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Waking Up to the War: An Introduction to Spiritual Warfare (Ephesians 6) · Accidental Bible Scholar

• Randy: Hello, I'm Jeff Hard here with Randy Spear, and welcome back to the Accidental Bible Scholar podcast. It's episode thirty-five. Thanks for joining us. We're glad that you're listening. Reminder, John seventeen three says that eternal life is knowing God, the Father, and his son, Jesus Christ. And it's our hope and prayer that this podcast helps you in your walk, encourages you in your walk and relationship with him. If you have any questions or concerns or Topics you'd like to hear us discuss further, just email us at contact at accidental bible scholar dot com. Our podcast you can find on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, iHeartRadio, YouTube, that has video along with it. Although we have a face for radio, not for video. We will release new episode every Thursday, so you can expect that. If you go to our website, which is not completely perfect, but it is very functional. You can find our podcast there and links to those podcasts. the podcast and to the respective ones I mentioned above and that is w dot accidental bible scholar dot com. We're continuing our study of Ephesians. The next few will wrap it up as we're gonna talk about spiritual warfare. And this is an intro podcast to that topic which will be several weeks. we just finished up the last two weeks on Ephesians six one through four and parenting. So if you're interested in that and didn't hear, you can go back and listen to the last few weeks, but We're excited. Randy, let's roll All right, let's get going. Okay. Like you said, the next few weeks, don't know how many it'll be, 'cause I don't have it all written yet for one. Yeah. but it is talking about spiritual warfare. spiritual warfare is interesting. It it has a very broad meaning. There's I don't know how many books out there that have that are titled Spiritual Warfare and they all address slightly different stuff. and we're gonna address a few different facets of it as we go. But I put here spiritual warfare could really just be called life. That's something important for us as a believer to recognize that that this is not a unique thing that comes at a unique time. This is every single day that we live. We are we have an enemy that is a has his forces arrayed against us and and ready to go. but the fact is that you and I are engaged in an all out war every second of every day. Right. And we don't realize that we're gonna get beat up pretty bad. Yeah. I give the example here of the United States on September eleventh, two thousand one, we think of as the war on terror began, or we think of this war began. The war'd been going on for over a decade. We just didn't realize it. We We in the military knew it and and were raising, you know, the warning flags at different levels. But we as a population, we as a nation, had denied it and really didn't want to look at it or deal with it. And then September eleventh, I think probably the terrorists kinda made a mistake, to be honest, in that they woke us up. Yeah. to this fact that they're they're we are engaged in a war. So we need to wake up. in war to be successful, you must meet the threat head on. If you ignore it or try to steer around it or whatever, it's not gonna happen. So I'm gonna use mine and if you want to throw it in there, kinda experiencing you wheel about warfare, how long were you in the Air Force for? Twenty three years. Twenty three. See I gotta I keep putting these questions on you. You keep getting it right. I was in it for twenty six years and you'll you'll back me up on this, I spent pretty much every day learning to be a warrior, learning how war works and then how we are to maneuver our particular airplane or unit or whatever we're doing it. You and I studied warfare at the both the tactical level, the operational level and the strategic levels. And so I I bring some of that mindset and some of that operational understanding into this of how we employ warfare in this study. I'll I'll bring some of that out. For you and I, the tactical level find fighters that the tactical level was the most fun, right? I mean that's the fun part. It's the equivalent of hand to hand combat in a you know, in a ground war kind of thing. So the fighter pilot version for dog dog for us dog fighting, we'd we I know you know this, I'm telling the audience, but you we would be we plan on being outnumbered by a lot. So we would we would plan the first engagement about thirty to forty miles out, try to get rid of many that we can, then we would regroup our tactics kinda had us fallen back and then we'd we re-engage say around the twenty nautical mile range, get rid of as many as we can or at least dishearten them as well, the ones that were left, dishearten those. And then once we get down into the into the the visual arena or the visual fight, that's where when we're training the fun part happened. That's where we hopefully gotten rid of a bunch got there and we're not as outnumbered as we were. but we kind of planned on being outnumbered. Our tactics were such that that we would do that. And but we also ensured through constant training that that we were when it came to that file, we were the ones that with the superior skill, the superior aggression, and a hundred percent sold out to that. And that that's not really an option, no other option for the warrior if he wants to be a a successful warrior. I put here and I'll tell you quick story. No warrior wants war. But if there is war, every warrior wants to be the one in the fight. Right. I mean, you don't want to be on the sidelines. You've been trained forever. And my opportunity came on the night of January sixteenth, the morning of January