The Invisible War - Spiritual Warfare 101: What is the Invisible War?, Part 2

When you think of Satan, what comes to your mind?

Is it a myth? Is it a man in a little red suit? Is it some bizarre, weird, forceful power? Who is Satan? What is he like? What does he do?

And what power does he have? If you don't know the answer to that question, you better stick around. God wants you to know that answer so you can deal with him effectively. Stay with me. Thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip's our Bible teacher for this international discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. And today we're continuing our series, The Invisible War. Chip picks up where he left off last time by teaching us the basics of spiritual warfare. Who is Satan?

How does he operate? And what's really happening in this unseen battle around us? Chip's also going to share the specific tools we'll need to fight back against our enemy. So if you have a Bible, go to Ephesians chapter 6 for the remainder of Chip's talk. Not only is there an invisible world, not only are we in an invisible battle and cosmic conflict, but our foe is formidable and his goal is to destroy us and discredit the cause of Christ. Ephesians 6-12.

Here's the deal. Satan is powerful. We're going to learn in just a minute that he was the highest of all the angels.

The classification of a cherub. We'll learn that he was the most brilliant, the most beautiful, the most powerful, and that he was actually given to govern the earth. He's the prince and the power of the air. It's heaven over. And so you don't want to take it lightly. Notice what Peter says in the midst of persecution.

He writes to the church, 1 Peter 5-8. Be of sober spirit. Be on the alert. Your adversary the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.

He plays for keeps. He wants to destroy you. All I want you to know is that we really need to understand that this enemy is formidable and powerful and deceitful and can trick us and fool us and create a roaring lion. We had a chance many years ago to be in Africa and I didn't know that much about lions. But the way they hunt is the one, you can hear a roar like two or three miles. And it's like scary. Roar! You know? And then he walks. Well guess what? Guess what?

All the game goes the other direction. And while Big Daddy's roaring over here, there's four or five lionesses that are all waiting over here. And just bring them on, Daddy. Fear is one of the greatest weapons of the enemy. In many ways, I think of him of, I don't know, I have a friend who did this to me which I deeply didn't appreciate and almost lost my hearing, but he had a gun, a very big gun, and he said, Oh, have you seen this? And he put it up like this and then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I mean, my heart came out of my chest and my ear almost came out, but it had blanks in it. But it scared me like it was real.

My body responded like it was real. And the enemy will do things in your life to give fear at the depth of your soul that will paralyze you and keep you from trusting God and doing His will. With that then, here's what I'd like to do, and I rarely give, now you're looking at your notes and going, If we're going to cover all of this, I hope the guy falls out of the window soon. Because, I mean, this guy's got more verses and more outlines here than we'll cover. Here's what I want you to know. We're going to cover it, but a little bit differently.

I believe that you really learn best when you look up things and you dig them out for yourself. And the reason I put all those verses in there is for those who may be a little bit more like me who are thinking, You know, I think you're a little over the top on talking about Satan and demons. I don't think it's that big a deal. I wanted you to see for yourself how big a deal it is, okay?

So let me give you an overview. So, is Satan for real? The authority of the Bible, we find him in the very beginning, Genesis and Chronicles in the middle, and Revelation, all the way through. The testimony of Christ, we have 25 references of Christ interacting with demons. In Matthew chapter 4, if you believe the text, he had a personal encounter with Lucifer himself, being tempted with the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

Memo. He didn't pull out his I'm God card to defeat him. He showed us how to do spiritual battle. It is written, it is written, it is written.

We'll talk about it later. Who is Satan? He's a created spirit, according to Colossians 1 and Job 1-3. He's an angel of the highest classification, a cherub.

And when I say cherub, do not think hallmark, you know, cute little cheeks. Think of a blazing angel that is so powerful you would fall flat on your face. He's the highest of all the created beings, Ezekiel 28. Where did he come from? He was created perfect. He had a heavenly estate. His job description was to be the guardian of God's glory.

Talk about, boy, what a job. The occasion of his sin is power and beauty. The nature of his sin was pride, and the cause of his sin was his own free personal choice.

And let me just give you what I call the five I will statements. I can't develop it, but the two places, Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14. Again, often the prophets will be talking about a geographical real situation, and then they'll sort of go off and talk about Satan and then come back to that. And in Isaiah 14, 13, this is the cause of Satan's fall.

This is Satan speaking. I will ascend to heaven. So he already had access to God. What he's saying is, I will ascend and I'm going to occupy the abode of God. I want equal recognition with him. In the same chapter he says, I will raise my throne above the stars of God. And the morning stars are all the angels that God has already created.

