An Ancient & Rediscovered Evangelism

…the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people how the demonized man had been cured. Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and left.
The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.
Luke 8:35-39

No one could help this man. Scripture says that “for a long time” he hadn’t worn proper clothes or even lived in a house. The locals had tried to contain this man full of demons with shackles and chains but his demonization gave him supernatural strength. Nothing seemed to help.

No one needed to convince this man that the spirit realm was real. No one needed to convince him that there were supernatural things that happened in the natural world. He was living this reality; he was being tormented by these demons daily.

When Jesus shows up, the response by the demons living inside this man is telling. They cause the man to shout at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!” (Luke 8:28)

A couple things to notice here. First, the very thing that they were doing to this man, torturing him, is what they were afraid that Jesus would do to them. In other words, just as the man had no power over the demons, the demons had no power over Jesus.

Secondly, they call Jesus the Son of the Most High God. There were other “gods”––we might call them demonically-backed idols (read 1 Corinthians 8:4-6; 10:19-21 & Revelation 9:20)––but the demons knew that there was only one Most High God.

What I find so fascinating about this encounter with Jesus is that this demonized man gets totally delivered and completely restored to his right mind, and the result is that he essentially becomes an evangelist to his hometown.

I believe this connection between deliverance ministry and evangelism will only grow in the coming years in the American church. I’m already seeing it happen. People are dabbling in the spirit realm and then finding themselves bound by darkness and harassed by demons. They don’t need convincing that the spirit realm and the supernatural are real. They are fully convinced that the spirit realm is real because they experience the dark side of it daily.

They have nightmares and night terrors regularly. They are racked by fear and can feel evil presences around them. They feel like they are being haunted or attacked by spirits, but they don’t know what to do about it. They visit mediums and fortune-tellers but they don’t seem to help. These so-called “spirit guides” actually make the problem worse. Even more darkness is hanging around after a visit with them.

What a spiritually harassed person needs is someone with answers as to how to get free. What they need is someone with the kind of authority and power that can break the demonic chains in their life. What they need is the Name that is above every other name, the Son of the Most High God, Jesus. They need followers of Jesus who carry His name, His delegated authority, and the power of the Holy Spirit to come alongside them and show them how to get free from all the darkness.

And when they get free, they will go and tell their story to their friends and family! When they get free, they will go and declare that only Jesus was able to rescue them from the hauntings, from the darkness, from the nightmares and spiritual oppression. When they get free, they will become the next generation of evangelists to a culture that already believes in the supernatural but has only experienced the kingdom of darkness. When they get free, they will become ambassadors of the freedom, power, and love that can only come from the Kingdom of Light and the name of Jesus!

…being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Colossians 1:11-14

No Demilitarized Zone

If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell…
Mark 9:43-47

What Jesus says here is so extreme! What in the world is He talking about?

First, we have to understand that this is hyperbole. Jesus is exaggerating to make a point. He doesn’t want people to literally cut things off. Jesus is trying to drive home the point that pruning unhealthy parts of our life is necessary in a life of following Jesus because there is no middle ground (also see John 15:1-6).

Jesus is trying to convey the severity of this truth: if we haven’t surrendered a part of our life to the Kingdom fo God then it has been surrendered to hell. And the gangrene of hell spreads.

We tend to frame things as if there is some neutral ground that is available to us. Jesus makes clear that there isn’t. We tend to ask ourselves, “Should I give God control of this part of my life or not?” But that is a false choice. The true question is, “Should I give God control of this part of my life or continue to submit it to the enemy?”

We tend to ask ourselves, “Should I step out in faith or remain safe in my comfort zone?” But if the Lord has asked us to do something then the true question is, “Should I step out in faith or continue to feed and cultivate the weeds of unbelief in my life?”

