Standing Firm in Spiritual Warfare and God's Restoration
Summary
In a world that is anything but neutral, we are reminded that we live in a contested space—a spiritual battlefield where good and evil are at war. The reality of evil is not just a philosophical or psychological issue; it is a spiritual one, rooted in the existence of a real enemy, the devil, who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. Yet, we are not left defenseless or alone. God, in His love, has not abandoned us to this struggle. Through Jesus, the rightful King, we are called to resist the enemy, to stand firm in faith, and to live in the victory that Christ has already won.
It is crucial to avoid two extremes: seeing the devil behind every misfortune or, conversely, dismissing the spiritual realm altogether. Scripture calls us to a sober awareness—recognizing the enemy’s strategies without being consumed by fear or naivety. The devil is not a myth or a mere symbol of evil; he is a real adversary who prowls like a lion, seeking to devour. But God equips us with spiritual armor and calls us to resist, not in our own strength, but through submission to Him, prayer, fasting, and the power of His Word.
The battle is not just “out there” in the world; it is personal and communal. The enemy attacks marriages, families, finances, and even the church itself, often through subtle means like distraction, complacency, and compromise. We are urged to fight with the right weapons—spiritual ones—not by demonizing people, but by living in the opposite spirit: generosity instead of greed, servanthood instead of power, sexual integrity instead of self-indulgence. The church is not a place for perfect people, but a spiritual hospital where the wounded find healing and strength to resist the enemy together.
Even when we look back with regret at what the enemy has stolen or destroyed in our lives, God promises restoration. He can give back what the locusts have eaten, bringing new life and hope where there was once loss. We are never alone in this fight; Jesus is always with us, empowering us to overcome. The call is to be alert, to resist compromise, and to shine as lights in a dark world, reflecting the love, joy, and peace of our Warrior King, our gentle Shepherd, and our loving God.
Key Takeaways
- Spiritual Warfare Is Real and Requires Discernment
We must recognize that we have a real enemy who actively seeks to undermine God’s purposes in our lives. Avoiding the extremes of either obsessing over the devil or ignoring his existence is essential. True spiritual discernment means acknowledging the reality of evil while keeping our eyes fixed on Christ, who has already secured the victory. [43:28]
- The Enemy’s Primary Tactics Are Subtlety and Distraction
The devil rarely attacks with obvious force; instead, he often works through gradual drift, complacency, and the allure of lesser goods that become idols. Our culture’s distractions—whether money, power, or even good things like family—can become tools in the enemy’s hands if they pull us away from God’s purposes. Staying alert and resisting these subtle temptations is a daily spiritual discipline. [58:25]
- We Fight with Spiritual, Not Worldly, Weapons
Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces. The weapons God gives us—prayer, fasting, the Word, and the support of the church—have divine power to demolish strongholds. When we try to fight spiritual battles with worldly means, we become ineffective; true victory comes through humble dependence on God and active engagement in spiritual practices. [03:17]
- Living in the Opposite Spirit Is a Form of Resistance
Generosity, servanthood, and sexual integrity are not just moral choices; they are acts of spiritual warfare that resist the idols of our age. When we choose to live differently from the world, we bear witness to the power of Christ and sabotage the enemy’s plans. These countercultural practices are signs and wonders that point to the reality of God’s kingdom breaking into our world. [05:01]
- God Restores What the Enemy Has Stolen
Even when we feel defeated or look back with regret at past failures, God is able to restore and redeem what has been lost. His promise is not just survival, but abundant life and flourishing. Our hope is anchored in the faithfulness of God, who is always with us, fighting for us, and able to bring newness out of brokenness. [12:34]
Youtube Chapters
[00:00] - Welcome
[33:50] - Opening Prayer and Surrender
[34:46] - Tithes, Offerings, and Worship
[36:16] - Upcoming Events and Community Life
[37:06] - BLESS Initiative Update
[39:00] - Scripture Reading: 1 Peter 5
[40:46] - The Reality of Spiritual Warfare
[43:28] - Avoiding Extremes About the Devil
[44:54] - Recognizing Our Enemy
[46:34] - The Christian Worldview on Evil
[50:30] - Jesus’ Mission: Life vs. Destruction
[51:02] - Living Alert: The Enemy’s Tactics
[54:42] - The Armor of God and Spiritual Strategies
[57:38] - The Call to Resist and Fight
[59:36] - Submission, Resistance, and Spiritual Preparation
[01:03:03] - Fighting with Spiritual Weapons
[01:04:29] - Living in the Opposite Spirit
[01:08:26] - Resisting Compromise and Lies
[01:12:34] - God’s Promise of Restoration
[01:16:11] - Closing Prayer and Blessing
Study Guide
Bible Study Discussion Guide: Spiritual Warfare and Living in Victory
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### Bible Reading
- 1 Peter 5:8-10
"Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast."
