amount of hygiene is a good idea. And that’s kind of what we’re talking about here – what are the basics that Christians need to understand about this so they don’t have to be afraid of it and they can treat it as normally and as naturally as they would treat germs and viruses.

(10:02) Stephanie Warner: I want to linger on two different things that you kind of brought up. One is I would love for you to talk a little bit more about spiritual warfare in the Bible. And I’ll link to other episodes we’ve done where you unpack that, you know, pretty thoroughly. But just you know, can people find spiritual warfare in the Bible?

(10:25) Marcus Warner: [If] they look really hard. No, I’m sorry. I’m just kidding.

(10:30) Stephanie Warner: Yeah. Well because sometimes people think that you’re reading between the lines or that…

(10:35) Marcus Warner: No, yeah, I get it. You’re right. So the founder of our ministry, Mark Bubeck, you know, he grew up Independent Baptist, you know, very Bible only, had a very Western worldview, didn’t really have much of a place for spiritual warfare in his worldview until as he was praying for revival, he felt like the presence of God meet him. And he literally said he felt driven to his knees by the presence of God. And the thought came very clear and distinctly, not quite an audible voice, but like close. It was very clear and distinct. It’s like the kind of revival you’re praying for can only happen with a powerful encounter with the adversary.

And Mark got up from that, like, I don’t know what this means. I don’t know what a powerful encounter with the adversary would be. And so he decided he would just read his Bible from cover to cover. And highlight everything in there about spiritual warfare. And he said, when he got done, he got back down on his knees and apologized and said, God, how could I have missed this? This is so prevalent and such a major theme throughout the Bible, and I have marginalized it and I have treated it like it is this elective option.

And when you read the Bible through looking for the spiritual warfare in there, it’s all over the place, and you begin to realize, this is not a minor theme. This is not a subtopic. This is actually central to the entire story of what’s taking place in the Bible. As you go back to the whole reason that Jesus came, and it says Jesus came to set us free from slavery to a master that had imprisoned us. And that he does this by transferring us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the son he loves.

And the evangelistic passages in the New Testament are constantly filled with encounters with dark forces and spiritual realities that again, if you have that mindset and you’re looking for it, you begin to realize, oh no, this is all over the place in the Bible. So I could stay here for, you know, obviously, you know, several more podcast sessions and just go passage by passage through all of the places the Bible talks about it.

(13:00) But here’s an interesting thing though. So the Old Testament doesn’t really talk about demons. There’s like a couple of places where there’s a Hebrew word that can be translated demons, so most English versions do. And one of those is saying that the gods of the nations are demons. And so if you make that little connection there, that the gods of the nations are demons, and now you start thinking about idolatry, how big of a theme is idolatry in the Old Testament?

(13:29) Stephanie Warner: So big.

(13:29) Marcus Warner: Yeah, pretty huge, right? It’s the reason for the exile, it’s the main message of the prophets, you know, it’s the first commandment, you know, no other gods and don’t worship and don’t use idols and all of a sudden you realize, oh spiritual warfare was actually the first most important commandment God put out there. And so you begin to understand that no, this is not a minor thing in the Bible. This is actually central to understanding what’s going on, not only in the Bible but in our lives.

(14:02) Stephanie Warner: Yeah. So from there, the other thing that I wanted you to linger on was what is spiritual warfare? Because some people might be just picturing, ah you know, there’s exorcism, you know, occult stuff happening or there’s, you know, paranormal activity. And that is in the scope of spiritual warfare of what we’re talking about, but we’re talking about more than that. So could you give some definitions?

(14:23) Marcus Warner: Yeah. So first and foremost, spiritual warfare is just a recognition of what the apostle Paul taught that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places. So that’s spiritual warfare is that there are dark forces out there, and He was talking to everyday Christians saying, This is what we wrestle against, and you should put on the full armor of God, and you should prepare yourself, and you should resist the devil.