There is a war between the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of God and we are the battle ground. This war has no DMZ. What isn’t actively surrendered to the Kingdom of God in our life is already being used by the kingdom of darkness for the enemy’s purposes of stealing, killing, and destroying. The apostle Paul described it this way:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground…
Ephesians 6:10-13

This lie that there is some magical middle ground, some objective neutral territory, some spiritual Switzerland is one of the most prevalent lies swirling around the Church. Jesus knew this lie would be tempting to believe because no one wants to face open warfare. Appeasement is so alluring in the face of open conflict. And this is why Jesus used language that would shock us back into reality. He knew only this kind of hyperbole would be enough to break through our biases expose us to the truth.

Region of the Gerasenes

They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.
Mark 5:1-5

Jesus encountered a heavily demonized man in a Gentile region and a spiritual battle ensued. But the battle was not between Jesus and the demons. That wasn’t even a battle. Jesus immediately and easily cast a legion of demons out of the man. The real battle was over the region. When one reads the full story in Mark 5, it becomes clear that there was a demonic principality who sat over that Gentile region and did not want to be overthrown (Ephesians 6:12).

First, the legion of demons were perfectly fine leaving the man, they just didn’t want to be sent out of the region. “…he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area”(Mark 5:10). These demons had likely operated with impunity and without resistance in that region for centuries. They had gained authority in that region over the people there. And they were likely ruled by a principality who protected them.

Secondly, when the townspeople discover what happened to the man and the pigs, they ask Jesus to leave the region. “…the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region“(Mark 5:17). The people were more terrified of Jesus and His authority than they were of this crazed and demonized man living among the tombs. They likely were Gentiles and had been under the influence of the demonic principality of the region their whole life. They became as afraid of Jesus as the demons were. They needed Jesus to leave because His power and authority were a threat to all that they had normalized.

Third, Jesus was willing to leave because He didn’t want to overthrow the demonic principality of that region and leave a spiritual vacuum. Imagine overthrowing a dictator by force and having no government to replace it. Things end up worse than before. Jesus says as much in Matthew 12:43-45. So instead, Jesus enacts a subversive spiritual revolution through the man that was just delivered of a legion of demons. But the man wanted to go with Jesus. “…the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him“(Mark 5:18).

It’s like the man could still sense the darkness of the region. He knew that darkness all too well. He didn’t want to stay there. He wanted to be near Jesus. He wanted to be near the light, safety, and freedom that enveloped Jesus. He didn’t want to stay in that region still ruled by that old, familiar demonic principality. But Jesus knew that the only way to overthrow a demonic principality was through subversive spiritual revolution. In other words, the principality would be displaced when there was enough people of the Kingdom of God no longer bowing to its demands in that area.

Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.
Mark 5:19

When we first read about the demonized man with a legion of demons in him and how Jesus set him free, we can think this encounter was all about one man. And in a sense, it was about that one man. But more than that, this was about a region under the rule of the kingdom of darkness. This was about Jesus planting a small seed in the enemy’s garden and watching as it becomes the largest tree in the garden, gradually displacing all the weeds that had grown there.

The spiritual battle was not between Jesus and the demons. That is a fight that is all too easily won by Jesus. The spiritual battle was between the people of that region and the demonic principality calling the shots in that area. That is where the real battle was.

That is where the real battle still is.

The Toxicity of Unbelief

“Believe in the light while you have the light, so that you may become children of light.” … Even after Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him.
John 12:36-37

See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.

So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
Hebrews 3:12 & 19

Living in a culture that celebrates doubt can cause us to forget all the warnings from Jesus and from the rest of the New Testament against unbelief. Scripture does not paint unbelief as something that everyone should embrace as a “normal” part of life. Instead, unbelief is regularly warned against as something that is toxic and damaging.

Imagine you are in an ancient army, fighting a foreign enemy for the sake of your King and the Kingdom to which you belong. Battle can become wearisome. Armor can get heavy. There are always casualties of war and that, by itself, can be discouraging. But imagine you press through all of this to continue to fight valiantly for your King.

