Spiritual Warfare and Thought-Life

Hi, this is Bernie Dake. Welcome to the Salvation Army's Words of Life.

Hi, I'm Megan Hoffer. And if you're enjoying Words of Life, I want to invite you to check out another show brought to you by The Salvation Army. Heartbeat is a one-minute show about real life. Heartbeat touches on topics ranging from finances and prayer to dating and mental health. If you're looking for a short message of hope to challenge you and brighten up your day, subscribe to Heartbeat wherever you get your podcast or visit salvationarmysoundcast.org. Welcome back to Words of Life. I'm Bernie Dake.

And I'm Cheryl Gillum. We are so glad you're here. If you haven't listened to the show in a few weeks, we're currently in a series about our Christian thought life with Major Mike Harris. This week is an incredibly important topic, so we're going to get right to it with Mike as he discusses spiritual warfare.

Well, hello, this is Major Mike Harris again today talking about spiritual warfare versus our thought life as we continue to have these podcasts on the importance of our thought life. Working for The Salvation Army as I have, I've met many, many people, many people in different ways and forms. Of course, I've had congregations. I've met many people in the community, but some of my favorite folk that I've dealt with and worked with through the years have been actually people who have chosen to work for The Salvation Army. And some years ago, I met a new employee of The Salvation Army who was sharing with me his absolute surprise and his excitement actually over learning in the interview that The Salvation Army is a church.

It's a much sort of maligned issue, I guess, amongst Salvationists that people don't know that we're a church and certainly we wish more did. And so for this guy, that revelation came at his interview. But on his drive home from the interview, he was pondering why he was unaware that The Salvation Army is a faith-based movement. And it just so happened on his way home, he stopped at a traffic light right next to a Salvation Army church or a corps, as we call them. And he looked over at that Salvation Army corps and he saw in big letters, The Salvation Army. And suddenly he realized he'd simply missed the obvious because the name told him what we are. We're in an army in a war for the souls of man.

We are a Salvation Army. The idea of spiritual warfare is a theme throughout Scripture, the idea of the war for the souls of mankind. When Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians this, finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, put on the full armor of God so that you can 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. When he said that thing, he summed up the war that is as old as time itself. So if our battle is not against flesh and blood, what the enemy will do is to make it appear as though that is the battle. So the devil will therefore work to pit man against man in the pursuit of personal morality, therefore taking our eye off the true war which is spirit and flesh.

The Salvation Army's founder is William Booth. And William Booth offered us a warning as he looked upon the dawning of the 20th century. I want you to listen to these words of William Booth as I read them before dissecting them.

This is what he wrote. The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell. Now when he said this, again we're talking about the dawning of the 20th century, when he said this, I'm sure a lot of people scratched their heads at the absolute absurdity of this notion. But of course to do that was to underestimate the power of the enemy through the turning of our minds. And the first thing the enemy is going to do is the exact same thing he did with that serpent who brought sin into the world, and that is to make us doubt the enemy. And that is to make us doubt God. The single instruction given to Adam and Eve was don't eat from that tree or you will surely die, to which the serpent said you won't surely die.

God just doesn't want you to be as knowledgeable as he is. So Adam and Eve were persuaded that God was lying and that man had the ability to be as knowledgeable as God. That my friends is spiritual warfare.

The fight for our minds, thus the fight for our hearts. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, Paul writes in Colossians, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than Christ. So let's look at some of the ways that the devil is trying to turn our minds from God and his laws as outlined by William Booth. Let's start with with religion. Religion has become a bit of a dirty word in the western world and with good reason because many have used it as a platform to stand on while we judge the world.

Perhaps if I'm a bit more moral than you I can feel a bit better about myself, people might say. That my friends is religion without the Holy Spirit. By taking away the Holy Spirit we can only see the sin in the person not the potential in the person. But if we bring the Holy Spirit into the equation we believe a life can be changed and a soul redeemed. Christianity without Christ is a world without grace and historically I think this has been manifested itself in the in the judgmental church.

