If you were around in the 1990s, you might remember a popular Christian fiction series written by Frank Peretti: This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness. They were highly imaginative and entertaining tales that blended the modern church-goer’s life with a high-octane depiction of angels and demons clashing and warring for our eternal destinies. Peretti’s works succeeded in depicting the spiritual realities present among us, but what the fanciful dramas left in materialist Americans’ minds was the question: Is any of it true? Is spiritual warfare even a thing?

Spiritual and Material Reality

The Bible is unapologetically supernatural. It claims that a personal and eternal Spirit-God created everything we can and can’t see in the universe. An authentically Biblical worldview considers both material and spiritual realities as different layers in the same cake, integrally connected, not disjoined or unrelated. Humans are the “in-betweens,” designed with a biological body, yet possessing eternal soul-spirits. Our biological hardware provides receptors for investigating scientific truths, and spiritual software discerns spiritual realities. Adam and Eve tended the garden and named the animals—scientific, yet also “heard the sound of the Lord in the garden”—spiritual.

On day one of humanity’s story, a mysterious talking snake appears and entices the man and woman away from trusting God. Where does this enigmatic adversary come from? What motivated the serpent? And why does God feel the need to prophesy man’s final conquest over this crafty being if it is only an unintelligible animal? The snake, it turns out, appears to be the embodiment of a powerfully deceptive personality subverting God’s good plans for his creation. 

For your sake, we will lunge past the many chapters of Biblical narrative and development and condense their teachings on spiritual warfare into six takeaways to help you understand the cosmic war you are living in.

Six Takeaways 

1. Satan and demons are real beings. 

Demonic personalities erupt to the surface of the New Testament stories. We see demons tormenting people, causing sickness and disease, causing them to inflict self-harm, and living among graveyards where people don’t belong. Jesus is tempted by the devil himself, talks to demons, casts demons out of people, and gives his disciples the coveted authority to command demons to submit. Peter warns us to “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). The talking snake in Genesis 3:1 is finally seized in Revelation 12:9 and thrown into hell in Revelation 20:10, where he will suffer eternal torment. 

Some people in the scientifically minded Western world doubt the existence of spirits. One only needs to watch a deliverance session in a counseling room, witness the occult, or live in the spiritism of Papua New Guinea to see for yourself the reality of these spirit beings. They are roaches that recoil from the light. Yet, there they are, hiding in the darkness!   

2. The agenda of these dark powers is to subvert the purposes of God and enslave humanity.

Satan and his demons represent the anti-Kingdom, the absence of all that God is. If God is life, abundance, blessing, peace, joy, order, harmony, and light, then these spirits are the shadow and absence of God. They are death, destruction, lack, division, fear, turmoil, chaos, and darkness. Hardly a better description could be found than Paul’s confrontation of the sorcerer in Acts 13:10, “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord?”

In the Old Testament, these malignant powers are manifested in the “goat demons” (Deuteronomy 32:17; Leviticus 17:7) of the rebellious nations. These false gods lead the people astray into idolatry and detestable practices (Deuteronomy 18:9). The Apostle John similarly describes the devil as having lead the whole world astray (Revelation 12:9). Yet, happily, Peter testified that Jesus healed people who were under “the power of the devil” (Acts 10:38). The dark kingdom is contesting with the kingdom of light. As we will see later, Christ has already triumphed over all the powers of the dark kingdom.

3. Human disobedience empowers the liar and his lies.

Sin gives the devil power over us. God warned that in disobeying, we would “surely die.” Our sin resulted not only in death but in our enslavement to the hostile powers of the devil. The writer of Hebrews says that Christ died “so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14). Paul’s letter to the Ephesians as shows our enslavement, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient” (Ephesians 2:1-2).

Sin opens the door for Satan and his demons to torment us and to operate within our lives and our communities. The devil has no more power than we give him; he is a parasite. He gathers strength from our agreement with his lies. In this sense, spiritual warfare is Jesus’ Kingdom of truth waging war against the liars and their lies, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have the divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-6). These lies might be as small as the quiet permissions we give ourselves to sin, or they may infest entire societies with institutions of slavery or abortion, for example. 