So he wants to be independent and sort of run his own show. Third, I will sit on the mount of the assembly. This is where God rules. So I want equality with God. Now I want to run the show.

I want to be in control. And then where God rules, I want to rule instead of him. Four, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. And the clouds, the picture here is of God's glory. I want to be now above God.

And number five, I will make myself like the most high. And that's the occasion of his sin. And he knows his destiny. And a third of the angels fell at this coup and this rebellion. And his goal is to destroy everything that's meaningful to God.

Here's a thought. I'm reading a book right now and it's always, you know, be careful of recommending books. You haven't read the whole thing. But I've read a lot of his other stuff.

This is Life Without Lack by Dallas Willard. It's on Psalm 23. But he talks about spiritual warfare here. And if you know anything about Dallas Willard, he was in the department of the University of Southern California. He was the head of the philosophy department for a season. He taught there for 47 years.

And multiple degrees translated multiple key texts from German to English. He's a brilliant man living in an academic world. And this is his perspective for our intellectuals. Part of the problem with our faith today is that we do not truly believe in the reality of the spiritual.

Either the good side or the evil side. In our world, people maintain their sense of respectability by rejecting everything except what they can see in the natural world. To accept that there is more than that threatens their self-identity as proper intelligent citizens of the modern world. And he talks about, obviously, he's interacting with brilliant people at USC. And he says, you know, I get the smiles of the naivety that I have that I believe in.

A supernatural being and the person of Jesus and spiritual warfare. And it's just some of the best writing I've read in a long time about the reality. The reality of a world that we can't see. And, you know, whether it's on Instagram or whether it's a movie or whether it's Netflix or whether it's time on a screen. There is a orchestrated global goal to get people distracted and believing that they are the center of the world. And please, please don't make applications I'm not making.

So I say things and they have unintended consequences. Understand that there's a great role for things like Facebook and understand there's, you know, what is it? Two, three billion people on it now? But could we just pause and say, so what exactly is Facebook? Facebook is where I'm the star of my show. And the reward is how many likes I get. And I'm so the star of my show is that, you know, I have to pull out my phone and take a picture of me and then I post about me. And you were probably wondering when I had a latte yesterday, weren't you? Yeah, you are.

Or would you like to see my picture perfect family and my perfect vacation with me in Hawaii? And what we're seeing is a nosedive of young people. A nosedive that's suicidal, that's depression, that's anxiety. Because now they compare their worst self with these artificial selves. And by the way, if you haven't done some of the research about the rewiring of the brain with screen time, start reading. There's a great TED Talk by a guy who's an unbeliever and someone says, you know, he goes through all the things that happen with immersed screen time of young people. And so they say, well, again, this is not a recommendation, it's an illustration.

Some of you real literal people are going to get me in trouble. So they ask him in this TED Talk, so like when's the best time to give someone a phone? You know, a mobile phone that can get everything and download everything. Oh, he says, as soon as you're ready for them to get suicidal, anxious, totally self-focused, talk with friends, allow the whole world to have access that they can't comprehend, get pornography in their mind and have them completely inundated where they can't relate to other people, that's when I would get them one. Is it wrong to have a phone?

Of course not. But here's what we do, people. We act so stupid and naive.

We get so secluded in my little silo, in my own little world that we don't realize it's just not messages, but it's methodology as well. I mean, start watching commercials. Just watch commercials.

Forgive me, I do this all the time and my poor kids had to get it all the years growing up. I watch commercials and I always ask, what are they trying to sell, how are they trying to sell it, where are the cameras, what are they promising? I mean, in the old days it was easy, you know, like if you brush yourself, brush yourself with this toothpaste or drink this beer, beautiful blondes will jump into your sports car.

It is. It's much more sophisticated now. Watch the movies. Ask yourself, just record something and do a 7 o'clock and watch 3 prime times and 8 o'clock and 3 prime times.

And ask yourself, what are the values? Then ask yourself, what are people laughing at? Because when you want to really trick people and change their values, the values have changed 180 degrees in the last 30 or 40 years, but we had to laugh about things that were wrong and evil and then it got to be, well, okay with a little conflict, and then it got to be normalized, and then it got to be you're a narrow bigot, not if you just disagree.

That did not happen overnight. And that's not human ingenuity. The goal of the enemy is to blind the minds, to say instead of this is male and female, this is beauty and family, this is a community, this is what we do with our children, this is a community of people that sacrifice for one another, and it's twisted. And by the way, and this passage teaches, don't get so mad at the people that are getting deceived.