- Ephesians 6:10-12
"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
- John 10:10
"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."
---
### Observation Questions
1. According to 1 Peter 5:8-10, what is the devil compared to, and what are believers instructed to do in response?
2. In Ephesians 6:10-12, what does Paul say our real struggle is against, and what does he tell us to put on?
3. In John 10:10, how does Jesus describe the difference between his mission and the mission of the enemy?
4. The sermon mentioned that the enemy’s tactics are often subtle, like distraction and complacency. What are some examples given of how the enemy works in our lives? [[58:25]]
---
### Interpretation Questions
1. Why do you think Peter uses the image of a lion to describe the devil? What does this tell us about the nature of spiritual attacks? [[39:39]]
2. The sermon warns against two extremes: seeing the devil behind every problem or ignoring spiritual realities altogether. Why is it important to avoid both extremes? [[43:28]]
3. According to the sermon, what does it mean to “fight with spiritual weapons” instead of worldly ones? How does this change the way we respond to challenges? [[01:03:03]]
4. The sermon says that living in the “opposite spirit”—like generosity, servanthood, and sexual integrity—is a form of spiritual warfare. Why do you think these practices are so powerful in resisting the enemy? [[01:04:29]]
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### Application Questions
1. The sermon says the enemy often attacks through subtle means like distraction, complacency, and compromise. What is one area of your life where you feel most vulnerable to these tactics? What practical step could you take this week to stay alert? [[58:25]]
2. Are there any “idols” in your life—good things that have become too important and are pulling you away from God’s purposes? How can you begin to put God back at the center? [[01:10:19]]
3. The message encourages us to resist the enemy not by demonizing people, but by living differently—showing generosity, servanthood, and integrity. Which of these is most challenging for you right now, and what is one way you can practice it this week? [[01:04:29]]
4. The sermon describes the church as a “spiritual hospital” for the wounded, not a place for perfect people. How does this perspective change the way you view your own struggles or the struggles of others in the church? [[01:00:34]]
5. When you look back at your life, are there areas where you feel the enemy has “stolen” or “destroyed” something? How does God’s promise to restore what the locusts have eaten (Joel 2:25) give you hope? [[01:12:34]]
6. The sermon calls us to resist compromise and the lies of the enemy about our identity and God’s power. What is one lie you are tempted to believe, and what truth from God’s Word can you hold onto instead? [[01:08:26]]
7. Jesus promises to be with us always, even in the battle. How can you remind yourself of his presence and strength when you feel alone or overwhelmed? [[01:14:17]]
---
Closing Prayer Suggestion:
Invite group members to pray for one another, especially for areas where they feel under spiritual attack or need God’s restoration and strength. Pray for alertness, courage, and the ability to live in the opposite spirit this week.
Devotional
Day 1: Stand Firm Against the Enemy’s Schemes
The reality of spiritual warfare is not a distant or abstract concept, but a present and pressing truth in the life of every believer. We are reminded that the devil is not a mere symbol or myth, but a real adversary who prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking to devour and destroy. This calls for vigilance, alertness, and a steadfast faith, knowing that we are not alone in our struggles—believers all over the world face similar battles. Yet, in God’s kindness, He promises to restore, support, and strengthen us, placing us on a firm foundation as we resist the enemy and stand strong in our faith. [39:39]
1 Peter 5:8-10 (ESV)
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
Reflection: In what area of your life do you sense the enemy trying to discourage or distract you, and how can you actively stand firm in faith today?
Day 2: Jesus Brings Abundant Life Amidst Spiritual Battle
While the enemy’s purpose is to steal, kill, and destroy, Jesus has come to offer us life in all its fullness. The world is marked by evil and brokenness, but Christ’s mission is to reclaim what was lost and to bring restoration and flourishing to our lives. This abundant life is not free from struggle, but it is marked by the presence and victory of Jesus, who empowers us to overcome the schemes of the enemy and to experience true spiritual vitality. [50:47]
John 10:10 (ESV)
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Reflection: Where do you see evidence of the enemy’s attempts to steal your joy or peace, and how can you invite Jesus to bring His abundant life into that area today?