Now imagine as you enter the battlefield one of the soldiers behind you says, “You know, I’m not sure I believe in our king anymore. I’m not sure we even have a king. Further, I don’t think that army over there is real either. I have serious doubts that we are even in a war. This army that you talk about us fighting against, maybe it’s just a figment of your imagination. Yesterday I was talking to this nice merchant who sells furs, I think her name was Lucy, and she told me she’d pay me a bonus fee to go home. I’m tired anyway, so I think I’m going to take her up on her offer.”

What is your response to your fellow soldier? Are you inclined to coddle them with, “Oh, I totally understand. It’s normal to question whether the King is real and whether that army over there is just a fictitious mirage. Take your time and go home. We’ll be here bleeding and fighting if you ever think you might want to return.” Is that what you’d say? I hope not.

My guess is that most of us would tap into our inner Master Sergeant and begin to challenge our fellow soldier to stay in the fight. We would remind him not to be deceived by Lucy’s lies and not to give up. We’d remind him of how much we need him supporting our flank and how being tired should never lead us into unbelief, no matter how tired we get. The King has called us to war and the Kingdom needs us to be all in! It’s a privilege and an honor to be in the King’s army, even when it’s hard.

Let’s call unbelief what it really is. It is deception. And the end result of unbelief is cowardice. It’s choosing the comfort of the couch over the challenge of the battlefield.

The Power of the Spirit

Samson went down to Timnah together with his father and mother. As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring toward him. The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he told neither his father nor his mother what he had done.
Judges 14:5-6

Samson was set apart from birth. The angel of the Lord came to his mother and father and directed them regarding how to consecrate themselves and the baby to the Lord. Samson was set apart with a Nazarite vow from the time of his conception. God had a calling on his life as one who would begin to deliver the people of Israel from the oppressive rule of the Philistines.

This kind of exceptional consecration and calling resulted in an unusual level of anointing on Samson’s life. When the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, he was able to operate with an extreme level of power and authority. Samson didn’t always use this power wisely, but it was always available to him.

Then the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. He went down to Ashkelon, struck down thirty of their men, stripped them of everything and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle.
Judges 14:19

Samson’s early life is a foreshadowing of Jesus’s birth and anointing. Jesus was similarly set apart from birth and operated in a similarly powerful anointing. And Jesus was the fulfillment of all that Samson wasn’t.

Samson is also a picture of what is available to us in the Holy Spirit. Samson had the Spirit come upon him in power. We have this same opportunity. As people who have surrendered our lives to Jesus, not only do we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, but we have access to the Holy Spirit coming upon us in power. The Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us for our sake but often comes upon us for the sake of others. When the Holy Spirit comes upon us in power, the enemy gets torn to shreds.

I’ve witnessed what happens when the Holy Spirit comes upon a person who is preaching. What is released in the room is more powerful than the words that are being spoken. People are cut to the heart by the word of God. People give their lives to Jesus for the first time. People respond with their whole hearts and their whole lives.

I’ve witnessed what happens when the Holy Spirit comes upon a person in prayer. Power is released on the person receiving prayer in such a way that dramatic things happen. Demons flee. They can’t seem to get out of there fast enough. Instant physical healings take place. The person’s body conforms to the Kingdom of God breaking into the kingdom of this world. Things are set right. Wounded hearts are repaired as the love of the Father is tangibly experienced.

Without the tangible demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit, Christianity devolves into just one religion among many. But when the Spirit of the Lord comes upon us in power, and the reality of the Kingdom of God is on display, Jesus is revealed for who He really is–King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

This is how the apostle Paul describes his own ministry:

I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done—by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.
Romans 15:18:19

For Paul, to “fully proclaim” the gospel of Christ meant that signs and wonders through the power of the Spirit had to be on display. Anything less than that was not the full proclamation of the gospel of Christ. We are called to daily walk in the power of the Holy Spirit!

