We live in a world which is influenced and partially controlled by powerful, malignant spirit beings. The purpose of these forces of spiritual darkness is to resist the advancement of God’s kingdom, both in the world and in people’s lives.

In recent years, there has been a heightened interest in the unseen reality of evil. Because of this, Pastor Brian Brodersen updated his book Spiritual Warfare and gave it a new title: The Powers of Darkness and the People of God. It still deals with the subject of spiritual warfare, but the emphasis is to help the individual Christian in his or her personal battle with the powers of darkness. Our prayer is that this book is a blessing and a help to a new generation of readers.

Available Copies at backtobasicsradio.com.

Many Christians begin their life in Jesus Christ somewhat ignorant of the idea of spiritual battle. They find it easy to ignore what the Bible teaches – that is, that there are spiritual beings of intelligence and power that seek to defeat and hinder God’s people. Through a combination of experience and instruction, they learn the truth of this spiritual battle, and the most common passage in the Bible regarding the spiritual conflict begins at Ephesians 6:10.

It’s a rich passage, teaching us about spiritual strength, the nature of the battle, and the armor and weapons available to the believer in the conflict. What the Apostle Paul wrote about spiritual warfare has fascinated Christians for a long time, probably because it touches the life experience of almost every follower of Jesus.

One pastor captivated by the themes of this Ephesians 6 passage was named William Gurnall. Starting in 1655, he published his book, The Christian in Complete Armour, an explanation of Ephesians 6:10-20. In his dedication, he described his book as a “mite” and a “little present,” but it contained three volumes, 261 chapters and 1,472 pages – all on those 11 verses.

This is how Gurnall subtitled his book:

“The Saint’s War Against the Devil, wherein a discovery is made of that grand enemy of God and his people, in his policies, power, seat of his empire, wickedness and chief design he hath against the saints; a magazine opened, from whence the Christian is furnished with spiritual arms for the battle, helped on with his armour, and taught the use of his weapon; together with the happy issue of the whole war.”

There is a lot to think about in the Ephesians passage, and Gurnall thought it was worth 1,472 pages. Yet I think the most important word in the famous Ephesians 6:10-20 is the first word of that passage: “finally.”

Look at the verse: “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might” (Ephesians 6:10).

The word, “finally,” obviously means that this comes at the end of the letter to the church in Ephesus – a letter in which Paul carefully established our place in Jesus, and then the basics of the Christian walk. The spiritual warfare passage is Paul’s last section dealing with the Christian walk.

We can say it this way: The foundations for success in spiritual warfare (and our entire Christian walk) are the truths and principles found in the previous sections of Ephesians. Everything about our spiritual battle comes, finally, in light of all those things described earlier in Ephesians:

. In light of all that God has done for you.

. In light of the glorious standing you have as a child of God.

. In light of His great plan of the ages that God has made you part of.

. In light of the plan for Christian maturity and growth He gives to you.

. In light of the conduct God calls every believer to live.

. In light of the filling of the Spirit and our walk in the Spirit.

. In light of all this – finally – there is a battle to fight in the Christian life.

Before you launch out into spiritual battle, give attention to the basics, the foundations of Christian living – who Jesus is and what He did for you. Build on those foundations explained from Ephesians 1:1 to 6:9, then we come to the important subject of spiritual battle – but not before.

I once watched a debate between Frank Turek and Christopher Hitchens. The topic was, “Which explains the existence of the universe better, theism or atheism?” Frank was loaded with points, facts, and spoke easily and effectively. Christopher responded with disdain and contempt. He did not quote facts, cite studies or use any hard science at all. The gist of his reply was, “I hate God. So, if I don’t tell God how fabulous He is, I’m going to hell? Is that it?” The audience’s sympathy obviously lay with Christopher, and they cheered him often during the debate. Frank was dead in the water. He didn’t make any headway in the face of such contempt and engage-less debate.
I couldn’t answer that, either, and it started me thinking. Christopher’s big point was God is egocentric and arbitrarily demands worship where none is deserved. People resonated with that and showed their agreement. But Christopher is really wrong. Do you know why? Because Christopher can’t tell the difference between the devil and God.