The whole passage said the battle's not against flesh and blood. You know, it's not like, well the government, it's the media, it's that group, it's this group, it's that group. They are being manipulated.

What they need is loved by us in ways with a lifestyle where they go, oh. But you live it first in our day, and then we get to tell them. So I just want to tell you, Satan's real. And so I want my way. Can anyone vaguely remember what the temptation was in the garden?

What was the promise to Eve? Oh yeah, that's right, you can be God. Do you understand? Okay, what's God? I'm in control. My desires, my personal fulfillment, my self-esteem. Does any of this sound familiar?

I mean, welcome to the NFL people. But it's not just the culture, it's not Hollywood, it's not this, it's not that. There is an orchestrated plan. And Paul would say, stop fighting spiritual battles with fleshly means, and start warring with supernatural weapons. Number one, we're living in this world. There's visible, invisible. Number two, there's a cosmic conflict. Number three, our foe is formidable. He's real.

There's a lot of verses that talk about him. Number four, we must respect our foe, but not fear him. Become acutely aware of his methods, but not be preoccupied by them.

Get that. You respect him, you don't fear him. Paul is agreeing to forgive this brother. And then he goes, in order that no advantage may be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes. Circle the word schemes again. Strategies. Here's the question I have for you. Are you ignorant of his strategies? If so, you're getting duped.

You can work as hard as you want, try as hard as you want, want to be a good person. If you're ignorant of his strategies, you are being taken in all the time. If you're on the staff of an NFL team, in fact in our day, college, high school, you know what you do all week? You watch film.

Why? You have to understand the schemes of the other team. You will watch the last three games. What did they do third and short? Well, 67% of the time they went off tackle right with... What did they do in the red zone? I'm telling you, they watch the film, they know the percentages, what formations, what the possibility in this formation, who's going to do what to win a game. To win a game. I mean, literally, I got a buddy that's a pretty high profile football coach.

Been doing football season, I think they're up 20 hours. And I mean, and then they break down that every person, they'll get, here's all the film, this is your areas. When you see this, this is your key. When he takes the first step to the right, it's going to be a counterplay. I mean, we need to study the film. If you want to know Satan's strategies, here's the film. Study his names. His name reveals his strategies.

Here's some of his names. He's anointed cherub. He's the prince of this world.

Like I said, he's orchestrating things. He's the Satan that means adversary. The prince in the power of the air. He has authority over, remember Jesus talked about the god of this world or the god of this age. He's the prince in the power of demons, so he has a host of angels working for him. He's Lucifer, that means son of the morning or litty of the light. We get the idea that evil is always going to be packaged in, you know, weird stuff and ugly stuff.

Some of the most amazing evil in the world is beautiful, attractive, luring. It's amazing if you look at places where there's great satanic activity. Go to Boulder, Colorado. Go to Sedona.

Go to Santa Cruz. New age places. It's the most beautiful places in the world. And they take that beauty and they talk about here's where the energy cells are.

Where we lived in Santa Cruz, more satanic bookstores than like any place but Boulder, Colorado. And the offers are not ugly and bad. He promises beautiful things. Think of what he promised Jesus. Jesus, come. Here's all the kingdoms of all the world.

I'll give them all to you. Now think of this. He had the authority to do it. Is that how you see Satan? Do you think of an angel that has the authority to give all the kingdoms? Have you ever thought that nations are being influenced, that governments, that economies, that laws?

I mean, this is amazing. He's the evil one. It's a very interesting word, ho-poneros. It means intrinsically wicked and corrupt. It's the Hitler's of the world that were inspired. The level of ruthlessness. The wiping out of children.

Companies that would purposely, knowingly pour toxins into the water streams because we can make millions of dollars rather than clean it up. It's evil. The abuse of little children.

The taking of women and children in Thailand, in the Philippines and selling them and abusing them. This is wickedness. And this is what he does. These are his names. Goes on to say he's a tempter. He's the one who promises things. Oh, you can take a shortcut. You don't have to do it the other way. No one will ever find out.

He's the accuser. Condemnation. I did a presentation for some of the Living on the Edge family and I got really, really excited. And I really had a good time and I looked up at the clock and I went like way too long. No, no, no.

I mean like way too long. And all afternoon, all I could think of was I was preparing for this and it was like, you blew it. That was terrible. Those people drove here. They came early. You talked and talked and talked and talked.

Condemnation, condemnation. Now, no one got up and said, you talked too. I mean they act like they were interested. And I could be deleting myself because I really thought they were because, look what's happening.

