Welcome to Turning Point. If you're like many believers, life is feeling more urgent and unsettled these days, and Dr. David Jeremiah believes it's due to increased spiritual warfare. That's the topic of his new book and teaching series, "The Battle for Your Soul," and the focus of today's lively conversation. To interview Dr.
Jeremiah about the rise in spiritual warfare, here's special guest Sheila Walsh. You sense it, don't you? A force in the world actively working against your peace, your family, and your faith.
Well, the Bible calls this spiritual warfare. And while the reality of this unseen battle can sound intimidating, Dr. David Jeremiah wants to offer a liberating truth: You have nothing to fear in Christ. For too long, the topic of spiritual warfare has been shrouded in confusion and sensationalism. For these reasons, in the next few minutes, we cut through the noise to give you the clear, biblical perspective you need.
Dr. Jeremiah will point us to Scripture, where we will discover that we are not helpless targets, but victors in Christ. He wants us to know that it's time to stop walking in fear and start living in the confidence of the One who has already overcome the world. The unseen war is real, but your victory is already secured.
So, if you're ready for this fascinating discussion, help me welcome Pastor, Teacher, Author, and my very dear friend, Dr. David Jeremiah. I'm excited about this one. I can tell. Over the years, I've had the privilege of interviewing you.
We've talked about so many different subjects. This one seems a little more intimidating. Spiritual warfare. Why did you determine to do this and at this time? Because, Sheila, everywhere I've gone over these last months.
It's just been so evident that this is going on. Maybe the best way to say that, the way people will understand it, is—and maybe you've said this because I know we've said it at home—something is different about what's happening right now.
Something is different, and everybody wonders what it is. I believe that one of the things that's very different is the intensity of the enemy trying to take us out. Yeah.
Now you have been preaching faithfully for many years. Have you taught on spiritual warfare before? Yes, I did a series on spiritual warfare some years ago, and then when I taught the Book of Ephesians, we covered it there because that's where most of it is, and we've talked about it, but not anything like the intensity with which we're dealing with it now. Yeah.
What I find fascinating in your teaching, you talk about biblical secrets of spiritual warfare. Why do you call them secrets?
Well, they're not secrets because nobody can figure them out. They're secrets because they've not been revealed. Wow! You know, in the Bible, oftentimes a secret is something. That has not yet been revealed.
Like in the New Testament, you have the introduction of the church, but it was unknown in the Old Testament. It was a secret in the Old Testament. This is a secret, and you know the Bible tells us that there are things we should know about spiritual warfare, and they're secrets to most people. But after we get done with this, they won't be secrets anymore. Excellent!
I can't wait.
Now you talk in your teaching. You've got four specific areas: the war zone. The war, the weapons, and the warrior.
So let's start with the war zone.
Okay, the spiritual war that we fight, though it affects our bodies, doesn't really happen in our bodies. It happens in our souls, in that immaterial part of us that's who we are. The part that goes to heaven when we die as Christians, when we're absent from the body and present with the Lord. Your soul is that part of you that's real. But oftentimes get pushed to the side because we're so intrigued with the body.
Why is it so important for each one of us to protect our soul? Because Sheila, the soul is the part of you that relates to God. You say, "Well, what about my body? Your body can't relate to God because God doesn't have a body, right? He's spirit.
So, if you're going to relate to God, you have to relate to Him through your soul. And if you let your soul get battered, beaten, and destroyed, your relationship with God is going to suffer major hits. Can your soul be possessed by anything but God? You know, I think there's a veil to question there. Can we be possessed by demons or all that?
And my my understanding of That has always been that if you have the Holy Spirit in you, you can't be possessed by two things. The Holy Spirit possesses you when you become a Christian, but you can be obsessed by the devil.
Somebody said he may not be in your heart, but he can sit on your shoulder. You know, and he will give you grief. I don't believe it's possible for a Christian to be demon possessed, to be controlled by Satan, because the Holy Spirit is within you, and He won't let that happen.
So that's a war zone.