And I’m like, you know, He doesn’t say ignore the devil, He says resist the devil. So, which technically is Peter and James who say that. But as I look at what spiritual warfare is, it’s fundamentally about this battle between the spiritual forces of darkness and the spiritual forces of the kingdom of God. And so salvation is about changing sides, right? It’s about changing your allegiance. And I’m no longer swearing allegiance to the darkness, I’m swearing allegiance to Jesus as Lord, and that’s why the definitive declaration of the Christian is that Jesus is Lord.

So the other thing then is that when you get into this paranormal activity and demonic manifestations and that sort of thing, that’s almost always a result of occult activity. For example, there’s a lot of elements of spiritual warfare – everything from just battling with unwanted thoughts in our head that we can’t seem to get rid of, compulsive behaviors and our thought life, to bitterness and and unforgiveness.

I’ve rarely seen, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a demonic manifestation just because somebody was believing a lie or hadn’t forgiven somebody. But once you get into the occult and somebody was actually dabbling in witchcraft, well, those people were actively engaging with demons already, and so demons had permission to do a whole lot more in their lives than otherwise might be.

(16:27) Stephanie Warner: Or maybe in their lineage or things like that.

(16:30) Marcus Warner: Or maybe in their lineage, or maybe somebody in their life was dabbling in that stuff or very actively pursuing it. And what I find is that a lot of Christians who find themselves encountering that kind of, you know, really dramatic kind of manifestation stuff, a lot of them have a family member or a friend who is heavily involved in the occult. And so when that happens, you definitely need to study a little bit more and learn a little bit more because you’re in a situation where this is just going to keep happening again and again and you need to understand what’s going on and how to deal with it.

(17:05) Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. And I think we’ll circle back to that a little bit more in the next episode and then definitely in the next book study. Can we linger on what you were talking about before in terms of taking every thought captive and you know the battle for the mind? Mm-hmm.

(17:22) Marcus Warner: Yeah, I tend to think that like level one of spiritual warfare starts with this statement that Jesus made in John 8:44, where it says the devil is a murderer and a liar, right? And that when he lies, he’s speaking his native language. And in that same passage, he said that the truth sets you free. And so in this context, it’s the idea that lies create bondage and the truth sets free. And so what Satan is after is he wants to ensnare people and trap them so that they are not effective in their walk with God and so that they are stuck and unable to make the kind of progress that they want to.

And so one of the simplest ways for a liar to get somebody stuck is to feed us something deceptive that we believe. That they go, well, if that’s true, then you know, why should I even try? And so, all of us are going to find ourselves battling with thoughts that come from the devil who is the father of them, which means not only that it doesn’t mean the devil specifically is whispering in our ears, but it means they all find their way back to him and he’s the source of them, and they all to some extent empower him.

So if we are functioning in the realm of deception, we’re kind of functioning on his turf. And so that’s true whether we are deceiving other people or whether we are being deceived. And so I would say that that’s kind of one-on-one spiritual warfare. How often are we battling false thinking that is actually making us a prisoner instead of allowing us to live in the freedom that God wants for us?

(19:20) Marcus Warner: I gave you a few examples. There’s a direct link between beliefs and emotions. And obviously in Breakthrough, I talk about five engines that drive emotions. One of those is beliefs, and beliefs are a two-way street, but I want to focus right now on when beliefs are driving an emotion. And if I believe, for example, that I’m a fraud and I’m a poser and I’m an imposter, and if people really knew me, they wouldn’t respect me, they wouldn’t like me.

So if I believe that, and I believe that that is the truth, then I will have an emotional reaction to that, and I’m going to make vows about how I’m going to live my life because of that belief. And so you get a lot of Christians this way, and that is they’ll believe things like I’m not a good enough Christian to share my faith with somebody else, right? Or I’m not a good enough Christian to try to help with children’s ministry or to do some kind of leadership thing in the church. I’m not a good enough Christian to whatever it is.

So all the devil’s got to get you to do is buy one lie, right? And that is you are a disappointment to God. You’re not adequate. You’re a, you know, fraud. And all of a sudden, all of this other stuff flows out of that one lie that we believe. And you can see how that would create bondage in a person’s life, how, you know, it creates a prison that they can’t get out of. And it’s super common. And so there’s thousands of these lies.

