The Scope of the Battle, Part 1

You can't use secular weapons to fight spiritual battles. Dr. Tony Evans explains why that strategy only produces frustration and failure. If your problem, your struggle, your need is satanically orchestrated, all the effort you spend to fix the problem that you face is ultimately either a waste of time or a band-aid situation.

This is The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans. Author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. In any war, if your commander isn't smarter than your enemy, you've got a problem. Today Dr. Evans explains how trusting God's leadership can keep you from becoming a spiritual prisoner of war.

Let's join him. There are too many of us gathered together on Sunday for a parade rather than to find out how to go to war. And that's why we have so many casualties on the battlefield. We have casualties on the battlefield because far too often Christians are not at war. They're simply visiting the parade. You say, well, how do you really know that we're in a war?

That's easy. There are a lot of POWs out there. There are a lot of prisoners of war. People have been caught in the crossfire of the angelic conflict. Like it or not, we have described that you're in a battle that you had nothing to do with starting, and yet you're right smack dab in the middle of it. Because it has to do with the battle that was erupted when there was a rebellion in the heavenlies, that got transferred down here to earth when Satan set up his command post from planet earth, and God came down to this command post, created a man who would usurp authority over him, the lesser overruling the greater.

The battle has unfolded. We discovered that as it enters the human realm, Satan takes the lead. He takes the initiative, and man subjugates the world that God has given him to manage on God's behalf over to Satan, and that is why the scripture says that the whole world lies in the hands of the evil one. The world lies in the hands of the evil one because it was handed over as men joined Satan in his rebellion against God. So you and I are born into a world that is owned by the devil, but when you came to Jesus Christ, you were born into another world, born again. You were born again into the family of God, the kingdom of God, and now you are fighting on the other side. Satan has an agenda. That agenda is to bring the world under his control and make Christians ineffective in bringing others out of the war-torn zone, to make us ineffective in leading others to victory rather than defeat. Satan operates in four spheres simultaneously, and all four are obvious.

Let me review them. First of all, he attacks your individual life. 1 Peter 5 says, Satan, like a roaring lion on the prowl, is seeking whom he may devour. To put it bluntly, he's after you. And no matter who you are, what your status is, he wants to overthrow you.

And when you look closely at Christians today, you find many Christians who are in the POW camps of hell. He has overthrown them in the area of drugs, and they are held hostage. He's overthrown them in the area of alcohol, and they are held hostage. He's overthrown them in the area of discouragement and depression, and they are prisoners of war.

He's overthrown them in this area or that area, and you can call it what you like. There are many names for it, but in the spiritual realm, in the spiritual conflict realm, they become prisoners of war. The second sphere that Satan attempts to bring hostage the people of God is in their families. We saw it when Satan tempted Eve, Eve tempted Adam, and the family came under the authority of hell.

We saw it when the sons of God had relationships with the daughters of men, producing a whole rebellious generation against God in Genesis chapter 6. Why is the family so important to Satan? Because the battle would be waged by the seed.

It would be waged by the offspring. And so Satan wants to destroy your family, not only because he wants you, but because he wants the next generation. And if he can get the next generation before you have a chance to mold them, shape them, steer them, direct them, guide them, help them, if he can get them because of a messed up home, he not only now has your home, he has their home, and so it becomes a generational problem.

Why? Because the battle is being waged by the seeds. And the tragedy is that Christians today are still fighting flesh and blood rather than principalities and powers and world forces that are devastating. And so that's why we've got to fight for the family, because whoever controls the family controls the future. And that's why we've got to fight against men walking off from their families because they're getting too tired or it is too hard. There is a battle on and he wants to get your family. So he attacks individually.

He attacks to your family. The third entity that he attacks is the church. He attacks the church through promoting disunity, division, discrimination, racism, classism, culturalism. He wants to split the family of God up because Satan understands something that many Christians don't, and that is God does not work in a context of disunity. There must be harmony in order to see the power of God.