We were having a ball or so I thought. And I think God really worked but he wants to take me out. He doesn't want you to hear what I'm teaching you. And I had about an hour and a half, went back up the room, you know, reviewed all my notes and I just had to say, Lord, you know, get behind me, Satan, the condemnation. There's some of you that have lived with you don't measure up. And Satan used a teacher or a mom or a dad or a coach to tell you, you're a loser. You don't measure up and you've believed it.

What may have come through a human person, that's from the enemy. That's a lie. You are worth the very blood and the life of the Son of God. That's how precious you are to him. And ultimately, he's a deceiver. This is his middle name. When his lips are moving, he's lying. Jesus called him the father of lies. He's the accuser of the brethren. Notice he represents himself as a servant so he's crafted, a dragon, fearful, powerful, terrifying, as an angel of light, as the father of lies.

Notice his programs. And when you look at this, all I want you to do is get, look at all these verses. I mean, if you want a Bible study like tomorrow morning, just take these notes out and just look up all these verses. Every one of them will have satanic, demonic influence. False philosophies, false religions, false ministers, false doctrines, false disciples, false morals. He attacks governments, deceiving men, destroying life, persecuting the saints, preventing service, promoting schisms, planting doubt. And then, you know, we have to own our choices.

But we're getting a lot of help. We have our flesh. He provokes sin and anger, pride, worry, self-reliance, discouragement, worldliness, lying, immorality.

And then he produces sex and cults, according to 1 Timothy 4.1. For those of you that were worried about how long this was going to be, how did I do? We zoomed, right? So I just want you to stare, just stare at the page for a minute. And if you were over in the, wow, I'm glad we're talking about Satan and demons because, man, I'm really aware of all that stuff. Or you may be a little bit more like, yeah, man, I know the Bible teaches it, but let's be careful that we don't go off. Here's what I want you to know. This is what the Bible says. Those are verses. This is what the Bible says. This is what Jesus says. This is a big deal.

Look at the sheer amount of material. Can we afford to be ignorant of his schemes? Could it be, I mean currently, churches in decline among Christians, morals are declining among Christians, the giving, financial giving across the board in churches today is less per capita than during the Great Depression. Oh, it's us, right?

By the way, at a time, despite our corporate national debt, the most affluent in the history of the world resides in the United States. Marriages are fractured like never before. I mean, could anyone think, maybe there's something going on?

The sexual confusion, the attack on people's identity? Here's the good news. Satan's power is limited. He's created and therefore not omniscient or infinite. Second, he can be resisted by the Christian.

For some of you, it's like, you know, I'm just teasing, hey honey, you think we could keep the light on tonight? He's formidable, but we don't have to be afraid. James 4.7, resist the devil and he will flee from you. He goes on, he says, God places limitations on him. When he wanted to attack Job, I mean, he has access before God.

Isn't that crazy? He only can ever do anything in some arena that God would allow in your life. And there are certain times where God actually allows Satan to do things to believers to fulfill his purposes. He did to the apostle Paul. Paul had such revelation that he allowed some messenger of Satan to do something physical, we don't know what it is, to give him a sense of dependency.

It's a sovereign God. The application here is balance and wisdom are crucial in our assessment of spiritual opposition. To assign too much or too little credit to the reality of demonic activity is to err greatly.

Here's the last one and maybe the most important. As believers in Christ, we do not fight for victory, we fight from victory. In Christ's power, we are invincible.

Let me say that again, and I'm not trying to be cute. As believers in Christ, we do not fight for victory. You're not going against him to try and win. You fight from victory.

You've already won. Here's the promises from God over Satan that if you find yourself struggling or thinking you're aware of some things, and we'll talk very specifically about how to do this in our times together, but here's some passages that if you've never memorized any passages, these would be good ones. Verse 4, you are from God, little children, and overcome them because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. 1 John 5, 4 and 5, for whatever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. And who is the one who has overcome the world?

But he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. Romans 12, 11, it's talking about Satan. And they overcame him, Satan, how? By the blood of the land, by the word of their testimony, they did not love their life even unto death. And then finally, James 4, 7 and 8, submit therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

I'm going to talk a little bit later, and I'm going to give you all kind of hope. I'm going to tell you a story of a 10-year-old boy that because he lived in my house and when we lived in Santa Cruz, we went from the mind and the heart and the general deception to overt, wacky, weird, I mean, satanic stuff that I thought only happened overseas or with missionaries or someone else. And I will tell you that a 10-year-old boy armed with those verses got out of his bed on his knees, quoted them out loud, told the demons where to go, and bam, and I talked to him at breakfast the next morning because I heard what was going on, and this happened much in our house, and we'll talk a little bit more about it.