I know a friend who was working with somebody with an eating disorder, and they call eating disorder Ed, E-D, right? Eating disorder, Ed. And so in the group that they’re in, they talked about Ed like a person. And they’re like, Don’t let Ed lie to you. Don’t let Ed, you know, whisper the [lie], you know. And this person was like, Ed doesn’t just lie to me, Ed screams at me.

(21:21) Marcus Warner: It’s like there was something at another level going on in their brain. And so it can escalate quickly from kind of fraud, you know, imposture syndrome and escalate up to I’m unlovable, I’m worthless, you know, to things that are just screaming in my head and it can escalate. And in her case it had escalated to the point where she had a massive eating disorder. And then one day my friend taught her a spiritual warfare perspective on what was going on here. She commanded whatever demon was telling her these things to leave. And it did. It left.

And it turned out it was calling itself Ed. And she overnight, in her case, got delivered from her eating disorder. Now, obviously, like I said, [there are] five engines that drive these things. That’s not the case for everybody that, you know, spiritual warfare prayer will end it, but it did [here]. And I actually have heard hundreds of stories like that where somebody was set free from something they thought they could never be free from simply by treating it like a spiritual warfare problem and applying a spiritual warfare solution, and they found relief from things that they didn’t think they could ever get relief from because they were only dealing with it in secular ways.

(22:44) Marcus Warner: And unfortunately, even a lot of Christians, once they exhaust all the secular options first, and then they turn to the new age. And the last thing they try is, you know, Christian spiritual warfare. And so I just think that it affects a lot of people more than they realize.

(23:01) Stephanie Warner: Right, because again, if it’s not a spiritual warfare issue and you can handle it in the, you know, more traditional ways that you would think about it, and that’s great. It’s fine. We’re not saying again that every eating disorder is a demon or that, you know, like there aren’t other factors, but sometimes it is [a demon]. And if you’re not dealing with the demon, if you’re not dealing with the spiritual warfare nature of your issue, then it’s not going to go away. and so that’s all we’re saying…

(23:27) Marcus Warner: Yeah, and we’re also saying that there are levels and it can escalate. And so what happens is the longer you believe lies and the more lies that you believe, the more spiritual warfare you’re going to have in your life, whether you recognize it or not. You know, and just talking about recognizing spiritual warfare. I think again of, you know, your grandpa, he and my mom, you know, they were missionaries in Africa. And I asked him one time, I said, I bet you saw a lot of spiritual warfare when you were missionary. He goes, you know, yes and no. He goes, There was a lot of stuff going on, but I thought I was just seeing superstition.

In other words, the category of my mind, I was so secular in my training and whatever. I thought, these poor superstitious people, we just need to help them understand that there’s no such thing as demons and there’s no such thing as these wicked spirits bothering them. And he had a very kind of secular view of Christianity. And as a result, he had no solutions to offer these people with the bondage that they were in. And later, that was one of his great regrets. Like if he could go back there, he would have changed it.

And he ended up being able to help a lot of missionaries who did go back into that field deal with these warfare issues. And they saw great fruit in their ministries as a result of dealing with reality as it actually was, which raises this other thing, and that is, a lot of people think of spiritual warfare as something that happens over there. Like, sure, it happens in Africa. Okay, I can see that. But yeah, that happens when there’s witch doctors. But America is experiencing an occult invasion and we’re seeing it more and more. And for us, secularity has had such a stronghold in our culture that it has put blinders on a lot of us so that…

(25:18) Marcus Warner: We wouldn’t recognize it if it was right in front of us. The classic example of this that comes to mind as soon as I say that is there were actually some researchers at a major university that were practicing table levitation. They were like they didn’t believe in spirits, they thought this has gotta be some kind of energy, what’s going on, and so they were literally putting their hands on a table and it levitated in the room and they were chasing this thing around the room, trying to keep up with this table.