So let's talk about the war, in battle for your soul. You say it takes place in three different areas: the battle around you, the battle inside you, and the battle above you. Let's start with the battle around you.
Well, let me just first of all say, Sheila, that those three categories come from an ancient theologian by the name of Augustine, where he introduced to us the phrase: "the world, the flesh, and the devil." Those are the three enemies of every Christian: the world, the flesh, and the devil. The world is the enemy around you. The flesh is the enemy. Inside of you and the devil is the enemy above you, the enemy around you, the world is the pressure you face because you live in this world. In Romans it says, "Don't let the world squeeze you into its mold." The famous passage, Romans twelve one and two.
What that means is there's a system in place in this world. That's different than what Christianity is, and it's opposed to Christianity. And it continually is trying to get you to live according to the tenets of that philosophy, and that's why Paul wrote, "Don't let that world system squeeze you into its mold. You stand strong for Christ. Don't become like the world.
The world is materialism and all the things that you can see. The world cares very little for the soul. The world cares only for the things they can touch and feel and count." What about the war within? The war within is the flesh, and I like to say that more than anything else, the flesh is indicative of the old nature. The flesh in you is everything you were before you were a Christian, and what some people are surprised about is when you become a Christian, the flesh doesn't go away.
And I always tell people, if you don't believe that, ask your husband or your wife, and they will tell you that that is true statement. The flesh, the old nature, is the part of you that wants to keep you from having victory in your life, and that's what that is. And the battle above you, the battle above you is Satan, and the Bible says Satan goes around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, and he he's got a plan for each one of us to seduce us and He knows exactly what our weaknesses are. We're going to talk about some of the things that are useful to Satan in bringing us away from the dynamic soul God wants us to be. I have to honestly say, having the privilege of reading this earlier.
I think this is one of the most profound, important books that you have written in a long, long time. I read everything you write. My husband and I watch it on television. But this is so practical for the world that we are living in right now. And you say that we all face two wars: a revolutionary war of the soul.
And a civil war of the soul.
Well, I'm trying to be a little cute with that, Sheila. But the Revolutionary War is the war that you have with God before you become a Christian. The Bible says when you become a Christian, you make peace with God. Before you become a Christian, you are enmity with God. If you don't remember those days as Christians, you know you didn't love God.
God loved you, but you were His enemy. When you become a Christian, you have peace with God. That's the Revolutionary. But once you become a Christian, conflict doesn't go away, and that's a surprise to most people. I started the introduction of this book with a statement that goes like this: If God is so good, why am I doing so bad?
You know, that's the way a lot of people feel. If if God is in my heart, if I'm a Christian, why do I still fight all these battles that I'm fighting? I love the fact that you lay out so many of the battles that we can relate to.
So I want to talk about. First one is the war with pride. You call it the seed bed of sin. Why do you call pride the seed bed of sin?
Well, pride is the original sin. Pride is the sin of Lucifer when he said, "I will be like the Most High God." He decided he didn't want to worship God; he wanted to be God, and he was thrown out of heaven with the angels and has been terrorizing us ever since. But pride is an attempt to put something else in the place of God in your life, and it is not only the original sin; it's the fundamental sin. Just about all of the other sins find their roots in pride. And you know what's interesting about pride?
It's a quiet sin. It's a sin that you can have in your heart, and nobody needs to know about it unless you open your big mouth and let them find out. But pride is a very, very difficult thing for people to understand. And the Bible says to us that God does not do well with the proud. He wants us to be humble.
Yeah.
You also talk about the battlefield of temptation.
Now, even Jesus was tempted. Right. You know, a lot of times people think temptation it's sin, but temptation isn't sin. It couldn't possibly be sin because Jesus was tempted three times, and Jesus was perfect. Temptation's not sin.
Yielding to it is sin. You know, somebody said it this way: temptation knocks at the door. But if you unlock the door and let it in, that's the sin. Right. You know, sin is yielding to temptation.