seventeenth, nineteen ninety one. I was in a living in a tent city out in the middle of Saudi Arabia and with an F-15 C squadron from Bitburg, Germany, and and my force ship we were gonna do that night. We'd been flying a bunch and we were gonna do a show of force exercise mission at night along the Saudi border, Saudi Iraqi border. That was our plan and we were asleep during the day. And then a guy came to our another pilot came to our Tent woke us up a little early. We said, Okay, while we're here early, he goes, your mission's changed. they just need you to be out there a little earlier. So we go, Okay. So he seemed kinda like we were in a little bit of a hurry. So we got dressed. he and then we said, he goes, you got time take a shower. So we went and took a shower, got ready for the day, came back and we were just gonna go and we're gonna we're like, Okay, we'll grab some protein bars or something 'cause, no, you got time for breakfast and we're like which was dinner at you at the chow hall and then we're like, You know, okay. Well, to you wake us up early and we've got to be early and now we got time for all this. So we went and ate. He sat with us in total, you know, silence or just, you know, talking about stuff that done doesn't matter. By this time it's dark, we come to the squadron, which is a big long tent. And my best friend in the squadron, he was going he was leaving work 'cause he'd been mission planning all day and I think he might have flown that day. And he met me and he goes, Come and he pulled me off to the side. He goes, Dude He goes, the war starts tonight and you're the first one in. And he was like so excited. He could he was like, Congratulations. He was like, my goodness. So I came in when I walked into the squadron, the lights are on. We're not supposed to have known what happened yet necessarily 'cause then nobody told us. But everybody is beaming. Everybody's got a grin on their face they can't wipe off. It's not because we were seeking war or want war, but if war's gonna happen, we're we wanna be in the game. Yeah. Right. So we wanted to be there. I put here I was twenty-six years old. I had a three month old daughter and a twenty-five year old wife in Germany. They weren't even in the US because we were stationed in Germany. And but there's nowhere else I'd rather be at that moment. And that's hard for maybe some to understand. but that's just the way warriors are. And and for us, it's time for us as believers of Jesus Christ, if we haven't, we need to engage. It's time to step up. I've heard I'll just re-arry. It's time to put on our armor, Ephesians six, and step into the battle. It's time to wake up, gear up, the war is real. So that's my kind of let's get fired up and go. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. So, and we're gonna study Ephesians six about the individual armor that we have. But then we'll we'll probably expand it into other aspects of of the spiritual warfare that's around us every single day. when you're thinking about war, I think it should start at the strategic level. There's a lot of big questions that the strategic level must answer. you know, in in the warfare you and I are in, that's at the presidential level, at the combatant commander level, and at the what we call the J FAC, the Joint Forces Air Air Component Commander at his level, he needs to tell us a few things. why are we going to war? what does victory look like? What does failure look like? what are we willing to sacrifice? what is too much to sacrifice? and in big picture what's our strategy and then the us we'll take it down to the operational tactical level. Once we know this, then we can figure out exactly how we're going to employ, right? so with that in mind, some of the big strategic levels, just kind of thinking out loud here, you know, what does victory in spiritual warfare look like? what does failure look like? how do we know when in the right path? And so success in the spiritual war would look like right living for one. from a right from the right with right motives. You know, so it's the righteous of Christ being expressed through the fruit of righteousness. broken addictions. If we're addicted to something, we're probably that's not a that's not a an indication of success in the in that. Freedom from sin. you know, I would like to emphasize and and we're talking about maybe in a little bit, we'll do a a Podcast on Romans 6. You can't Romans many of us are too quick to say, well, sin's just sin and we can't do anything about it. No. Go read Romans 6. We're free from it. Yeah. I'm not talking about sinless perfection. What I'm talking about is excellence in that area. And and it's that's what success is excellence in the in the area of freedom from sin. Fruits of the Spirit, those being manifest from the Spirit into our lives. Protected loved ones. We'll talk about some examples that. Success in in our endeavors, prosperous, thriving, fulfilling our destiny, fulfilling our call calling, salvation for our family, for our friends, for our neighbors, a life that is Christ focused and cot Christ's conscience. And kind of ultimately maybe a life, may not maybe the ultimate part as I'm talking about, but you know, of knowing and being known by your creator, by Jesus Christ is right. Flourishing relationship between you and your creator. Yeah. that then bleeds over to you and everybody around you. Yeah. You know, that's maybe the summary of what success looks like in the spiritual warfare world. Yeah. failures, what would failures look like? addictions. That would be a failure. Addictions not just traditional or diction addictions that we would define, but like alcohol and drugs, of course. addictions to fear, worry, pornography, lust, addictions to self, not able to get through that self-centeredness, a