Understanding Spiritual Warfare: The Heart's True Battleground

Oct 05, 2025

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“One of the things that we tend to go to, we swing to extremes. One would be the overly practical side where we almost dismiss as if there are no spiritual forces, there are no demons or Satan. There's nothing out there other than just life and hardships and just the difficulties of things. And we almost take our faith as a pragmatism, how to utilize things just to get through this life. That's how a lot of Christians approach spiritual warfare is if it's really just a matter of just practical living, which involves that to some extent. But the other side is often Christians get caught up in over spiritualizing everything to the place where the old joke used to be that the devil made me do it right, this idea, as if each of us is such a big deal to the gates of hell that each of us almost has our own demon assigned to us.”
“Both of those are extremes that we really need to be aware of because either one of them is actually. Well, usually extremes will fall into the devil's trap either way. But we tend to go down that line because it's easier to either ignore everything spiritual in our lives because we don't want to admit that maybe inside of me is a problem, that the inner self has issues, or to go to the far side of, of demonic activity to where if I have issues on the inside, it's all demonic, it's all spiritual forces. And we tend to go to those extremes because we're avoiding the one big issue, the inner self, where our heart is really at.”
“But really, the idea of hating oneself in that sense, sense is usually often a self focus on yourself, which is anything but humble. But then we go to the flip side and it's all about self esteem and saying, we're good, I'm fine, I feel good, I do such great things, and yet the focus is still on me, which is still not humble. And this is where we have to learn humility. And that's why he puts it this way, is clothe yourselves with humility. Because when you think about that, clothes are not natural to us. And when we clothe ourselves with something, we're putting on something to deal with our life.”
“When we clothe ourselves with humility, a lot of times what we're really doing is clothing ourselves with the character of God and that relationship with him which we'll get into. But when we look at this, we've got to understand something within the context of this activity of spiritual nature, because we tend to focus on one big activity when it comes to spiritual activity is Satan's activity. As if that's the pinnacle or the focus of spiritual activity is what is Satan doing out there? But look at the context of First Peter 5, where he says, clothe yourselves with all humility towards one another. For God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Where is Satan involved? Right there, there. Do you understand? One of the very first things of spiritual problems in our life is if you're opposed by God, you're in trouble already because there's no worse opponent you can have in your life than God himself.”
“And the sad part is, is when you're in circumstances that are difficult and you relate that to what Satan is doing rather than what God is doing, you're already amiss. See, we go to passages like Job where it's like, well, Job, he had Satan coming and attacking him. And so it's Satan who gave him the hard time. But people forget who brought up Job in the first place. It was God. God, have you seen my servant Job? And you go, you know, if Job was on the inside of that, he probably would have been like, excuse me, excuse me, leave me out of this, right? Like, I don't want to be a part of that. God brought it up.”
“But we get focused on Satan's doing this to me. What is so funny? I've heard so many Christians, and if you're one of these Christians, take it for what it is. Examine yourself, don't just get mad at me. But if you're one of these guys who have said things like, oh, you know, everything's going wrong in my life, I know I must be doing something amazing because Satan only attacks those who are serving God. I've heard a lot of Christians say that. They talk about their hard life and it's, oh, well, God has basically given me over to Satan apparently, because now that I'm such an awesome Christian, God knows I can take on Satan kind of idea. No, no one says it quite like, like that, but that's what you're saying.”
“So we've got to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, as it says, so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties, all your worries, all the things that are pressing in on you, you cast them on him because he cares for you, even though he opposes us in our ways. I mean, you think about any good parent. If a child is walking in a way that will be self destructive, if the parent doesn't oppose them on that, they're not a good parent. I'm not going to go with you on this. Well, I'm going to do whatever I want you do it, that's your decision. But I'm not going to go with you. In fact, I'll make it a little more difficult. I'm not going to support it, I'm not going to enable it. God is opposed to that for us in our life, so he's not against us, but he's going to oppose it because he cares about us.”
“It's not watchful for Satan. That's the kind of thing we think, oh, be watchful because Satan's out there. It's like, no, no, no, you're watchful in your sober mindedness of, am I thinking the right way? Because think about it this way, okay? There's a. It says your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion. Now if you're out in the wilderness, but you have a fortified encampment, like, you know, walls that are hundreds of feet high. I don't know, you know, whatever keeps the wild animals out. And you're perfectly safe within those walls, do you have to be mindful of what's going on outside those walls? When everything keeps you safe, the walls keep you safe. It's like, no, you don't have to be mindful of what's outside those walls. But what happens when you go, I haven't seen any lions for days. I haven't seen any problems for days. I, I haven't seen, you know what, I'm gonna go take a stroll outside the wall now. All of a sudden what happens?”
“But the roaring lion is not the thing that gets you. It's the thing that scares you or misdirects you into the thing that gets you. If you watch scripture every time Satan's involved, even Paul puts it this way. We know the schemes of the devil. The devil has to be a schemer because he has no real power, especially over beliefs. And so the roaring lion is not something that we watch for like, oh, where's the roaring lion? But the roaring lion is one who is drawing a lot of attention, but it's distracting you from what should be your attention.”
