Verse: For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12
All through middle school and high school, there was this giant billboard on the main strip near my house that had a blonde bikini babe laying on her side advertising some sort of alcohol. I remember this clearly because as a young man going into puberty I would stare long and hard at that. As a 13-year-old who wanted to be pure, it certainly did not help the endeavor.
As we looked at before our enemy is fought on two fronts in Spiritual warfare. The first front is within us, our flesh. Once Adam sinned the whole human race was launched into eternal damnation without Christ. Every person is born with a sin nature and without the grace of God, we would not be able to meet His righteous standard. As Christians, the Holy Spirit within us and our flesh are constantly at battle. We fight this till the day we die.
Our second front is the world. Our verse clearly shows us what we fight. We fight the “rulers, authorities, world forces of darkness, and the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” These are the battles we face in the world around us. When we go out, the world is against God.
We see the influence of the world all around us. Like that billboard near my house, the world is obsessed with the lust of the flesh. Everything is about us. Just take the slogans of the world, “Have it your way” or “Got to look out for number one”. The selfishness of this world is driven on both of our fronts. First of all, the people “running the show” know that we will buy their products if they can use the lusts of the flesh to entice us. But secondly, the Devil rules the systems of this world and influences the powers at be to drive us towards sin and away from God.
The Devil is described as the “god of this world”. “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” 2 Corinthians 4:4. Satan uses his power in this world to try to keep people from seeing Christ and the light of His Gospel. Not only does he want to keep unbelievers from coming to salvation, but he wants nothing more than to tear down believers to make a fool of us.
In the next few sections, we will look at the devil and how he functions. Knowing our ultimate enemy and understanding some of his basic tactics and influence will illuminate what is going on in the world. The first and most important thing to realize is that though Satan is the main antagonist and god of this world, he is not equal to God. He is nowhere near as powerful can be defeated.
Written By,
John Cooper Jr.
Godly Grunt 6
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