4. The key strategies of the demonic are to deceive, destroy, mock, and accuse. 

In its spiritual war against the light, the primary strategy of the darkness is deception. When Jesus rebuked the religious leaders, he made this painful assessment, “You belong to your father, the devil...He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Lies are the devil’s native language. Notice how similarly the Apostle Paul writes about the distorting powers of the enemy, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Yet the most chilling warning comes to us through the Apostle James, “but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” Satan’s lies take the form of temptations that are alluring to us. He places our rebellious desires on the fishhook and fishes for us, to lure us off the path. We must not be “unaware of his schemes” (1 Corinthians 2:11). 

The ministry of demons is also to mock and accuse. Shame and accusation can paralyze an otherwise powerful Christian. Demons slander the character of God, shipwreck faith, cause discouragement, and sabotage the Christian’s power. Listen to this story in Zechariah: “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. The Lord said to Satan, ‘The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you!’” (3:1-2). Accusation and intercession were contending for Joshua’s identity. 

Dismantling lies and standing in the truth are essential to our spiritual warfare. Jesus warred against the serpent’s temptations by quoting Scripture and standing on God’s promises. “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ,” Paul wrote. He thought of the Romans’ siege warfare machines when he crafted this analogy, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have the divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

5. Jesus Christ is God’s appointed ruler who breaks the powers of sin, death, and the devil. 

Integral to our deliverance from evil is Christ’s penetration into our imprisonment. He breaks the power of sin and Satan. Jesus was the sinless one who surrendered no inch to the enemy’s lies, “the prince of this world [Satan] is coming. He has no hold over me” (John 14:30), Jesus exclaims. Colossians 2:15 says Jesus “disarmed the powers and authorities” at the cross. His perfect blood-payment broke Satan’s legal deed to possess us. John Stott writes that “the payment of our debts [is] the way in which Christ has overthrown the powers.” George Smeaton similarly wrote, “When the guilt of sin was abolished (via substitution), Satan’s dominion over God’s people was ended.” It became a legal victory over the legal rights of the adversary.

Jesus’ ministry included more than teaching and preaching. He drove out the powers of darkness so that the kingdom of God could operate within a community: “If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20). John said that Jesus came to “destroy the devil’s work” (1 John 3:8). Through repentance and surrender to Jesus the enemy loses his legal claim to our lives. Christ’s authority always breaks the power of darkness so that we can walk in Christ’s freedom. Colossians 2:10 says, “you have been given fullness in Christ who is the head over every power and authority.” Our pathway to freedom is to walk humbly, surrendering to the Lord’s truth (see also John 8:32). 

6. Jesus delegated his authority over Satan to his disciples. 

The disciples of Jesus do not fear the powers of darkness. Disciples possess the authority to bind Satan and command his operations to stop. The Church’s authority is anchored in Christ’s authority: “And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way” (Ephesians 1:22-23).

• Walking in Christ’s freedom. Ephesians 5:8: “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.”
• Resisting the devil. James 4:7: “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
• Praying for God’s kingdom to break in. Matthew 6:10: “Let your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” 
• Driving out impure spirits. Matthew 10:1: “Jesus gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.” 
• Preaching the Good News. Matthew 28:18-19: “Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.’”

As we “go,” we enforce Christ’s victory over the powers of darkness and call nations to walk in the Kingdom of Light.  

Conclusion

Spiritual warfare may not look as dramatic as angels and demons colliding in a Frank Peretti novel, but it is no less real or cosmically significant. The Kingdom of Light is at war with the Kingdom of Darkness, and that warfare takes place through prayer and action. Our human will, partnering with God’s divine will, brings his kingdom to earth. When we live in integrity or stand for the truth, we engage in spiritual warfare. When we ask God to intervene with his grace, we are warring. And when we speak to devils and cast them out in Jesus’ name, we are warring. We don’t negotiate with darkness, we confront it. What a beautiful day it will be when the Church militant stands as the Church triumphant. As you labor towards that day, be encouraged: “The end will come, when (Christ) hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Corinthians 15:24-25). What a victorious finish line to run to! 

Tags: truth, prayer, jesus, evil, preaching, darkness, authority, demons, victory, disobedience, obedience, spiritual, idols, teaching, satan, deception, warfare, integrity, bondage, strongholds, spirits, accusation, binding