A spirit of rejection

Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute. Gilead’s wife also bore him sons, and when they were grown up, they drove Jephthah away. “You are not going to get any inheritance in our family,” they said, “because you are the son of another woman.” So Jephthah fled from his brothers and settled in the land of Tob, where a gang of scoundrels gathered around him and followed him.
Judges 11:1-3

It doesn’t take a psychologist to see how Jephthah being born to a prostitute and feeling rejected by his family led him to connect to “a gang of scoundrels.” This same story is playing out in our culture over and over again.

I’ve prayed for a number of people in the last couple years in extended prayer sessions that last two to three hours. During these prayer sessions we focus on inner healing and deliverance. Inner healing is when wounds of the heart are uncovered, forgiveness is given, judgments are forsaken, and the love of the Father and peace of Christ are invited in to bring healing. Deliverance is when demons, who often entered a person through the wounds of the heart or generational sin, are cast out.

It is a regular occurrence to find a spirit of rejection as the primary, and often the most insidious, demon a person is dealing with. A spirit of rejection often attacks a person in early childhood and sometimes in utero. This spirit then becomes a kind of “door opener” propping the doors of a person’s life open for other bigger and stronger demons to enter.

It’s not hard to see the strategy of the enemy here. If someone has a spirit of rejection, they feel a pervasive and constant sense of rejection from everyone in their life. Even small slights become major wounds. Over time a long line of rejections–relationships, work situations, church, and family–start to mount. The lens through which a person sees the world is colored by rejection. This is the set up.

Now when other sins start to show up in a person’s life (anger, hate, lust, pride, homosexuality, greed, fear, lying, gossiping) it is nearly impossible to address it with that person without them feeling rejected. They will live in a constant state of feeling that any confrontation of their sin is a rejection of them. They will demand full acceptance, not only of their person, but of their sin. In other words, they will so strongly identify with their sin, they will demand that you accept it as a part of them.

Loved ones are now trapped. How do you let this person know that they are fully and completely loved and yet that their sin is hurting them? A spirit of rejection is often at the root of this dilemma.

A spirit of rejection enters a person’s life at such a young age, they are often unaware of what life feels like without its talons dug into their heart and mind. Babies can often sense what is happening in their mother in utero. If a child was an unwanted pregnancy, a spirit of rejection can attach itself to that child before they are even born. It was given access by the rejection of the mother. I’ve prayed for a number of people where this was the situation.

The antidote to a spirit of rejection is to renounce it, break its bondage, and cast it out in Jesus’ name. It’s important to no longer believe the lies that rejection whispers.

Additionally, experiencing the acceptance and love of the Father is essential. God is able to perfectly love and accept who we really are and who we are created to be without embracing our sin. Without experiencing the acceptance of the Father, a spirit of rejection will often worm its way back into a person’s life. We must go to God and hear from Him about who we really are and how He sees us. A single word from Him is more powerful than years in a counselor’s office or a decade of sermons.

Jephthah was a mighty warrior. That is his true identity. That is who he was before rejection had a chance to speak a different identity over his life. We need the Father to remind us of who He created us to be. We need to daily hear His words of acceptance and love.

Has a spirit of rejection gotten a hold of your life?

Routing the enemy

Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guard. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars that were in their hands. The three companies blew the trumpets and smashed the jars. Grasping the torches in their left hands and holding in their right hands the trumpets they were to blow, they shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” While each man held his position around the camp, all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled.
When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords.
Judges 7:19-22

Gideon’s army had been reduced by God to 300 men. Yet, take notice that each man had a trumpet. This trumpet was likely a ram’s horn. And normally, I would imagine, there would be one person in charge of blowing the trumpet for a large group of men. This was the signal to charge into battle.

So, without seeing the army, the Midianites heard 300 trumpets. Normally, this would have meant 300 large groups of men would be charging toward them in battle. But no one in Israel moved, so the Midianites assumed that many of their own men who were frantically running around were the Israelites. The Lord supernaturally added to their confusion and Gideon’s army won the day.