Here’s how the devil became the devil.

He was created to be an amazing, angelic being. Somehow he began to consider his own beauty over that of God. This is what God says of him: “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I put you before kings, that they may see you” (Ezekiel 28:17).
This angel turned away from seeing the eternal glory of God and began to contemplate his own created beauty. And God tells him he destroyed his wisdom in so doing. What is any glory in comparison to the glory of the only true God? There is no other glory. This is where the angel began to be the devil:
“How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations! But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit” (Isaiah 14:12-15).
The angel thought that being God means power and glory, and evidently, thought, “Hey, I got power! I got glory! Why aren’t I God? Why should He be God? I want to be God!”

What does it mean to be God?

What makes Him God? We immediately think of the attributes of God: He is everywhere at once (omnipresent), knows everything (omniscient), is all-powerful (omnipotent). What else do we think makes Him God? He is the Creator, eternal (thus, not created), holy, personal, outside of time, not limited in any way. He is glorious, blessed forever, satisfied within Himself (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), and therefore, doesn’t need anything outside Himself. He doesn’t need the universe to bow down and worship Him. He doesn’t have a crisis of identity such as: “Wow, nobody worships Me! That really hurts My feelings.” I have taught this subject before and asked the question, and people generally answer along these lines.

But there came a point when God took all the attributes that we consider intrinsic and essential to being God and laid them aside.

He became born as one of His creations, a human being. Paul speaks of this in Philippians 2:
“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:5-11).

Jesus has the form of God, meaning essence. It’s who He is. Unlike the devil, He was not trying to be equal with God: He is there already. He is God.

But then Jesus did not consider His position and essence as something to hold onto at all costs. To obey the Father’s will, He emptied Himself. This is a mystery, because we, as human beings, cannot change our essence. I can change my shirt. I can take off my ripped t-shirt, and change into a shirt and tie, and look better on the outside, but I can’t change my arm. It’s part of me. It would be cool if I could exchange my arm for one that looked like the Hulk with lots of muscles. But Jesus, laying aside His attributes, would be like me laying aside my arms, my legs, my internal organs, my bones. He laid aside what we would consider essential to being God and took the form (essence) of a slave. The form of God merging with the form of a slave is not a contradiction. The two co-exist. He did not stop being God. He was God even without all the things that we consider essential to being God.
When Jesus was asked by His disciple, Philip, to show them the Father He said: “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14:9).
Imagine the disciples looking at Jesus, trying to see the glory, the power, earthquakes, angels crying out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!” All there is to see is a man about their size, looking back at them with amazement (“You guys don’t get who I am!”) But He said it. When you see Jesus, you see what God is really like.
Being in appearance as a man (like my shirt sleeve), He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death. This is really the important point: He humbled Himself. He is God, but He did not think about Himself; He thought about the Father first and others second. Nobody made Him submit; He submitted Himself to the Father. He voluntarily took a position that was concerned, not with Himself, but with all others. He served God and all other people by giving His life to make propitiation for them. No one has humbled himself more nor served more people than Jesus.
This is why God is going to make the whole universe of intelligent creatures bow down before Jesus and acknowledge that Jesus is God. Jesus clearly shows us who God really is, not a tyrannical CEO at the top, ordering people around, making things go His way or else. He is the one who loves and cares about people far below Him who despise and hate Him, and will even give His own life to save them. He does not think about Himself, but about others. He is humble.

Humility is the essential nature of God. This is what makes Him God.