Day 3: Resist the Devil by Submitting to God
The call to resist the devil is not a call to self-reliance, but to humble submission before God. True resistance begins with surrender—placing ourselves under God’s authority and drawing near to Him. As we submit, God empowers us to stand against temptation and the subtle drift toward complacency or compromise. The promise is clear: when we resist the devil in God’s strength, he will flee from us, and we will be able to walk in victory and freedom. [59:36]
James 4:7 (ESV)
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Reflection: What is one area where you need to surrender more fully to God so that you can resist the enemy’s influence today?
Day 4: Fight with Spiritual Weapons, Not Worldly Ones
Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces of evil. The weapons God gives us—prayer, His Word, faith, and the power of the Holy Spirit—are mighty to demolish strongholds and to take captive every thought to obey Christ. Rather than fighting with anger, manipulation, or worldly strategies, we are called to engage in spiritual warfare with divine power, trusting God to bring victory as we align our hearts and minds with His truth. [01:03:17]
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (ESV)
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
Reflection: What “worldly weapon” or approach do you tend to rely on when facing challenges, and how can you intentionally choose a spiritual weapon instead today?
Day 5: God Restores What the Enemy Has Stolen
Even when we look back with regret at the places where the enemy has brought loss or destruction, God’s promise is to restore and redeem. He is able to give back what the locusts have eaten, bringing newness and hope out of brokenness. No matter how much has been lost, God’s grace is sufficient to rebuild, renew, and bring about a future that is better than before. Our hope is anchored in His faithfulness to restore and to make all things new. [01:12:34]
Joel 2:25 (ESV)
I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.
Reflection: Is there an area of your life where you feel loss or regret? Ask God to begin His work of restoration there, and consider one step you can take to trust Him with your past and your future.
Quotes
We don't live in a neutral world; we live in a heavily contested space. In fact, we are in a war. So what's the first thought that comes to mind when you think of the devil? Maybe you think of a cartoon character in red tights and horns, or maybe you think of one of those disgusting creatures from The Lord of the Rings, one of those Orcs. If there is a real devil, then we should understand who he is and how he works in our lives. [00:40:55]
But the reality is somewhere in between, right? The scriptures give us this middle path that we live in a supernatural world that we cannot always see the reality with our eyes, but it does exist. There are demons and a Satan that's at work in this world, even if I can't see it, even if I can't put it on a scale and measure it. [00:43:31]
My first point is you have an enemy. We have an enemy, and as I've been working on this message, I'm telling you that it's amazing how the heaviness that comes upon you when you start talking about spiritual warfare, you start talking about the devil, our enemy. It's amazing the heaviness that comes upon you that is unlike even other messages that I share. [00:43:53]
One reason why I think we are ill equipped and we are ineffective and we are struggling to make an impact in our world is because we don't recognize that we have an enemy that is active in our world. Every person alive today lives in a world that's filled with evil, with the Demonic, and to understand that is important to understand and be able to explain how this sort of thing works. [00:45:17]
The Christian worldview has an understanding and an explanation, whether you like it or not, that seems to make sense. We have a loving God that created this world, and he created this world and everything in it was good. It was good, it was good, it was good. And because he created us with a certain amount of Freedom that we can respond to his love, love requires this element of freedom. [00:46:39]
This Freedom was used to reject God, and in the Supernatural world we see a fall from the presence of God with the Demonic, with Satan, and we see this evil that begins to come and take place working in this world that God created. It wasn't long, and we have the first man and woman that reject God, that rebel against God as well. [00:47:42]
When we see this unmitigated evil that takes place, like a school shooter that loads a gun and heads to an elementary school, begins killing little children, we struggle to find a understandable explanation why. Everybody asks why. Well, in the Christian worldview, we have an answer to the why. It is the evil that exists here in this world. [00:48:53]
But the world struggles to have an explanation. I don't know if you've ever been to the doctor because you've got an illness, you got a sickness, you got problems, and you can't figure it out what it is. So you've Googled and tried to find your answers, and you can't find the answer, so you break down, go to the doctor, and they run test after test after test, and they can't seem to find the answer. [00:50:01]
We live in a culture that doesn't understand the evil that we have that's going on, and as a result, they don't know what the solution is. And so they try to find political Solutions, and, well, if we spend more money on education, then that'll solve the problem. And everything that they throw falls short, and it doesn't have an answer. [00:49:21]