constant focus on our appetites or a constant focus on how to get our how to get our emotional needs met. or or how to get our financial needs met. Living in lack or or illness and un unhealthiness. being self focused. being Satan focused, being sin conscious, even if it's trying not to sin, but being but having sin or the avoidance of sin kind of being the the center of of what you're thinking. our calling. Either our calling is ignored, our calling is derailed, or maybe our calling is not is not understood. I put tattered relationships. Of course, this neither one of these lists are full, but these are some of the indications that we might get that at the strategic level you go, okay, this is what success looks like. This is what failure looks like. And then kind of another question there along this that's similar is how do we how do we know we're on the right track? Well, we might have some ideas of how how we are you know, what our momentum looks like in each of these areas that I just mentioned, success and failure. But it should be accompanied by, if we're on the right track, a sense of peace, a sense of shalom. you know, the Hebrew word for peace is a much more robust robust word than the English word for peace, but means wholeness and completeness in every in every of our eyes. So financial, our health, families or relationships. so there's this inward quietness as well that just that we just have a sense that that this is where we're being called and this is where we are going and we are actually in the footsteps of Christ in front of us. And I talked a little bit about success to be fruit. We can also as we start to see fruit being produced in our lives by our walk and our talk with Jesus Christ. So let's look up a few verses because I'm I'm gonna look at two verses that kind of capture this big picture thought process for spiritual warfare. So if you don't mind, look at Romans five seventeen. seventeen. For if by the transgression of the one man death reigned through the one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one Jesus Christ? Alright, so we are to reign in life. Romans five seventeen. That's kind of one of the successes, or that's the level we're looking at, is to reign in life. We're not under circumstances, we reign over circumstances. Doesn't mean our circumstances are already rosy, but it does mean that we are thanks thankful in in all things, rejoicing always, praying without ceasing. And we have this connection of the Lord's presence as we go through these circumstances. And we are starting to impact the circumstances around us. Spiritual warfare, if nothing else, at the ground level, is to impact our circumstances around us. us. It's not just a you know, something happens in our imagination or some spiritual oasis or some spiritual something a long ways away. It's it's here now. notice that that this is because of Jesus Christ and his work. It's not because of our work that we are to reign. We actually have two things that we're to do in that verse right there. We are to receive the abundance of grace and receive the gift of righteousness. We don't earn those. We don't go digging for those, and these are gifts by the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, and all we have to receive. And by receiving the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, then we wanna reign in life. So As we search through this, we still are gonna rest and be peaceful about our resting in his grace and resting in his gift of righteousness. So we are in a full, complete, right standing before God always because of the work and the permanent once and for work once and for all work of Jesus Christ. If we don't understand that, we can't step out and and do anything in spiritual warfare. Right. We're gonna be constantly hounded by the accusations that we're not right before God. Right. And we're constantly gonna be forced to be reminded of our shortcomings. You're like, well, my shortcomings, I don't have any because Jesus Christ didn't have any and my all my hope and I've received everything that He did for me. So you can't come boldly before the throne of grace if if you're unrighteous. You don't even get the door. So we can't do what Hebrews four sixteen says. We can't speak with authority if we don't think we're in the right relationship with the authority. We're only in authority because we're under authority. Well, we're only under authority when we're in right relationship. That right relationship is a gift because of the work of Jesus Christ. So we can't constantly say, Well, no, I'm not righteous. No, I'm not righteous. I'm a sinner. I'm not righteous. No. Well, then you can't enter the war. Well, you can't enter the war. You're just a Casualty of war. Yeah. So read read that one more time, Romans five seventeen. Are you still there? Yep. Okay. For if by the transgression of the one man death reigned through the one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ? Okay. I'm hoping that just re-centered what we're talking about. Adam, we were sinners and we were death reigned because of Adam. Now that Jesus Notice the wording's slightly changed. Death reigned. Now we reign in life because of the work of Jesus Christ. Yep. We are the only ones that receive and reign there. There's nothing in there about working and doing. Jesus did all that. Yeah. So there you go. Awesome. Let's go to first John four seventeen if you're Nope, first John four seventeen. By this love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because just as Jesus is, so also are we in this world. Okay, as Jesus is right now, so are we in this world. Nah. It's in the future. Yeah. I mean what that's you you've heard me take this well, you've thought this before, right? Yeah. If John hadn't added that last part, we'd