And never once did they entertain the possibility that it could be spirits that were making that table move. They were just committed to the idea, this has to be energy from our minds making this happen. And so, that’s why you sometimes have to test these things to kind of say, well, is that what it is or is it something else?

And one more story while we’re on stories, right? In a similar way, a missionary was observing a pagan ritual in a foreign country in which the person in the ritual was levitating and was inhabited and you could see the change and you could hear a different voice coming through this person than before.

And again, these Western researchers would have said, isn’t it amazing what the power of the mind can do and energy can do? Those people were like, this is our god and this is a blessing and this is a good thing. And the Christian missionaries ]were] going, I think this is demons. So the same event taking place, but three completely different interpretations of how you would explain that event.

And so what’s the test? Well The Christian missionary just quietly under his breath said, In the name of Jesus, I renounce everything demonic that’s happening here. And as soon as he said those words in Jesus’ name, the guy levitating fell. And he landed in the middle of the circle and he lost the ability to speak for the spirit, and everybody gathered around, like what in the world? And they all in unison turned, looked at the missionary and said, you have to leave. And so, even with that, their interpretation was this isn’t working because we have an unbeliever.

(27:36) Marcus Warner: Where he is like, No, this didn’t work because the authority of Jesus stopped that from happening. So I’ve obviously escalated, you know, this whole situation to…

(27:47) Stephanie Warner: above the mind, levitating people, you know.

(28:15) Marcus Warner: Yeah, I mean, but part of the reason you tell stories like that is to get into the black and whiteness of how sometimes even something as obvious as that, this is the power of our worldview and the power of our lenses through which we look at life is like you can see spiritual warfare and not recognize it for what it is if you’ve got lenses on that refuse to see it that way. And if those are your lenses, the problem is you’re going to miss out on solutions that would be available to you if you just kind of understood.

It’s no different than you know the debate that took place in the medical community over whether [or] not to wash their hands between surgeries back in the 1800s. And the argument was if we take the time to wash our hands, it’ll slow us down and people will die. Right? And when you don’t know about germs and viruses, that makes sense.

But the new wave of doctors that were saying, actually there are these invisible things to the naked eye that you can’t see that are affecting it, and simply washing our hands will actually make more people live. There was a huge battle in the medical community over which was right. And both sides were like, people are dying because they aren’t seeing this properly. And so that’s the way I look at it, like spiritual warfare is somewhat the same way, and that we’re saying, no, there are germs and viruses. There are these things there, and people are dying and their lives are being ruined because people are not dealing with them.

And so we need Christians to understand how they work, what’s going on here, just basic stuff. What we want is not to bring fear into the Christian walk. What we want is to bring faith and confidence and boldness into the Christian walk, and solutions that people might not know are available.

(29:47) Stephanie Warner: Absolutely. Yes. And we are going to continue unpacking this in the next episode. Thank you everyone who is On the Trail with us around the world. We’re so pleased to be able to offer this podcast for free. Thank you to all of our financial partners and our prayer partners and our volunteers and all of you in the comments and in direct messages and all the things. I just love our community. We love our On the Trail listeners and yeah, thank you for being with us. Father, any final thoughts for today?

(30:19) Marcus Warner: No, I just think we were trying to talk to people who are like, why should I care about spiritual warfare? How relevant is it really? And I’m like, I think it’s kind of something that we all need to have a basic understanding of. And clearly it’s just like, I put it in medical terms. There’s some basic medicine that everybody ought to know. You know, how to put on a band-aid, how to disinfect a wound, you know, how to do things.

And then maybe you go to the next level of how to splint a broken leg or how to give CPR or something. And then you go up into, okay, now I’m actually a medical practitioner, now I’m a surgeon, all these other things. So in the same way with spiritual warfare, there are levels that we go up. What we want is to make sure that everybody has a fundamental knowledge of what we might call first aid, spiritual first aid. And like you don’t have to be a doctor. But everybody ought to know some basics about spiritual first aid.

(31:16) Stephanie Warner: Awesome. I look forward to continuing this conversation next week.