So if he can split people up on racial, cultural, or class lines, if he can get people making their first decisions based on their personal heritage rather than based on divine viewpoint and the war, as you've heard me say before, when you're in a war, you don't care about the color, class, or culture of the man fighting next to you as long as he's shooting in the same direction you are. And we are in a war and that means people who are different than us, if they're pointing their guns with us at the same enemy of us, then we better learn to get along because we're in a common battle against a common enemy and one of the reasons that our communities are in disarray is that churches have been kept from coming together and making a distinction, a very important distinction, between membership and fellowship. It's a very important distinction because fellowship means if you belong to Jesus Christ, even though we don't dot all of our I's together and cross all of our T's alike, we're still spelling the same name, Jesus Christ. And if we're still spelling the same name, if he is the standard, even though we may have idiosyncratic differences between various vicissitudes of the faith, it is incumbent upon us to recognize that our fellowship is in Christ while our membership may be distinct. And so maintaining fellowship without compromising membership becomes a very important purpose of the church and that is why God says in Ephesians 4 to preserve the unity of the church. We must fight to be one of the church. Satan wants to split the church because if he splits the church, he negates divine power.

Fourth area is society. Satan is behind, in Daniel chapter 10 it says, he's behind the princes of nations. He's behind the kings of nations. He sits behind them, provoking them, empowering them, enabling them to destroy whole nations and groups of people. When you understand that this is his plan, when you understand he wants you as an individual, then he wants your family, then he wants the church that's supposed to be the light to the world, and then he wants the society to run it down, you understand that we're in a spiritual battle.

And it's more than who you elect and which congressmen are representing you in the state or in the national legislative body of congress or in the state legislature with senator. It has to do with the spiritual issue of Satan and God. And until you can trace back your personal POW status, your family POW status, your church's POW status, or your society's POW status back to the spiritual conflict, Satan got you because he's got you wrestling against flesh and blood, and not against principalities, powers, world forces that are located where?

Heavenly places. Many of you here today are still reeling from the spiritual warfare you grew up under as a child. Many of you are here are reeling today because you've been made a prisoner of war of self-esteem. Because your parents were being used of the evil one to beat you down and to let you know you were nothing, are nothing, never going to be anything, you became trapped in that prisoner of war status, and now you think like a prisoner of war because you've been living in that cell so long.

But you can break out, and Dr. Evans will come back to explain how in just a moment. First though, the message you've been listening to today is from Tony's series on spiritual warfare. In these lessons, you'll see life's problems for what they are, symptoms of the invisible spiritual battle going on around us. And you'll learn ways to work through those problems using God's tools, tactics, and power.

It doesn't matter whether they're the everyday challenges we all face, or the more serious attacks that show up in the form of substance abuse strongholds, sexual or emotional problems, or relational issues. We want you to get your own copy of the messages in the spiritual warfare series as our gift. Just visit tonyevans.org before time runs out, make a contribution, and we'll say thanks by sending all 12 full-length lessons your way. Again, that's tonyevans.org, or call 1-800-800-3222, where resource team members are standing by around the clock to assist with your request.

I'll have that contact information for you again after part two of today's lesson and this. We've got an amazing opportunity for you to join Tony Evans and The Urban Alternative from August 6th to 13th on an unforgettable cruise through the unmatched beauty of one of God's masterpieces, Alaska. Enjoy life-changing teaching, worship, and performances from gifted musicians as well as the opportunity to spend time with others who share your passion for God's kingdom. And you'll experience it all while relaxing in luxurious accommodations or savoring first-class meals from gifted chefs.

Those dates again are August 6th to 13th, but spots are limited, so book your choice of room today at tonyevans.org. What is the source of this battle? And this is what I want to get to today, so follow me close. No matter whether it's individual family, church, or society, what is the source? What is the mechanism Satan is using to get in there? Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 10. 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 3.

Now follow this. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.

