Zadok Discipleship Course - Armed for War
39
Locating the Enemy and Knowing the Battlefield
We Are in a War
Ephesians 6:10-13 • No Neutral Ground • The Decisive Battle
Jesus is not talking about intellectual knowledge. He is talking about revelation. There is a difference between hearing a truth and knowing it in the way He means. Truth not taken far enough leaves you in bondage. We must blend and balance each truth with all other truths. If we are going to stand strong in the increased demonic activity coming upon the earth, we need to understand the battle we are in, the enemy we are fighting, and the battlefield where the war takes place.
God never intended for you to suffer defeat. He planned for you to walk in one hundred percent victory, one hundred percent of the time. That is His intention, and that is what the armor of God is designed to provide.
The Holy Spirit spoke: "Many of My people do not want to admit they are in the middle of an incredible spiritual war. They want to negotiate." The idea of "I won't bother the devil and he won't bother me" is not only incorrect - it is deadly. You did not choose this war. You were born into it. You were born again into it. You are either a prisoner of that war or a victor in it. There is no neutral ground.
The devil's greatest strategy: Some teachers have been teaching that we do not have to engage with the devil anymore - that the battle is purely psychological. That is a strategy of the devil himself. Keith Green sang about it in the 1970s - a song from the devil's perspective celebrating that nobody believes in him anymore. That is exactly the lie he wants embedded in the church.
Yes, Jesus defeated the devil. Yes, the cross was the decisive blow. But the war is not over. The armor of God is not a relic - it is present-tense equipment for a present-tense battle. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him (Isa. 59:19). The battle will be intense, but we are on the winning side.
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The Armor Is Revelation, Not Ritual
Revelation vs. Confession • Locate Your Enemy • Ephesians 6:12
Each piece of the armor is a revelation - not a ritual. You only put that piece on when you enter into the experience and manifestation of that revelation. If you are not walking in the experience of it, you do not have the armor on, no matter how many times you have declared it or quoted it.
Locate Your Enemy
You cannot fight an enemy you have not located. In the war on terrorism, the hardest part has consistently been locating who the enemy is. Until we locate the enemy, we can only operate from a defensive posture - always reacting rather than advancing. The same is true in spiritual warfare.
The enemy is not a political party. The enemy is not the person down your street, your mother-in-law, your pastor, or your parents. The enemy is demon spirits.
A psychology textbook had one paragraph on demon spirits - stating that the professional community does not believe demon powers have any influence on human behavior. If that foundational reality is denied, the rest of the analysis cannot get to the root of what is happening in human behavior. People keep chopping weeds off at the surface, without dealing with the root.
Fear is a spirit. Rage is a spirit. Hatred is a spirit. Alcoholism is driven by a spirit. Division and strife in a congregation are fueled by spirits. Paul is describing not one kind of demon spirit but multiple ranks and levels - principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, spiritual hosts of wickedness. There is a hierarchy of evil operating around us.
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Two Personal Stories - Locating the Enemy
The Young Man in Satanism • The Demon in the Bathroom • Root vs. Symptom
Early in Dr. Foss's Christian walk, he prayed for a young man involved in Satanism. He understood that the demonic forces behind his lifestyle were not simply a result of difficult upbringing - a lack of love from his father may have opened a door, but what walked through that door was a demon spirit.
Instead of just talking to the young man, he went into the spirit realm in prayer - pressing and pressing against what felt like a solid wall, speaking the Word, commanding the enemy to release him, declaring that the blood of Jesus had paid the price.
Then he felt something break in the spirit realm. A sudden release - like a breath of fresh air after being underwater. The next day he spoke with the young man. Where there had been nothing but resistance, within minutes he was weeping under the presence of God. He gave his life to Christ, was delivered of demonic spirits, and became a major part of the youth ministry.
Why? Because he located the enemy in the spirit realm and dealt with him at the root.
While pastoring, people in the church had begun to criticize, and the news reached Dr. Foss right before a service. In the shower getting ready, he felt devastated - deeply hurt, almost overwhelmed, the feeling intense and disproportionate to the situation.
He sat down: "Lord, what is going on here?" And God opened his eyes. In the corner of the bathroom he saw a demon spirit - a "little punk demon," a monkey-faced spirit of deep hurt, actively loosing feelings of deep hurt on his mind, trying to wound him and derail him before the service.
He said: "I bind you in the name of Jesus and I cast you out of here." Instantly, all feelings of deep hurt left. Gone.
If he had only dealt with it psychologically - trying to get perspective, working through his feelings - that demon would have kept pouring it on. He would have carried that wound into the service, into the next week, into months of ministry. Instead, he located the enemy, and the battle was over in seconds.
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Two Battle Fronts
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 • The Spirit Realm • The Battlefield of the Mind
Those two stories illustrate a critical truth: there are two fronts in this war. Like the eastern and western fronts of World War II, you must fight on both simultaneously. If you only address one, the enemy will slaughter you on the other.
The realm of demonic principalities and powers. The unseen spirit forces actively opposing you, your family, your church, and your city. This is the realm Paul describes in Ephesians 6:12.
The place where the enemy plants thoughts, lies, fears, and imaginations that take root and become strongholds. Connected to the spirit realm but fought with the weapons of 2 Cor. 10:3-5.
The two fronts are connected. Demonic powers work to influence and infiltrate the mind, and what is in the mind - unrenewed beliefs, old lies, unhealed wounds - gives the enemy a landing strip in our lives.
Running from deliverance meeting to deliverance meeting. Never gets lasting victory because the unrenewed heart gives the enemy a landing strip to return to.
Treating everything as psychology. Refuses to engage demon powers. Never gets to the root. Chopping weeds without removing what drives them.
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The Battlefield Is in the Mind
Philippians 2:5 • Romans 12:1-2 • 1 Thessalonians 5:23 • Spirit, Soul, Body
Whoever controls the mind of a man controls that man.
Every action is a manifestation of a thought. A thought becomes an action. An action repeated becomes a habit. A habit sustained over time forms a lifestyle. A lifestyle determines destiny. Everything begins in your mind with a thought, and where you end up is a total summation of what you have been thinking.
Thought → Action → Habit → Lifestyle → Destiny
We are triune beings - spirit, soul, and body. When you are born again, your spirit is made brand new - born in the image and likeness of Jesus, set free from the sin nature. Your body is simply a tent, a housing. But your soul - your mind, will, emotions, and imagination - is still flooded with the residue of the old life.
The mind has been trained by the sin nature. It still thinks according to the old man. Because the soul carries the will, it continues to drive behavior according to old patterns - until it is renewed. The mind must be renewed. The old man must be put off and the new man put on. This is not a one-time event - it is the ongoing work of the Word and the Spirit in the battleground of your thought life.
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