This passage really spoke to me about the power of each soldier having a trumpet. In normal circumstances the trumpeter would have been a specialized position representing hundreds, if not thousands, of men. In Christian terms, it’s like having one or two pastors per church.

But what if every person in the church was a pastor? Isn’t that how the Church was designed to be anyway? Isn’t every person in the Church called to be a minister of the gospel?

We, as the Church, are called to be a mighty force regardless of our size. In other words, we are called to be an army where everyone has a trumpet. And rather than charging into battle, we are often called to hold our ground and watch the Lord work.

The apostle Paul had this same vision of the Church:

And he himself gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, that is, to build up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God—a mature person, attaining to the measure of Christ’s full stature.
Ephesians 4:11-13 (New English Translation)

Jesus gifted the Church the offices of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher. These roles in the Body of Christ are meant not only to build it up, but to equip the people to do the work of ministry. So, the work of ministry is accomplished by the entire church, every single person, with the people in the above roles functioning as equippers. Everyone gets a trumpet! And everyone must use it!

Instead of the church having a few pastors and 300 members, we are called to have 300 ministers with a few equippers. A church of 300 people doing the work of ministry can rout an army of darkness numbering in the tens of thousands. Gideon teaches us that!

Do the problems of our cities seem to big? Do the issues of our culture seem like a massive, undefeated army?

We need to fight like Gideon’s army! Gone are the days where one minister in a church of 300 is enough. We need 300 followers of Jesus each using their a trumpet to sound the call to battle. We need 300 people doing the work of ministry so that we can watch the Lord move in power to defeat the enemy.

Leftovers

These are the nations the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience): the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the Lebanon mountains from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo Hamath. They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the Lord’s commands, which he had given their ancestors through Moses.
The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.
The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord; they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.
Judges 3:1-7

When God used Joshua to lead the people into the Promised Land, God gave the Israelites victory in battle. They cleared out or subdued many of the people living there, but not all of them. God gives us two reasons why He left some idolatrous pagans in the land that was supposed to be holy: 1) to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience, and 2) to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the Lord’s commands.

In other words, these people and their gods weren’t left in the Promised Land because God thought they should stay. They didn’t belong there. God didn’t want them there. God didn’t want people worshiping idols in the holy land. The worship practices of these pagans were pretty vile (human sacrifices of babies, temple prostitution, etc). God didn’t leave these people there because He wanted Israel to make peace with them. God left these people there because He needed the next generation after Joshua to learn how to fight. God needed them to learn how to trust Him in battle and gain the victory, just as the previous generation did. God gave this new generation an opportunity to be tested and strengthened.

But, instead, this next generation began to adopt the practices of the people in the land. They began to worship their gods and their idols and never learned how to fight. Sounds familiar.

I have seen this truth play out in the lives of Christians over and over again. When a person becomes a Christian, they often find that they feel set free from so many of the old sins that they struggled with. And yet, there may be some areas of their life where they still don’t feel free.

Why does this happen?

It happens for the same reason God left some of the pagan peoples in the Holy Land. Just because you become a follower of Jesus whose sins are forgiven doesn’t mean that every demon is gone or that every demonic stronghold has been addressed.

Yes, you have the Holy Spirit. The land (your life) now belongs to the Lord. And just as the people of God were now dwelling in the Promised Land, the Holy Spirit now dwells in you. The process of sanctification involves gaining freedom from that which is unclean and yet has remained in the land.

For Israel, while the whole land was given to them by God, they still had to go reclaim the lands that had been redeemed. The same is true for followers of Jesus.

Question: By surrendering your life to Jesus, have you been made a 100% new creation? Answer: Yes. You are brand new. You are reborn. All of you has been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. The work now is reclaiming all that has been redeemed.