Some of your versions say strongholds. We are destroying—now what are we destroying? Watch this—speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to obedience to Christ. The first thing he wants you to know is you can't use secular weapons to fight spiritual battles, and the reason why many of us are still prisoners of war is we're still looking at the secular world to help our spiritual need. If your problem is caused by the devil, your flesh can't win.

If your problem, your struggle, your need is Satanically orchestrated and induced unless there is a spiritual response or the effort you spend, time you spend, resources you spend, to fix the problem that you face is ultimately either a waste of time or a band-aid situation because you cannot whip a spiritual force with a secular method. Paul says that our methods are not fleshly because our enemy is not fleshly, which means many of us have wasted time, energy, and resources seeking flesh-based help rather than spirit-based help, either for your individual issue, family issue, church issue, or society issue. He makes it clear that we walk in the flesh, but that's not how you fight. And the battles that you and I are facing in these various realms are fights, and we know they're fights because we've been wrestling with them so long. When you wrestle with something day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out, believe me, that's a battle no matter what other name you give to it. You're fighting, and if God speaks to it, it is a spiritual battle, and if you never thought that it was being Satanically imposed—now, not everything is Satanically imposed. Some things can be physiological, can come because of problems in the body, but I'm talking about things that have spiritual root causes, needs a spiritual cure, not a Band-Aid.

You don't find out you have cancer and take milk of magnesia. The crisis of the problem demands another kind of help. Now follow this. The source of your spiritual battles find their root in your mind. Let me say that again, because it's going to get deep here in a minute. The source of your spiritual battles finds their root in your mind.

Until you fix your head, you will never solve the problem with your feet. That drug problem you have, if you're an individual POW, until you fix your head, you won't solve the problem with popping that needle or that pill. It starts in the mind. You say, how do you know? Because it has to do, chapter 10 says, with speculations, verse 5, the knowledge of God, verse 5, and taking every thought captive. Now, where do speculations come from? The mind. Where is knowledge rooted in? The mind. Where do thoughts come from? The mind.

It is all in the mind. So, in order for you to get released from your POW status, being trapped by hell, when you've been born again by heaven, is to learn to think differently. Satan has so constructed our thinking, that we adopt his thinking about the world, rather than God's thinking about the world, and notice what he sets up in our mind. He sets up in our mind, according to end of verse 4, fortresses, or as some versions translated, strongholds. He sets up in our mind permanent residency.

He sets up walls that won't come down. He makes himself so at home, with the vice grip of our thinking, that we conclude there is no way I can say get out of this problem, no way we can save this marriage, no way we can unify this church, no way we can make a difference in our world. Whenever you hear Christians talking about no way, no how, never can be done, tried everything I can try, it just doesn't work, you're looking at somebody who's got a stronghold or a fortress. However it got there, it was built there through the means of the evil one, but it has been situated in the mind. Now, if it is situated in speculations, knowledge, and thought, all having to do with the mind, there is no place you can go that can take you to a solution that does not address that.

Everything else becomes a band-aid or a temporary solution because it deals with the mind. Now, the stronghold or fortress then is a mindset that holds you hostage. If I were to describe stronghold in this fortress, here's what it is. It is a mindset that holds you hostage. It holds you hostage in a way that you believe that you are hopelessly locked up into a situation that you are powerless to change.

That's a fortress. It is a mental way of thinking that holds you locked up into a situation that you feel you are powerless to change, and that's when you hear Christians saying, I can't get out of this, I can't stop this, we can't make this marriage work, I can't, I can't, I can't. Whenever you say you can't, when God says you can, the only reason you believe that you can't is Satan has made himself at home in your head. So you have to understand that you are functioning from a stronghold of the brain, okay?

Speculation starts in knowledge. Now, when you were not saved, you had a godless way of thinking. Vanity, emptiness is what the Bible calls it, vainness, Ephesians 4 says. That's why Paul has to write this. He has to write this because of these believers who are trapped in a way of godless thinking that left God out.