It was just like, it was terrifying the first two years we lived there. And I remember Ryan going, Dad, I'm just sick and tired of this stuff that happened in the middle of the night, and he knows 10 years old, so what's he know? He just believes. Greater than me is in him, my belief, you know? Dad, usually I wake you up and we pray and all that, but I just got tired of this, so I got down on my knees and I quoted those verses, and I told them to leave because I wanted to go back to bed, and they did.

Because here's what you need to understand. The power is not in your great faith. The power is you're God's child. You're his sons, you're his daughters, and when Jesus says it is written, or you say it is written, the authority of Scripture is over demonic forces.

There's nothing to be afraid of. Here's a summary that I want you to get because I want to plant these truths. Satan is a defeated foe, John 12, 31. Jesus destroyed the works of the devil, Colossians 2, 14 and 15. We are victors in Christ, 1 Corinthians 15, 55 to 58, and we have the power and resources to resist Satan and demonic attacks, 1 John 4. We must learn how to put on the full armor of God to experience in daily living the victory, underline this last phrase, that we already possess.

Chip will be right back with his application for this message. What is the invisible war from his series, The Invisible War? What every believer needs to know about Satan, demons, and spiritual warfare. Right now, there's a spiritual battle happening all around us.

We can't see it, but it's an epic struggle for our hearts and minds. So what are we as believers supposed to do? Through this eight-part study, Chip shares some insights from Ephesians chapter 6 for how we're to think about, prepare for, and respond to spiritual warfare.

Learn why we don't have to be afraid because of the armor God's given us to fight and fight well. To learn more about the series, visit livingontheedge.org or the Chip Ingram app. Well, Chip's back in studio now, and Chip, you know, a lot of people coming into this series may have thought spiritual warfare is more prevalent on the mission field or in notable churches or ministries, but as you shared today, our battle against Satan is closer than many realize.

Well, that's absolutely right, Dave. And where it's happening and I think is going so unnoticed, it's inside people's homes. It's that moment when one kid goes one direction, another goes another direction, and they turn on screens or they open up their phone and messages and lies and comparison and all the things bombarding.

It's a movie here. It's someone at school that says this to your kids over there, lies that tell them you're not good enough, you don't measure up, life's not worth living. We're living in a day where 30% of female middle schoolers have considered suicide. There is a real battle, and parents, you need to not just say no and set boundaries around things that impact your kids. You need to teach them the truth. I want to encourage you to get the small group study, The Invisible War, what every Christian needs to know about Satan, demons, and spiritual warfare. It's not scary.

It's not weird. It's teaching your children of all ages you're in a battle. Here's the belt of truth. Here's how you guard your mind. When weird things happen or you don't understand, here's how you have authority in Jesus' name to deal with these things. Our kids are bombarded each and every day. We as parents need to equip them and teach them, have times around the table where we discuss what's going on in their lives, and teach them how to deal with the spiritual warfare they're facing.

Let me encourage you, Mom or Dad, take the time, make the commitment, get the small group, and do it with your family. To learn more about The Invisible War small group, go to LivingOnTheEdge.org. Join Chip in this vital study and uncover the biblical weapons and armor we've been given to withstand Satan's attacks and stand victorious over him. Place your order for The Invisible War small group by visiting LivingOnTheEdge.org.

App listeners tap special offers. Well, with that, here again is Chip. There is a danger when you hear a teaching like today, and the danger is that when you hear so many verses and so much information about Satan and demons that you can get thinking unconsciously that this is overwhelming despite the promises that we've heard. Here's what I want you to take away. Number one, there are lots of passages, I mean tons of passages about Satan and demons, so it's real.

Number two, you do not have to be afraid. This passage, this Ephesians 6, is about the armor that we do have. Satan is a defeated foe.

Jesus did destroy the works of the devil. We are victors in Christ, but you need to know how to put on the full armor of God. Here's what you've got to do.

Go to the web at LivingOnTheEdge.org and download the notes for free. I think of all the series that I've taught, it will be most important that you have something to look at as you listen. God bless you, because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. You don't have to be afraid. You are more than a conqueror through Christ.

Amen. Great encouragement, Chip. To find the message notes he mentioned, go to LivingOnTheEdge.org and click the Broadcasts tab, or tap Fill In Notes on the Chip Ingram app. You'll get his outline, all the scripture references, and lots of fill-ins to help you remember what you're learning. They'll really help you get the most out of every program, so we hope you'll take advantage of this resource for the entire series. Well, for Chip and the whole team, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.