But this isn’t bad news. The Lord wants to teach you how to fight. These things were left “in the land” so that you could learn to fight and gain the victory by trusting in Him. These are opportunities to be tested and strengthened. Yet, too often Christians do what Israel did and make peace with these strongholds rather than root them out. Too often Christians begin to worship at the altars of these demonic strongholds rather than giving their full devotion to Christ alone.

I’ve seen this happen in deliverance sessions with people. I have been in prayer sessions where I cast out a number of demons from a Christian person’s life. And yet one or two demons still remain. I can’t seem to get them out. It’s as if God is leaving them “in the land” until the person really wants them out.

Up to this point, the Christian has made too many agreements–has made too much peace–with this demonic entity. And until they break those agreements, reject its presence in their life, and command it to leave (at a heart level, not just an intellectual level) the demon will stay. It has permission to stay. Yet, when the person learns themselves how to fight, the demon leaves immediately.

One time I prayed for a couple hours with a guy, casting out demon after demon. Yet, there was one that wouldn’t leave, and it kept distorting his face. A few days later, he was at home and was tired of this thing in him. So he asked the Holy Spirit what it was and how to get rid of it. The Holy Spirit popped an answer into his mind. So as he was laying down to go to sleep, the guy kicked this demon out of his life on his own. It left immediately! What I was not able to accomplish in a couple hours, he did himself in a few minutes.

Why?

Because God not only wanted to set this guy free (God always wanted him free), but God also wanted to teach this guy how to fight. And now this guy is doubly dangerous. Not only is he free from these demonic things in his life, but now he knows how to fight on his own.

So, are there still strongholds left in your own life?

Freedom is available! You don’t have to assume that the demonic stronghold is “just you.” God wants you free, but He also wants to teach you how to fight. Ask Him if there are things “in the land” that shouldn’t be there. And ask Him how to get rid of them.

Angels and other things

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.
Matthew 18:10

I was late to the worship service that night. By the time I got there, they were already halfway through the worship songs. I stood in the back of the sanctuary at the center aisle for a bit looking for any friends that I could sit with. While I was scanning the room, an African-American man in his 50s turned around and noticed me. He stared at me. When I found my friend Cam, I worked my way up the right of the pews and sat right behind him.

Toward the end of the evening, the African-American man who had been looking at me earlier came and sat next to me. He told me that when I first entered the sanctuary and was standing in the back, he turned around and saw a huge, 9-foot warrior angel directly behind me. This angel followed me as I walked. He was dressed in armor that would be typical of a first century Roman soldier. That’s how the man knew he was a warrior angel.

This wouldn’t be the last time a person with a prophetic seer gift* would tell me this same thing about this same angel. In addition to that, I’ve had four different individuals, each with a seer gift*, tell me that they see armor on me. As they describe it to me, it is obvious that it is the armor of God listed in Ephesians 6. One lady told me about my shield. One girl told me about my plumed helmet. Two men have mentioned and described the sword that I carry in the spirit realm.

*Note: having a seer gift is a kind of prophetic gifting where one can see through the thin veil that separates the spirit realm from the material realm. It is similar to when the prophet Elisha prayed to opened the servant’s eyes to see the hills full of angelic armies. Whereas in one moment the servant couldn’t see them (and Elisha could), in the next moment (after Elisha prayed that the Lord would open his eyes) the servant could see the chariots of fire that had been there all along (read 2 Kings 6:15-17). Some people have this same spiritual gift today.

I believe each person is assigned a personal angel at birth. I believe this angel is either strengthen by our intimacy with God over time or weakened by our rebellion from God over time. In addition to personal angels, I’ve heard testimony about people who’ve seen warrior angels that battle the demonic and who are always dressed in armor. I’ve also heard testimony about people who’ve seen healing angels that are like tornados of fire and worship angels who sing and dance.

I believe certain angels are assigned to us based on the calling on our lives. While we all have a personal angel, if we find ourselves in a lot of spiritual warfare, we may be assigned a warrior angel. If we delight in worship, we may be assigned a worship angel. If we often pray for people’s physical healing, we may be assigned a healing angel.