Now, how is Satan able to pull this off? It tells you. Verse 5 says, and we are destroying speculations and every lofty thing.

That's key phrase. Every lofty thing. What's a lofty thing? A lofty thing is a petition. We have a couple of classrooms in our building, and if we want to divide them, we have a petition that we pull. And that petition that we pull will take that large classroom and split it up. And the reason we split it up is because we want one thing happening on this side of the room, another thing happening on that side of the room that we don't want to mix. Because we don't want these two things to mix, we go in the classroom and we pull a lofty thing. The reason it's called a lofty thing is because the petitions that are being referred to here were pulled up, so they would be lofted up.

We pull ours out, but the same concept is to divide the room. Now, follow this. If Satan can put a petition in your mind, if he can put a petition in your mind to divide the secular and the sacred, that which is of God and not of God, if he can put a petition in your mind, say, why does he want a petition up in your mind? He tells you in verse 5, he says to set up a petition, raise up against the knowledge of God. What Satan wants to do is block divine information crossing over to the other side of your brain. He wants to block the knowledge of God. He wants to keep the knowledge of God from infiltrating this side of the room.

Because if he can get you coming in here hearing about God on Sunday, but lifting the petition as you walk out of the church so that that data is not transferred to Monday, you come in with the problem you had, you leave with the problem you had, and all you had in between was a nice song and a nice sermon because he pulled the petition and blocked the knowledge of God. He sets it up to block the movement of God. Now, why does he want to block the knowledge of God? The same reason he wanted to block Eve, because he knows if you ever take God seriously at his word and bite the tree of life, you're going to live life as it was meant to be lived and he doesn't want you to take a bite of that tree.

So he wants to erect, he wants to put up that which blocks the mind. We have the knowledge of God on Sunday morning. Praise the Lord. Praise Jesus.

I know him. The word of God is true. But soon as we walk out the building, we shift into this other person. Soon as we get to the car, we really shift. If we cut off trying to get out the parking lot, we stand up for Jesus in church.

Nobody knows we saved at work. And what Satan wants to do is block the knowledge of God. He wants you to be for God one minute, for yourself another minute, by erecting this petition.

What is the erection of this petition called? It is called in James 1.8 double-mindedness. He wants you to have two minds, not one. See, Satan wants you to have two minds. He wants you to have the Christian mind, fine, as long as you have the secular mind, too, because he can raise up a petition in that. As long as you have a committed mind and an uncommitted mind, that's all you need, because the moment you have double-minded, you've given him space to raise a lofty thing and to block the knowledge of God from cutting through, flipping over, and bringing you out of your prisoner of war status.

And some of us have been prisoners of war so long, we don't know how to live if they set us free. Dr. Tony Evans, encouraging us to push beyond the barriers the enemy puts in front of us. Now, if you'd like to get a full-length copy of this message, check with us for details on the lesson called The Scope of the Battle. Better yet, get it as a part of Tony's two-volume series on spiritual warfare, a collection you'll find yourself turning to for hope, encouragement, and instruction during your own personal battles. Don't forget this powerful 12-lesson series on CD or digital download is yours as our thank-you gift when you make a donation to help support Tony's ministry. As always, you can contact our Resource Center at 1-800-800-3222 to get the details.

That's 1-800-800-3222. Or visit us online at TonyEvans.org. And while you're there, discover how to stream the popular film Journey with Jesus. Shown last year in theaters around the nation, Journey with Jesus brings the New Testament Gospels to life as Dr. Evans and his adult children visit the locations of Jesus' earthly ministry, giving background to help us understand their modern-day significance.

Plan on making this film part of your special Easter reflection this year. For more information on how to take advantage of the Journey with Jesus limited-time streaming opportunity, visit TonyEvans.org today. A lot of people believe Satan's not real. He's just in your mind. But tomorrow, Dr. Evans will point out that the devil is real, and your mind is a dangerous place to let him roam about. Be sure to join us. The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like you.