All the power, knowledge and abilities are cool but, in His mind, are not essential to who and what God is. He does not think on Himself but thinks on others. I imagine someone saying, “Okay, that’s cool, but how important is this, really?”
Well, the Bible says I am nothing without love. But love means suffering long with the Beloved and being kind. If I care more about myself than the Beloved, I won’t love the Beloved. The Beloved is a pain to live with. But if I don’t think about my own personal comfort, then I can value the Beloved more than myself and preserve the relationship at all costs because that’s what love does. The Bible says God is love. And without humility there is no love. Humility is the precursor for love.
How about obedience? Obedience cuts across our personal comfort. At some point, it will be personally inconvenient to obey the one to whom obedience is due. If I value my own comfort more than my obligation, I won’t obey. Jesus was obedient to the point of death. No humility, no obedience.
How about faith? If I am thinking on myself and my wisdom and abilities, I am not going to depend on someone else. Without humility there is no faith.
Learning requires humility. If I think I know it all, I am not going to listen to someone who I consider beneath me. What can he show me? Humility says, I know some but not all. A wise man is humble and keeps learning. Without humility there is no learning.
Think about any good character trait. The basis for that trait is humility. It is the source of every good thing. And God is good because He is humble. That is what it means to be God.
If you reverse it, you find that every evil thing comes from pride and arrogance, which is thinking more of myself than is warranted. Arrogance means only I am important, and I can be indifferent to those around me. I can treat them any way I want because they aren’t important. I can be brutal. I will be ignorant, because no one can teach me anything. I will be disobedient, unloving, undependable and incapable of keeping a relationship together.
This is really like the devil. He is not humble; he thinks only of himself. He would not and could not disregard himself to serve someone else. He only wants to serve himself, and he wants everyone else to serve him too.

God shows us through the example of the devil that pride and desire for personal glory is not worthy.

It leads to every wicked thing. God shows us through Jesus that humility leads to every good thing. Humility is worthy of glory and honor.

So, to get back to Christopher, he is actually right in being disgusted at a being who is bent on self-glory. But he is angry at the wrong person. Everything he despises, God despises too. Christopher attributed the pride of the devil to God and ignored Jesus, who serves and blesses the world. That is unworthy and wrong.
Christopher is no longer among us. He now knows the truth. It’s too late for him to change his mind about the God he despised. But how about you? Can you tell the difference between the devil and God?

Yes, I believe that there is a devil out there who prowls around like a roaring lion looking for anyone to eat up. At the same time, I don’t want to devote any time to thinking about him. There are some people who give the devil way too much credit and too much attention. They spend much of their time talking about what he is doing, blaming him for everything that goes wrong, looking for him in every holiday celebration, and worrying about what he is scheming next.

Although the devil is a fierce opponent, he is also a defeated foe. The apostle John declared, “Greater is He who is in you than he that is in the world” (I John 4:4). I want to make sure that I am giving Jesus the majority of my time, energy, attention, and service. The Bible teaches that God is able to use whatever Satan throws at us for our ultimate good. When Joseph’s brothers plotted evil against him (no doubt under the influence of the devil), God used their cruelty to place Joseph on the throne of Egypt and save the Israelites. When Satan sought to destroy Job, God only allowed Satan a limited period of time before He stepped in and blessed Job doubly for what he had endured. When Haman plotted to destroy Mordecai and the Jews in Persia, the “opposite occurred” and Haman was hung on his own gallows. When Paul was hindered from going to Thessalonica by Satan, he wrote a glorious epistle that has edified millions of people all over the world for centuries. However, the greatest demonstration of God’s superiority is seen in the cross of Jesus. There, on the cross, what Satan meant for destruction became the tool by which God saved the world. Paul speaks of this great victory in Colossians 2:13-15 when he writes, “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all your trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.”

Rather than placing our concentration on the devil, I like what Jude instructs us to do, when Satan comes up against us – (v.9) simply say, “The Lord rebuke you.” We don’t need to spend time on the devil or with the devil. We need to spend our time in the pursuit of Jesus Christ and doing His will. God will tend to the devil if we tend to Jesus!