How do we hold this view that our universe was created by loving God and we rebelled against God, and we see as a result this evil that has come into this world? How do we understand why would a loving God allow this sort of thing to happen? It goes back to the freedom from which we were created, that to have this ability to love him and respond to his love. [00:49:56]
Jesus has come to reclaim this world that was lost to sin and to the enemy. Jesus describes this conflict this way in John 10:10: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, but Jesus says, I have come that you may have life and have it to the full, you may have it abundantly, you may have it flourishing. [00:50:38]
The enemy is not going to sit back and let you have the marriage that you want to have. The enemy is not going to sit back and allow your children or your grandchildren to drift into godliness. The enemy is not going to allow your finances to be uncontested. You see, your giving and your money matters to God, not because he needs it, but because it's a spiritual matter. [00:56:29]
We need to see the reality that we have an enemy. We need to recognize that we are at War, and if we pretend to be civilians in the middle of a war zone, we're going to become a casualty. So my third point is that we have to fight. The scriptures tell us that we need to resist because Satan wants to disarm you. He wants you to become passive. [00:57:38]
We have an enemy who has strategies in which to attack us and to divert our attention and to cause us to not be in the fight. He wants to lead us down this gradual drift of complacency, and yet God has created us with gifts and talents and abilities. He has a calling for us. He has a special plan, purpose for us, but the enemy stays busy keeping us busy and distracted. [00:58:32]
James 4:7 says submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. The resistance is how we fight. Submission is how we begin to prepare ourselves to fight, to humble ourselves before the Living God in order that we might be connected with him, in order that we might be empowered by him, in order that we might receive the grace of God so that we can resist. [00:59:40]
Sometimes people, they come to church and they get discouraged because they quickly realize that this church has problems. There's some issues here. These people don't have their act together. I thought this was a church. What's the matter with this place? But sometimes we forget that the church is a place where people can find healing and help, that the church is supposed to be a spiritual hospital. [01:00:06]
We need to stop wrestling with flesh and blood and start wrestling in the spiritual realm with the principalities and the powers in our culture. Where we don't have a Satan in our theology, where we dismiss the supernatural, what happens is in our secular world where there is no God, where there is no Satan, we make people into our Satan. [01:03:28]
As Christians, we've got to fight the right way. So how do we fight the evil one? Remember, you have an enemy, you're at War, and you have to fight. So how do we fight? How do we resist? First of all, we resist by living in the opposite Spirit. The church has always recognized how the evil one has used sexuality and money and power and created Idols in our hearts. [01:04:29]
If we want to live in the opposite Spirit, we've got to be prepared to resist these idols and these Temptations from the evil one. And so in church, we encourage people to become generous instead of greedy, to resist the idol that money can become in our life. We encourage people to practice servanthood. Everybody ought to be serving in some capacity so that we can resist the idol of power. [01:04:57]
When a young person remains sexually pure, that's a sign and a Wonder in our world that we live in. I think it's a sign and wonder to see generosity practiced in our world today because it requires spiritual warfare to go against the spirit of this age. Jesus is in a war for planet Earth. First John says he's here to drive out the works of the evil one. [01:06:16]
Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed—you might say landed in Disguise—and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. We are sabotaging against the enemy, against the works of the devil, against the flesh. N.T. Wright says the call of the Gospel is for the church to implement the victory of God in the world through suffering love. [01:07:06]
Remember, we've been given a new identity in Christ. We've been adopted into a new family. We've been filled with the new spirit, been given a new heart. We have a new life through Christ. The old Andy is gone. You can talk about him all you want, but he's gone. So my question is, as we wrap this message up on Satan, on the devil: are you being restored or are you being devoured? [01:11:08]
Our struggle is real. We have an enemy. We are at War. We have to fight, but we don't fight alone. We certainly have our Brothers and Sisters in Christ that join us together. You know how encouraging it is when we gather together for prayer and fasting on the third Monday of the month, and I'm not the only one here. [01:13:12]
But greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. Sometimes that means we're crucified and we die and we're martyred for our faith. Sometimes that means we die bankrupt. Sometimes that means every friend abandons us. But we have a hope that goes beyond this world, that we can be Overcomers in this world, Lord, through Christ. He's the one who strengthens us. [01:14:51]
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