But temptation is fierce, and it affects everybody in this room. I preached on it, and I said, I always wonder if my messages are applicable to everybody in church. Today, I'm absolutely certain that everybody in church is a candidate for this message because it's about temptation. You write too about lust. Is lust different than temptation?
Well, temptation is the urge to get involved in lust. Temptation is the door into lust. Lust is not fun to talk about. Not easy to talk about. And it's not just sex.
It's the lust of the flesh and the lust of the mind. Lust is wanting something that's not yours. And seeking to take that to yourself when it doesn't belong to you, the issues that we face today. If you have a television, you know what I'm talking about. When you get a television, if you want to stay true to your faith, you have to tell them, "I don't want this channel.
I don't want that channel. I don't want that channel. Please don't put that channel, because those channels are filled with pornography and lustful things." And I always like to mention when this subject comes up that God, in His wisdom, gave us a whole chapter in the book of Genesis to help us understand how it works and what to do about it. And that's the story of Joseph in the house of Potiphar when Potiphar's wife came after him. And the Bible says he ran out of the house, and she took his coat.
I've told people he knew he was better off without his coat than without his character. He teaches us some really important lessons. Sheila, because Joseph knew what he believed before the temptation came. When he was confronted with it, he said, "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" He also knew that all sin is against God. It was sin against Potiphar.
It was sin against her. It was sin against himself and his family. But ultimately, it was a sin against God. And I think sometimes when we allow this particular sin to invade our lives and invade the church, one of the reasons that happens is because. We don't understand how serious it really is, and we put it down on a level.
Well, everybody kind of does it, you know. He's just a playboy or whatever. No, it's a serious thing. God takes note of it. How do we protect ourselves and our families?
Because if you listen to commercials at the moment on television, it's like you deserve this, you deserve that. It's all about more, more, more. How do we protect our souls?
Well, you're talking about the materialism issues that come. It's interesting to me. I never thought about this until I wrote this book. Did you know that materialism is kind of like the major enemy? Because at the end of the Book of Revelation, there's a whole chapter about the end of it, about how the mark.
Markets are destroyed and how they come to an end. The Bible says this: you can't love God and mammon. And mammon is a synonym for materialism. Materialism is the love of everything you can see, feel, touch, grab, as opposed to God, who no man has ever seen, and the spiritual things that are a part of the soul. And today, that's a big, big problem.
And it's not just a problem in the world; it's a problem in the church. One of the things that bothers pastors like me is to see God bless people with great resources, and then instead of using the resources for the things God meant them to be used for, see them get gobbled up in lifestyles and all the kinds of things that take them away from God, not close to God.
So materialism is always going to be present. It's always going to be if I can just get a little bit more, or if I can get this by the time I'm this old, and if I can do this and that. But here's the deal. Here's what the Bible says: What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? I mean, what a statement that is!
And it's not just about losing your soul, like going to hell. It's losing your soul even as a Christian. You know, you can lose your soul as a Christian to materialism. You can get so caught up in the things the world wants you to do that your soul gets put on hold, and all of a sudden you look up. And you don't even know your soul because you've neglected it for so long.
When we look at what's on television and movies and all the stuff that's out there that would corrupt us in our families, it seems to me that you, Doctor Jeremiah, that Turning Point, that your phenomenal staff, that the programs you produce—you are shining the light of God into the darkest corners of the world.
Well. I think that explains all the stuff that happens to us around here. You know, when you blow a hole in the enemy's darkness, he doesn't like it, and he does everything he can to discourage you and defeat you. And that's a pretty good evidence that you might be on the right track. Yeah, but we're so grateful for what you're doing.
I mean, aren't you amazed by everything? Phenomenal. And you do everything on the cutting edge. Everything's the best it could possibly be. Everything brings honor to the name of the Lord, and we are so so grateful.
You know, Sheila, I'm going to say a word about that because I don't think enough emphasis is placed on excellence in the body of Christ. We serve the King of Kings, the Lord of Heaven. If we give Him I mean, I grew up in the church. My dad was a pastor, so I know all the church stuff that happens. The point I'm trying to make is, we should be honored to offer up to God the very best that we have.
