Over the past few weeks we waltzed through the eighth chapter of Romans together. Paul ends that chapter with a flourish as he emphasizes the Father’s love for us and the assurance of our victories as those who are more than conquerors in Christ. That final thought prompts me to go back to another familiar text and look at it in more detail than usual. That text is found in the last chapter of Ephesians.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.  Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.  Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. (Eph.6:10-13).

In many ways this is the definitive text on spiritual warfare in the New Testament or at least one of the definitive texts. The apostle Paul wrote this letter and this text with extensive experience in the realm of spiritual warfare. Paul had been persecuted, stoned, arrested, threatened, beaten, left for dead, shipwrecked, and more during his mission as an apostle and had come to understand that the spiritual realm was behind every one of these attempts to silence or destroy him as a great proclaimer of the gospel. It is essential to come to this understanding in your life because without that understanding you may fight but you will lose because you will be wielding weapons against an enemy who is impervious to the weapons you carry.

Paul makes this reality very clear in another place when he says, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Cor.10:3-4, emphasis added). There are weapons that have effect or influence in the natural realm but have no effect in the spiritual realm. Worldly weapons may seemingly win a battle but will not win the war because there is an entire realm behind the curtain that keeps recruiting, motivating, and resourcing those who will oppose the kingdom of God in the natural realm. It is like fighting the terrorists who come against you face to face without defeating those in the background who are recruiting, training, financing, and providing weapons. To truly win, you have to root out and defeat the unseen enemy as well as the seen.

There is a vast array of worldly weapons that individuals, groups, and governments use to expand their territories and their influence. In Paul’s day, a look at Rome and the methods used by Rome and her citizens to establish their national or personal empires would make quite a catalogue of worldly weapons. Money, power, politics, propaganda, celebrity, violence, deception, manipulation, entertainment, bribery, brute force, and even massive programs to make people dependent on government or organizations were used by Rome and are still frequently used weapons for individuals and governments to achieve their goals or to win people over to their agenda.

Even men and women who seem to have moral standards and objectives often exercise the weapons of compromise and appeasement to move ahead, to be part of the system, or to be socially acceptable so that they can “work within the system.” All of these can be used to influence the natural realm but, typically, play into the hands of the dominion of darkness and open the doors for demonic involvement. Unfortunately, many churches have not been immune to employing some of these worldly weapons in their attempts to expand the kingdom of God on earth.

Even in areas such as science and medicine where people are trying to alleviate the suffering and trials of mankind, their discoveries can only take us so far – typically treating symptoms of disease, poverty, violence, and emotional illness but never affecting a cure or pulling the cause up by the roots. Worldly weapons do not have the power to get to the root of things because that root lies in the spiritual realm. If you attack weeds by simply cutting off the part you can see, they keep coming back until the root is destroyed. Only divine weapons can reach into the spiritual realm to affect the root of the problems that plague us.

Recognizing that our real struggle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces that move in an invisible realm should motivate us to strengthen ourselves spiritually and learn to fight skillfully with the divine weapons Jesus has provided through the cross. Many believers have sincerely fought the same issues in their lives for decades without any lasting victory. Frequently, that is because they have not used divine weapons in the battle but have employed weapons of the world that have been brought into the church. Not all of these weapons are bad in themselves (secular counseling approaches, twelve-step programs, drug therapies, etc.) but they simply can’t touch the root of the issue because the root has a spiritual dimension that continues to thrive.  More about Ephesians 6 in my next blog.