If we speak God’s words in some way, either through preaching, teaching, or prophetic gifting, we may be assigned an angel who delivers the words of God to our hearts and minds. A friend of mine told me she saw an angel whispering words into my ear when I was praying for someone. During that prayer session, I sensed the Lord speaking very specific words to my heart about the person.

There is an active spirit realm all around us every day. Do we notice it? There are angels and demons warring against each other, and you and I are often the battleground. Are we aware of it?

If you want to read more from someone who can see into the spirit realm, I recommend this book: The Veil

Fighting by not Fighting

Jehoshaphat was king of Judah (the southern kingdom) in the time when Ahab was king of Israel (the northern kingdom). Armies from Moab and Ammon came to war against Judah, and King Jehoshaphat didn’t know what to do.

Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the Lord, and he proclaimed a fast for all Judah. The people of Judah came together to seek help from the Lord; indeed, they came from every town in Judah to seek him.
Then Jehoshaphat stood up in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem at the temple of the Lord in the front of the new courtyard and said:
“…Our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”
All the men of Judah, with their wives and children and little ones, stood there before the Lord.
Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jahaziel son of Zechariah, … a Levite and descendant of Asaph, as he stood in the assembly.
He said: “Listen, King Jehoshaphat and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem! This is what the Lord says to you: ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s. Tomorrow march down against them. They will be climbing up by the Pass of Ziz, and you will find them at the end of the gorge in the Desert of Jeruel. You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you, Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you.’”
2 Chronicles 20:3-5, 12-17

There are times we need to put on the full armor of God, stand, and fight. We often too easily give up and give in. To be faithful to the Lord, there has to be a certain amount of fight in us. We don’t fight against people; we fight for people. We fight for the Lord. We fight not against flesh and blood but against our real enemy, Satan. Those who tend be passive and tend to retreat, hide, and avoid the fight need to learn how to fight.

But for those of us who are natural fighters, this passage above is a necessary correction. Some of us grew up with the message that no one was going to fight for us. And we learned early that we’d have to fight for ourselves if we wanted anything accomplished in this world. So we grew up fighting anyone and anything that tried to get in our way.

And even after we became Christians, we kept fighting for our rights, our cause. We fought anything that seemed unfair or unjust. We fought anyone that seemed to cross our boundaries or even our preferences. We started to become like a boxer beating the air.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians:
“Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air”(1 Corinthians 9:26).

God built us to be fighters. He wants us to be fighters. But in order to learn to fight the right things in the right way, we must learn how to be still and let God fight for us. We must reach a moment in our life when we realize the battle is too much for us. We must lean into dependence on the Lord. We must lay down our weapons and take up our worship. We must rest as we wait upon the Lord and watch as a battle we would normally race into resolves itself because the Lord went ahead of us and fought for us.

It reminds me of a scene from the movie Braveheart. William Wallace is totally out-gunned and outmatched by the British cavalry. His Scottish army waits as the cavalry advances at full speed. And instead of yelling, “Charge,” Wallace yells, “Steady…Hold…Hold…Hold…Hold…”

If they want to win the battle they must stand still. They must let the other army charge at full speed. And when the time comes, they will pull up long spears and stand their ground. The key to their victory is not fighting at all but instead, dropping their swords and shields, holding their ground, and letting the enemy ruin itself.

Sometimes, like Jehoshaphat’s army and Wallace’s army, we must do the same. “For the battle is not your’s, but God’s.” Sometimes we must “hold” long enough to let God move in and do what He wants to do. Sometimes we have to quell our natural tendency to fight, and instead trust. Trust that there is Someone who will fight for us. Trust that we don’t always have to be the one fighting for ourselves. Trust that the Lord will be with us, going before us, and fighting our battles.

Are you in a season where you are called to fight? Or are you in a time when the Lord is telling you to trust that He will fight for you?