We’ve done a few articles about Spiritual Warfare. For various reasons I keep being drawn back to this subject. It seems like only yesterday since the last one. It’s time for another revisit and I suspect there will be “revisits” down the track.
An obvious reason I regularly talk about Spiritual Warfare is because of my New Age past. I capitalize Spiritual Warfare because it is a real Ongoing War.
More recently, for some reason, I was drawn to take another quick look at Frank Peretti’s two books: “This Present Darkness” and “Piercing the Darkness“. I also revisited Randy Alcorn’s: “Lord Foulgrin’s Letters” and “The Ishbane Conspiracy“.
Now I understand that both authors have (rightly in some cases) come under question regarding aspects of their fiction-theology of demonic-angelic warfare – especially Peretti. Even so, I’ve enjoyed rereading these books several times. Peretti and Alcorn hit several important targets. Note that Alcorn borrowed from C. S. Lewis’ “Screwtape Letters“, and expanded upon it.
There’s some irony for me in the case of Peretti. Just prior to my full-scale exploration into the New Age, I came across his two books in a Christian bookstore. They were located on the first set of shelves right in front of the entrance door. I picked them up, perused them for a few minutes, and put them back.
Instead, I continued to the back of the store where I found books on meditation and dream interpretation written by Roman Catholic and Episcopalian priests. My eyes lit up – I bought one of those. The rest is history. I wonder now what would have happened if I had picked Peretti up instead. Would it have saved me from spending years exploring occult philosophies?
The problem was that I’d already been attracted towards the occult.
A friend of mine had the impressive ability to go into deep meditation and contact people psychically (among other things). For three days I felt a distinct impression of him. When I phoned him he admitted he’d been “experimenting.” In fact I was able to achieve the same thing with someone who lived across town. This was for real and I was hooked. It was very intoxicating at first. But, as I discovered later, it was also demonic!
Some will dismiss Peretti’s idea of Spiritual Warfare – good angels on one side, scheming demons on the other. It does have its problems. Still, the two weeks preceding my departure from the New Age sure felt like there were was a raging battle over me.
How I envy those who hear God’s Word and immediately become saved. I was that hard case. Thank God for His sovereignty and faithfulness in hunting me down, regardless of angels and demons!
Peretti’s villains were anti-Christian pagans governed by the demonic realm. Within that coterie was an apostate minister who opposed the God of the Bible. Alcorn featured an apostate anti-Christian “preacher.” Interestingly, in his book “The Great Divorce” C. S. Lewis had an Episcopal Bishop character who denied Christ as the Son of God and The Resurrection. He eschewed the idea that we can know anything for certain. In fact he was in love with the idea of uncertainty.
While these characters were fictional, the authors drew on reality. Apostate self-described Christians are quite popular. The devil really is going to church. We’re all used to seeing atheist attacks on Easter and the Resurrection. However, I’ve noticed more and more of this coming from professing Christian leaders.
For example, see Al Mohler’s briefing of an interview between Rev. Serene Jones (president of Union Theological Seminary) and Nicholas Kristof. On the subject of The Resurrection, Jones asserts:
“When you look in the Gospels, the stories are all over the place. There’s no resurrection story in Mark, just an empty tomb. Those who claim to know whether or not it happened are kidding themselves. But that empty tomb symbolizes that the ultimate love in our lives cannot be crucified and killed.” (Emphasis mine)
In his book “When Jesus Came to Harvard” Harvey Cox (professor of theology at Harvard) also revels in creating uncertainty regarding the veracity of The Resurrection stories (see Chapter 25, The Easter Story). Cox is like Lewis’ apostate bishop. He leads the reader on a long convoluted and confusing trail to suggest that “the Resurrection story” is more of a symbolic example of overcoming injustice.
For more on Harvey Cox, read Dan Phillips’ article at Pyromaniacs.
Make no mistake; Jones and Cox don’t really want to believe in an inerrant Bible or The Resurrection. Believing in Christ’s death and Resurrection logically demands a divine reason for it. This would entail looking at sin. The only sins these people wish to acknowledge are those, apparently, committed against the environment, migrants and minority groups.
What would God say to this cavalier dismissal of the Cross (Matt 7:21; 1 Cor 15:14)?
Following an examination of the interaction between Jones and Kristof, Mohler concludes:
…the phrase Christian minister has absolutely no meaning in a world in which someone who denies virtually every single doctrine plus the entire superstructure of biblical and classical Christianity can be identified as a Christian minister.
The secular and progressive Christian (Jim Wallis etc) support for gay and proudly same-sex married Mayor Pete Buttigieg deserves a mention here. Both the secular and progressive folk are depicting this proudly sinning man as a better example of a Christian than those hateful Bible believing fundamentalists.
Here’s the thing about doubting the Resurrection stories and giving practicing homosexuals a pass – it goes against a clear understanding of Scripture. These people are effectively saying God’s Word isn’t a reliable standard for Christians…
Yet God’s Word is our defense against Satan’s attacks.
This is the kind of Spiritual Warfare spoken of by Paul in Ephesians 6. The devil is going to church and dividing from within. He’s attempting to remove our defense-offense system (Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God etc) by downgrading Scripture.
Abraham Kuyper wrote:
If the curtain were pulled back, and the spiritual world behind it came to view, it would expose to our spiritual vision a struggle so intense, that the fiercest battle fought on earth would seem, by comparison, a mere game. Not here, but up there – that is where the real conflict is engaged. Our earthly struggle drones in its backlash.
Maranatha!
Further reading:
The Resurrection: What If It Is Not True? What If It Is?
Sharing is caring!