go, yeah, you know, someday. One day. Some day. Yeah. John didn't leave us there. One day we'll be just like Jesus. Some day, man, yeah. When they when they kill me, I'll be just like Jesus. Mm-hmm. And and but John didn't allow that, did he? He doesn't allow that interpretation. Yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. He says, in this world, not the world to come, not some other world, but right now. Right. So as Jesus is, think of all the things that Jesus is right now. Yeah. Seated at the right hand of the Father, righteous, holy, in authority, all those things, so are we in this world. Pretty amazing. That's that's that's what we're called to. Right. That this is the foundation from which we execute spiritual warfare. Right. I'm not talking about becoming Right. I'm not talking about someday finding righteousness. I'm not talking about someday being like Jesus Christ. The foundation is the gift of we are already like him. Yeah. As he is right now, so are we. And Romans 5.17, we have an abundance of grace that all we gotta do is receive. We have the gift of righteousness. That's all we have to do is receive. And it's from there that we launch these this spiritual warfare battle. Okay? Yep. Huge. That's huge. So in our prep for war, you know, you and I prep for war for for two decades plus. we need to understand some things. First of all, I put Four things here in preparing for war. Now I'm gonna talk about the battlefield and that'll get us to my introduction, maybe longer than than what I told you. But anyway, I think we're good. We're good. We're good. preparing for war, I thought four things. Warrior must know the commander's intent. That's the why. And the mission, that's the what. And the objectives, that's your success. it it will govern our individual actions and plans. I'll come back to these. Warrior must know himself. What what are your strengths and witches? What are your capabilities? A warrior must know the enemy. I mean, how many How many hours have we spent studying our enemy and in in the in the air force and and studying and understanding our own strengths and weaknesses? as far as enemy his tactics his strengths his weaknesses his capabilities limitations and finally number four a warrior must engage we gotta we gotta go okay it's time let's go so number one a warrior must know the commander's intent the why and behind the mission the what which is the mission and then the success I'll tell you I think some the the Lord Jesus Christ commander's intent is in Part of it anyway, this probably not all inclusive, is in Isaiah sixty-one, which Jesus quotes in Luke chapter four, and you and I need to say this. This is Jesus reading Isaiah saying it applies to him. But this applies to us too. We can say these and we need and should say these exact same things. Here's what he says: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and the gaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And then the last verse, this is not him quoting. This is Luke telling us. Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue was fixed on him. It was dead quiet when he got up and read that. I'm just like, wow. Yeah. That is I don't think I said that. It's Luke four, eighteen through twenty. That's good. But this is the commander's intent. This is his mission. Yep. And this is what he's called us to do. Yep. It even c even has the objectives in there. And we might go into that a little more detail later, but but that should govern all of our individual actions and all of our individual plans, just like a commander's intent when you're looking at a an operation in a military operation. But it's gonna ask you. Yeah you apply that is Jesus talking about himself. Yes. And we apply that to us because He was a man operating under the ho as as one anointed to the Holy S yeah. Anointed by the Holy Spirit. He's also God, but he was a hundred percent man. Yep. And then we're anointed to do those same things. Yes. So that's not a stretch. No. To say that was Jesus and that was also applies that right to us. Yeah. I have that in some of my declarations, I speak out loud. I have and i is there any question this is not true of both of us? The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. True. Because he's anointed me. To proclaim the good news to the poor. True. He's has sent me to proclaim release to the captives. Yep. And the regaining of sight to the blind. Yep. To set free those who are oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. That's our job. That's a great intent. That great objective. Yeah, that kind of captures it all. Yeah. And there we could have picked Matthew twenty eight. We could have picked any other things, but this one is so foundational. It's an idea. Jesus picks up. It's a starting of Jesus' ministry. He declares this. This is this is my father's intent. This is his intent. And now this is our intent. Our mission. Our our why and our what and our s our our objective. Yep. Right. And then number two, a warrior must know himself or herself. Gotta know your capabilities. Gotta know your strengths and weaknesses. Yep. What are ours? It's our identity in Christ. It's our authority in Christ. Right. Most of us or many of us in the West try to talk ourselves out all this stuff. Right. Well, the Bible says I'm righteous, but you know, you haven't seen my resume. I'm not really righteous. Right. I'm a sinner. Did the gospel have no effect on you? Right. Are you saying the gospel is powerless? Or are you saying God's word is not right? Right. And we've had these discussions before. 