The kind of deal where the church will go out and with placards protesting a certain group of people with placards saying burn in hell whatever the case may be. That's the church without Christ that's Christ without grace. But by bringing Christ into the equation we truly believe in grace that unmerited favor of God and therefore believe that while we were sinners Christ died for us. Grace is a wonderful gift we must recognize it is given for the sinner we must never go out and condemn that always believe he can be better. However there is another problem going on with grace and it's the watering down of of God's laws that's creating a situation where it seems that grace is not necessary. If there's no sin there's no need of grace because grace is only necessary if there is sin.

So what we're doing if we're not careful by eliminating sin is we're taking Christ out of the world we're taking Christ out of Christianity. The next thing that William Booth mentioned was forgiveness without repentance and salvation without regeneration and these two ideas kind of go in the same direction that sin can be forgiven but change is not expected. It's the idea that we can be forgiven and saved but we can remain exactly the same afterwards that makes no sense. Yet as I and many will testify true forgiveness breaks us. If we've been truly forgiven we would never want to go back to the way we once were and the habits that we once had. True forgiveness naturally brings about change. If you read the story of David and Bathsheba from scripture you know David was this great warrior this great king this great man of God yet he had this season this season where he took another another man's wife made her pregnant to cover that sin he got the man killed but of course although he thought he got away with it scot-free and people perhaps didn't know God always knew and so God went to him through the form of Nathan the prophet and challenged David on his sins and then David went and wrote that marvelous Psalm 51 and want you to read through that Psalm and I recommend you do what you see is this broken man who recognizes he has sinned and he goes before God and he pleads his case he pleads for forgiveness and what you read through that Psalm is this shift and this change and suddenly at the end of the Psalm David is saying I will shout your name from the rooftops it's almost as though reading the Psalm you can see where forgiveness was given that is the indication of grace received that is the indication of true forgiveness being had the idea of salvation without regeneration is no is no forgiveness at all the idea of grace without people wanting to shout it from the rooftops means that person has not received grace at all the next thing William Booth mentions is politics without God I'm not going to touch that one I'm going to leave that one there where it is because then there's the perhaps the most prevalent of all and the most worrying in some ways people preaching heaven without hell you see in our thought process the devil has persuaded us that God would not send anybody to hell I agree with that the Bible agrees with that because what the Bible teaches us is that Christ has saved us from hell but just as Adam and Eve were given the opportunity to reject God so we have the ability to also reject God and when you think of it that way what an act of love the crucifixion was Christ died that horrific death on a cross to save our souls yet still we can turn our backs on him still we can reject him and the way that we reject him is to follow the devil and by following the devil we are being led to our eternal destination however if we choose Christ then we follow him to his eternal destination when Adam and Eve sinned they brought evil into the world and that evil has been inherited by every human being since and by following the words of the tempter Adam and Eve made sure that every person born from that point on in other words every human being in history was born with a sinful nature remember that we're all born as natural sinners I remember talking to an alcoholic some years ago he told me I have no choice but to be an alcoholic his dad was an alcoholic his mom was an alcoholic his siblings also were alcoholics he said I have no choice and he wasn't totally wrong however to resign himself to a life of alcoholism was to dismiss his potential in Christ were he to choose to follow Christ and not his addiction he would not only change his mortal life but he would then follow Christ not the devil but he would follow Christ to the ultimate destiny of heaven friend spiritual warfare is very real and the battle for your mind is terrific but I say to you turn your attention to Christ and read his word know that he came to redeem you from sin and remember to break God's law is to sin but he came to redeem you from sin he came to redeem you from the sin with the invitation to come and follow me and if you follow him your eternal destiny is sure friends there are loud voices out there there are good voices there are bad voices there are holy voices there are evil voices listen carefully and follow him and if you do that he will lead you to a glorious destiny God bless you friends The Salvation Army's mission doing the most good means helping people with material and spiritual needs you become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support and we'd love to hear from you email us at radio uss.salvationarmy.org call 1-800-229-9965 or write us at p.o box 29972 atlanta georgia 30359 tell us how we can help share prayer requests or share your testimony we would love to use your story on the air you can also subscribe to our show on itunes or your favorite podcast store and be sure to give us a rating just search for the Salvation Army's words of life follow us on social media for the latest episodes extended interviews and more and if you don't have a church home we invite you to visit your local Salvation Army worship center they'll be glad to see you this is Bernie Dake inviting you to join us next time for the Salvation Army's words of life