The True Face of Spiritual Warfare, part 2

God has a great sense of timing. In my previous article on spiritual warfare, I described the double layer of deception that our enemy likes to use against us, where refuting the first lie risks buying into a hidden, more dangerous lie. So let me tell you what happened just a few days after I posted that article.

It started on a Wednesday. My quiet time reading that morning included this passage:

For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they are disrupting whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach – and that for the sake of dishonest gain (Titus 1:10-11)

This comes as part of a powerful warning about false teachers – a danger that we must still remain alert to today. I followed my quiet time with a prayer dog walk, as usual. To my surprise, however, I found myself struggling as I prayed, with the thought that this description applied also to me. Rationally, that made no sense: I’m not doing anything in rebellion, either against God or against the leadership of my church. Neither my pastor nor any of the other leaders has ever said anything negative about what I’m doing, either there at the church or on this website. In the children’s ministry, in fact, I teach the curriculum chosen by the department director, so no rebellion there. And as for dishonest gain… well, I’m not getting paid for any of it. This could only be an attack by the liar.

After a few minutes, though, the intruding thoughts changed. I’ve mentioned in an earlier article that I do computer art, and that some of the pictures I have created and posted online over the years are, in a word, not ones that I would create or post today. I have deleted some, but not all, of those pictures, understanding the reality that nothing that’s been online for any length of time is ever completely removed. That morning, the memory of some of those pictures came back to me, and I was hit with the thought that I might be asked to step down from any kind of ministry if somebody at my church finds those pictures, therefore I should greatly scale back my ministry now, just in case. Again, that didn’t make any kind of sense, but the feeling was strong enough that after I got home I took it to God in a time of silence and solitude. What I heard during that time was a quote from Isaiah 12:2, “I will trust and not be afraid.”

By this time, the enemy’s scheme was pretty transparent. If you’re read my previous article, you probably see it too. He was trying to frighten me with the overt lie that my past sins might disqualifying me from ministering, and the deeper, more dangerous implied lie that my actions today should be determined by fear of what might happen tomorrow. Telling me that my best course of action would be to protect myself from the danger of embarrassment by doing less, rather than trusting that whatever might happen would be used by God for Christ’s glory.

The truth is that what I really should do is lift up Jesus, regardless of any threats. If glorifying him means that people find out more of what he has rescued me from, what’s wrong with that? The intruding thoughts persisted, however. And, although I didn’t notice it until later, they got much stronger whenever I was away from home. I’ll explain the significance of this at the end.

The next day, Thursday, I exchanged texts with Shelly, a wonderful friend and sister in the Lord, while I was waiting for a medical appointment. I asked her to pray for me, telling her that “our enemy has been trying to intimidate me out of ministry by reminding me of something embarrassing from my past.” She sagely sent back, “Tell whoever you have to tell about that embarrassing thing and the devil will lose his hold on you,” which is excellent advice, but not really applicable in this case, since I’d already done that when I posted about it here. I explained further, and pointed her to the article where I’d discussed those old picture.

And in an interesting coincidence, when I came out of that appointment and started the car, the song playing on the radio was Devil Get Behind Me by Emerson Day.

After that, the attacks started getting more and more extreme, even as far as the completely ludicrous idea that I should plan what I would tell the police. Keep in mind that I live in the United States. I don’t think it would even be possible for me to create a CG image that the police would care about. (Maybe something that revealed a military secret would get their attention, but all the classified information I ever saw is now more than forty years out of date. And certainly, none of it had anything to do with any art I’ve ever created.) Absurd, yes, but also a distraction because the accusations kept coming.

It wasn’t until Saturday that I finally did what I should have done on Wednesday, and responded verbally. Part way through my prayer walk Saturday morning I realized that I hadn’t tried speaking yet, so I simply said, “You’ve lost. Whatever happens, I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing until God tells me to stop.” I spoke quietly, because I was in public, but loud enough that somebody very close could have heard me. Then I prayed, also aloud, that if it would glorify Christ for everyone to see every picture I’ve ever created, then may it be so. And if Christ would be glorified by them remaining obscure, then may nobody ever see them. Whatever happens, my prayer was for Christ to be glorified. And the attacks, those unwelcome, intruding thoughts, ended immediately.

The issue is settled now. I don’t know what’s going to happen with the pictures, and I don’t care. They’re not a secret. Nevertheless, the devil can’t show them to anybody unless God allows it. If he does, it will be for the purpose of bringing greater glory to Jesus, which I’m in favor of.

And to be clear, I was not, and am not, trusting that those pictures will remain obscure, or even that nobody will react badly to them and do something silly. I’m trusting, rather, that if I make it my goal to do the work my Father has given me to do, he’ll make sure I’m in whatever position I need to be in to accomplish that work. I’m not going to tie my ego to serving Christ in one way rather than another.

A few verses after the passage I quoted at the beginning of this article, Paul wrote that the false teachers “claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him” (Titus 1:16), and that is exactly what the enemy wants me to become, and was trying to get me to become. Lies and deception are a denial of Christ, especially if I use them to obtain (or to hold on to) some sort of ministry, rather than trusting him to bring me to (or keep me in) the service he wants me in. I reject utterly the idea that I should protect my ability to minister to others by concealing my past. Whatever I might be saying with my mouth, that kind of behavior would undermine and ultimately destroy any kind of ministry I might have. Truth honors Jesus; even truth that is, for me, a bit embarrassing. And trust honors him as well. We read in Scripture:

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you (James 4:7).

Most people like the second sentence in this verse, but the first one can’t be separated from it. There is no way to successfully resist the devil except by submitting to God. The power to overcome deception and temptation is not ours, but his.

This was an unusual temptation. It was bizarre enough that it’s pretty clear there was more going on here than just my flesh acting up. For one thing, my flesh may be dumb, but it’s not stupid enough to come up with some of the thoughts I was getting. There was something genuinely demonic in this attack (not that demons are stupider than I am, but they don’t know me the way I do.) That’s why it ended so suddenly when I spoke; I’ve observed before that demons don’t seem to be able to read my mind, but if they’re around they can hear me speak, even if it’s very soft.

I mentioned earlier that the attacks seemed to hit much harder when I was away from home, although I didn’t recognize that fact at first. And that, it turns out, makes perfect sense too. You see, back in the mid 1990s, I went with some other believers to pray over a family that had been experiencing what appeared to be supernatural attacks. That night something that I could not see, or rather several somethings, came into my room radiating hostility and fear. (This was a little while before I started encountering supernatural evil as a church custodian, which I wrote about in a previous article.) I prayed and ordered them in Jesus’ name to leave, and they did. But I didn’t get much sleep that night.

After that, I anointed every door and window with oil and stated, verbally, that any spirit who was not sent by Christ was forbidden to enter. I’ve done the same thing with every place I’ve lived since then. It was the first thing I did when my wife and I took possession of our current house, and I explicitly stated that the prohibition extended to the entire property. Catherine was with me and agreed with me. Which is why, in hindsight, it makes complete sense that the attack I experienced was much worse when I was off the property.

So there you have it; just days after explaining the enemy’s strategy of deception in The True Face of Spiritual Warfare, part 1, I experienced a nearly perfect illustration of it, which I am now sharing in the hope that others will be encouraged to submit themselves to Christ and resist the devil. What the enemy meant for harm, God used for good.

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you (Romans 16:20).