It won't always be perfect. God knows that. I mean, I don't never preached a perfect sermon. I've never done anything that even approaches that. But it ought to be my goal to give Him the best I have in what I do, and my my life versus whatever you do.
Do it unto the Lord and not unto men, for you serve the Lord Christ. And do it with all your might. Give Him everything you have. And I think that's an important point to make because we still have a lot of people who think that if it's for the church, anything's okay. But it's not okay.
Now you may be in a church where you don't have any great vocalist. Give God the best one you have. You know, and do the best you can. That's I think what we ought to do as we serve the Lord. That's honoring.
Right, and when we do what we do here, you know, this studio, this building that my son had so much a part in, and Paul, you know, I often say, this is NBC quality. Why should secularism have better equipment, better opportunities for their sordid message than we have? Amen. You talk about many battlefields for the soul. Let's talk about one that people might not think of as a battlefield: jealousy.
Why is that so detrimental? You know what, Sheila? Jealousy shrinks your soul. Yes. It just shrinks it.
You get so caught up in what other people have that you wish you had. In this chapter, I talk about the different circles of jealousy. You know, for instance, I'm not jealous of any dentists that I know. You know, but my problem would be. Being jealous of another pastor who's a gifted orator, who everybody's talking about, and and they're talking about him instead of talking about me, I could be jealous of that.
I must confess to you that I probably have been jealous of that over the years. I'm not now, but I have been. And I'll tell you what helps you with that more than anything else is having a good wife. Your wife helps you with that.
So, what jealousy is? It's a very formal statement that I am not happy with what God has given me and how He's equipped me and how He's gifted me. I want something from somebody else. God has done more for them than He's done for me, and that's not true. No matter who you are, one of the things that you teach on in this series, which I related to, and.
From interviews we've done in the past, I know you do too, and that is the battlefield of discouragement. Talk to us about.
Well, somebody asked me one day, of all these things that Satan uses to get to you, which one does he use on you the most? And that's it, discouragement. There's an old adage about Satan was displaying all of his tools one day, and. He had them all laid out in courting, and then he had this one tool over here all by itself. And someone said, "Well, what's that?
That's discouragement. Why do you put it over there? I need a protector. That's the most useful tool I have." Wow. And I think that there's a lot of truth to that.
In the chapter on discouragement in this book, I tell the story of David and Absalom, and how, as you guys remember, Absalom just destroyed his dad. He he took the kingdom from him, and David is leaving. Jerusalem, as somebody said, with a cardboard box in his hands, and he gets out. And a little ways out, he writes the words to Psalm 42, and these are the words: "Why are you cast down, O my soul? Hope thou in God." And three times in Psalm 42 and 43, David cries out, "Why are you cast down, O my soul?" Has your soul ever been cast down?
Have you ever been in a situation you were so discouraged you didn't know what to do next? And if you read those two psalms, they really help you a lot. They help you to remember what God has done. He said, "I remember how it was back in the days when I was going to church with all my friends," and that's kind of a modern translation. But that's what he said.
And discouragement can be used to just take you out of the game completely. It can shut you down. And I know that that's happened to people that I'm acquainted with. One of the great illustrations of that is the man Charles Haddon Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers of all time. He used to suffer such tremendous bouts of discouragement; he'd be taken away from his church for three months at a time.
He'd go to the French Riviera to just try to get better, so he could come back. And you know, the guy was only fifty-seven when he died, so it's not an age issue. He was a middle-aged man. He was so effective that when he preached on Sunday. They printed his sermon on the front page of the London Times on Monday.
His whole sermon. But he got discouraged. He got so discouraged he didn't know if he could keep going.
So let me ask you: You work so hard, we know that.
So you wake up and it's Sunday morning, and you know you have to preach. And you feel discouraged. What do you do?