2 Corinthians 5, 21, Ephesians 1.4, Hebrews 10:10, Hebrews 10, 14. There's all these that say, no, we're holy. We're righteous. We've been justified. We've been sanctified. And so a warrior must know himself. If you don't know you are those things, then you'll just get crushed. Yeah. a warrior must know the enemy. Paul says, says, You're not ignorant of his schemes, talking about Satan. Yeah. And some of us, I'll tell you, some of us are ignorant of his schemes, but but we don't have to be because we have the God's Word and God's Spirit within us. But we need to know his tactics, we know his strengths and weaknesses, need to know his capabilities, his limitations. He has many, many, many limitations. He operates primarily by deception. He's got no authority, he's got some ability. But he's got no authority. If you lock him out, he's locked out. Yeah. But he deceives us by telling us things like, We're not really righteous, we're not really holy. He gets us into unbelief. And finally we gotta engage. I know I know a man that is is that preaches and he said Satan's defeated, so we don't need to worry about him. I'm like, no, Satan is defeated, but he's not locked up. Yeah. There's a difference. Yeah. If you go reading Revelation, there will be a time when he will be locked up and we'll never have to worry about him again. But that's not the case right now. Yeah. He is defeated, and that's what we're gonna rest on as we go into the spiritual warfare, but he is but he's not locked up yet. Yeah. In his minions. It's not hard to me to see that he's very active and deceiving believers and non believers. I mean he's out there attempting to steal, kill, and destroy. Look at culture. Yeah. Look at Christians who are ineffective. I mean, if he gets you to believe that something that's not biblical or not to read to believe what the Bible says about you, then you'll be ineffective. Yeah. If you don't think you've been what? If you're got for if you forget about how forgiven you've been, you'll be ineffective in your walk. Peter tells us that, right? We said Yeah, yeah. Let's let's look up a few verses. If you don't mind, look up 2 Corinthians 10 3 through 5. So what I'm the last thing we're going to talk about in this little intro is where's the battlefield when it comes to spiritual warfare. I don't I'm going to look up three verses. I don't know that it will cover everything, but will give us a glimpse of the battlefield or the battlefields that are fought on the spiritual warfare front. So 10 Corinthians 10, 3 through 5. For though we live as human beings, we do not wage war according to human standards, for the weapons of our warfare are not human weapons, but are made powerful by God for tearing down strongholds. We tear down arguments and every arrogant obstacle that is raised against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to make it obey Christ. I in short, there's a lot there that we're not gonna go into right now, but in short, the mind is one of the battlefields. Yep. The mind of the believer here, also the mind of the non-believer. But but God's word and his power, his weapons, which are not physical in nature but spiritual in nature, are good for s tearing down strongholds. overrunning obstacles, those kinds of things. And we t do that by taking every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ. Where's another one? I will tell you just where Jesus points out. we'll read from Romans ten, seven and eight. So a battle line or battlefield or a the front lines would be where two kingdoms come together and where the war is actually raging. The mind is one. Here's one ten Matthew ten, verse seven and eight. As you go, preach this message. He's talking to his disciples. This is the twelve. He'll send out seventy in little bit. He this is the twelve that he sends out to do this. His here's their marching orders as they go. This would be his commander's attempt for this. for these twelve guys right now. As you go, preach the message. The kingdom of heaven is near. That's what tells me this is the bottle line. Because the kingdom of heaven is near, meaning we're coming up onto the kingdom of darkness. This is where the kingdom of darkness he and the kingdom of heaven intersect. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, freely received, freely give. Before I say any more, I'm gonna go to flip over to Romans, not Romans, Matthew twelve, twenty-eight, which says, Jesus talking again, but if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has already overtaken you. So there when we're casting out demons, healing sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, that's when the kingdom of God is overtaken. the kingdom of Satan. And so the line has been moved. Yeah, the line's been moved. So that's where the battlefield is. When we're doing these things, that he's mentioned here in Matthew ten. And reiterates one of them on in Matthew twelve. That's the intro. hopefully that's not the best part of the whole teaching. but there's a chance it could be. Right. Just kidding. So hopefully we'll we'll you know we're gonna move forward yeah and and kind of get into this. We're gonna Lay the groundwork and then look at Ephesians chapter six and some other places. That's perfect. So in preparation for next week, the podcast, would you say read Ephesians six? Yeah, Ephesians six. I think ten through ten through the end or ten ten through like eighteen, I think. Yeah. Read that a couple of times, meditate on it. Yeah. And then You'll notice the first part is defensive. Yeah. it's the armor that you're wearing. Yep. And then the offensive part starts around verse seventeen. That's the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God in prayer. Yeah. And we'll look at we got the this is not all inclusive. We'll look at other coup other places that our offensive weapons are. Yeah. for and how to employ that at a very basic level anyway. Right. Great. Okay. It's gonna be good. I'm excited. Thanks, Randy. You're welcome, sir.