Well, you know what? If you'd asked me that two or three years ago, I wouldn't give you the same answer I'm giving you right now. Because I've had some moments like that these last months. When I got myelitis on Labor Day in 'twenty three. I didn't preach for a couple of months.
Then I tried to preach and ended up preaching from a chair, which just destroyed me. I couldn't. My wife thought it was great, but I couldn't stand it. And then I got to be able to stand up and preach, but the disease that I have. It's a very unpredictable cycle.
Some days you're going to feel really good, but you might have some days you don't feel bad. It's incredible how Satan keeps track of that and makes as many of those days a Sunday as he can. Wow! And I've had a lot of Sundays when I would wake up and think there's just no way. But you know what?
When you step and you believe God and you trust Him. And you walk forward. It's one of the most amazing experiences. I actually told people there have been Sundays over the last two and a half years where I felt like I was standing in the pulpit, but I wasn't preaching. I was standing over watching me preach because I wasn't even aware sometimes of how I was doing it.
I knew there was no way to do it, but God help me. And you know, some of the victories we've had. Sheila, I went to preach in Myrtle Beach when I was still in a chair. And in order for me to do this, they would bring a pulpit out here, and the pulpit would have to have an opening in it.
So when you sat at the pulpit, your knees could go under the pulpit, and you could get close enough so the pulpit could help you. And I went to Myrtle Beach, and they took me out on the platform. I looked, and the pulpit was solid in the back. There was no place for my knees. If I was going to use my notes, I was going to be doing this.
And I just said, "What do I do?" I didn't hear any voices, but I stood up, and I've been standing up ever since that happened. And you know what? I preach three sermons every weekend within a twenty-four hour period, and I preach between thirty-seven and forty-two minutes every time I preach.
So, it isn't, you know, normal. What we do is not normal.
Now I don't eat dinner on Sunday until about three o'clock because I'm so tired. But the Lord gives me the strength to do that, and it's what I live for. I live for that. I live for because I love so much to do what God's called me to do.
So we've talked about some of the battles that we fight. Let's talk about who we fight. There is a very real devil. But he's not some cartoon character in a red costume with a pitchfork, is he? No.
Sheila, here's a good way to illustrate that. If somebody said to you, "Who is the opposite of God?" many of you would say Satan. But Satan isn't the opposite of God. He was created by God. He can't be his opposite.
He's not even on the table with God. He's not even in the world with God. He is subject to God, but he's powerful. And he's not anybody to take for granted. You have to understand that he has a strategy for your soul.
And if he was bold enough to tempt the Lord Jesus Christ in the wilderness, he's not going to worry about you or me. He will feel very confident coming after any of us.
Well, this is part one of the two days of discussion with Sheila Walsh about the new book, "The Battle for Your Soul." Very important to me because as I look around today, I see people who spend hours in building their body and almost no time working on their soul.
So let me ask you a question: How's your soul doing? And if you feel a little bit ragged in your answer, remember there's always something you can do about it. The Bible is filled with. To help you build the strength of your soul, that's what this whole series is about. That's why I'm here every day, Monday through Friday, and that's why tomorrow we'll finish up our discussion of this whole series from the brand new book, The Battle for Your Soul.
You get a copy of this book from a bookstore. The bookstores carry this book, and you'll be able to get it on the sixth of October, coming up just a few days from now, and by simply sending a gift of any size. Turning Point in asking for your copy. See you tomorrow. For more information on Dr.
Jeremiah's series, "The Battle for Your Soul," please visit our website, where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected: our monthly magazine, Turning Points, and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org/radio. That's davidjeremiah.org/radio, or call us at eight hundred nine four seven nineteen ninety three. Ask for your copy of David's helpful new book, *The Battle for Your Soul: Thirty-One Biblical Secrets of Spiritual Warfare*. It's yours for a gift of any amount.
You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the New International and New King James versions, complete with notes and articles from Dr. Jeremiah's decades of study. Get all the details when you visit our website, DavidJeremiah.org/radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow for more of the Battle for Your Soul interview with Dr.
David Jeremiah here on Turning Point.