“He distorts, he deceives, he distracts you from who you really should be focused on is God, who can oppose you, but also would care for you if you would humble Yourself. So he says, your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him. Stand firm in your faith. Now, this idea of resistance, this is again one of those things that has been added onto because people here resist the devil and they think, okay, yeah, so now we need to get into the spirit, maybe be slain in the spirit a little bit and start praying to bind Satan. And we've resisted him by binding him. I don't know about you guys, but I don't know how you bind a spiritual being by saying, bind him. I don't find that in Scripture.”
“But to think that somehow you have to bind Satan or you have to resist Satan, or you have to overcome Satan by your power and by your great faith. When really what overcomes the world and Satan and all his powers is your faith. But it's not in faith of I can fight Satan and beat him. It's just faith in God that God has already beaten him. See, we misplace our faith thinking I kind of have some kind of key into the unseen realm. But it's God, as he says, he has called you. God, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore you, confirm you, strengthen and establish your. You you don't do it.”
“But that is one of the things I have seen within a lot of Christian, even in our own church, that they relate more to Satan than they do to God. They think through what Satan's doing more than what God is doing. And let me just tell you guys, God is God of your life, not Satan. Even if Satan's involved, you understand, he's a minor character. Even the Book of Job, he's a minor character. He disappears after three chapters, like we already said.”
“But we've got to be so careful that we don't get into these things where we start arguing like, oh no, I've got a demon of this or that. Look, in scripture, there's like the demon that of, you know, dumbness. It doesn't mean you're stupid. It means you're not able to speak. It's mute. And you look and go, so that's what happens with demons. They like, there's a demon of anger, there's a demon of being mute. There's a demon of anxiety. There's a. And we've named all these demons of things. And it's like, where does it say that in scripture? Well, there's one demon that was causing muteness. It's like, that's all it was. He was causing some mutinous in his possession of someone. Where do you find in scripture that a believer can be possessed or influenced by a demon to the place where they now become angry or become fearful or become lustful or something like that. That is not script scriptural, but it creates a lot of arguing. Why? Because as soon as someone goes, I'm lustful, but it's a demon, you go, where do you find that in scripture? It's fighting words. Why? My excuse has been taken away.”
“But think about it. When you get mad at the road and you start talking to people on. On the road, what are you doing? I mean, my wife has been gracious to point this out to me on a few occasions when I'm like, man, that guy's an idiot. And she goes. And he can hear every word you're saying, and it's helping him to steer himself when it's like, oh, that guy just needs to go faster. Oh, just say it a little louder. I don't think he heard you. Hey, go faster. Yeah, that works. That works, right? She's pointing out a little bit of, you know, she does it nicer than that. But that's how I would do it. But, but she's pointing out the foolishness of me. So I'm talking to a fool, like a fool, and it's like, that's stupid. Why do you do that? But we do this even in spiritual things. If we bind Satan or, or we cast him out, or we. And it's like, do you realize how often people are saying those things? And Satan's nowhere in the vicinity. See, we forget one thing. God is everywhere. Satan is not.”
“All he wants is a fight. All he wants is division. All he wants is quarrels. All he wants is distraction. And all he wants is attention. Not because he's this desperate little teenager, but because he knows as soon as we get distracted with him, we're no longer focused on God. And as soon as we're distracted with him, we're no longer close to God. And as long as we're not close to God, now we're vulnerable. Whereas before, if we ignored him, had nothing to do with him, and didn't even know about his presence in our life, but we were close to God, we were safer then than when we think we see him and we're binding Him.”
“You don't need much help from demons to be wicked yourself. Colossians 3 says, don't set your minds on things of the earth, but on things above. Don't set your heart on things below, but things above on heavenly things. See, we Set our mind on worldly things, such dark things like money, deep demonic things like health care. I mean, we don't really think of that as like real demonic because it really isn't. But it's of this world. So it's demonic. Yeah, you could say that. But if you put it in real terms, it's more human. And guess what? We are as humans, we're sinful, we're selfish, we're proud. I'm not saying we don't have enemies, we don't have the Satan trying to influence. But you understand, more often than not he influences is not with the stuff. It's more like you need some money, do you need some health care, do you need some me time? And we go, oh, that's just stuff we need that's not demonic. And it's like, but how often does it take our minds on off of God and onto things of this world?”
“And that's what he means by do you understand? Understand A lot of the things that we think are innocuous because it has a hold of our heart is actually the battle within. Satan doesn't have to get real deep and dark with you. If he can distract you with a cup of coffee for the rest of your life, he would be more than happy for you to go to hell contentedly being a Christian who drinks coffee. Right, well, but Christians can't go to hell. There will be a lot of Christians in hell because they called themselves Christians but they didn't know Christ, Lord, Lord, didn't I depart from me. I never knew you. True. This is where, see, the spiritual warfare is far more devious than we think. We think it's like the deep stuff when really often, oftentimes it's a cup of coffee.”
“But let me just tell you this. You're not going to solve the problem by going, you know what? We're going to get them straight. We're going to get them sober. We're going to fix them up. Then we'll introduce Jesus to them. That's not how it's done now, if that's how it happens, I'm not against that. You understand? Like, it's not. Like, don't do that either. But that's not the goal. The goal is Christ. And what's amazing is how people will respond to the message of Christ. Either they will resist it and reject it, or they will accept it and be humbled by it. But either way, they're responding to Jesus. Not you, nor your efforts, nor your deep spirituality.”
“Our divine weapons are literally faith, hope, and love, truth, humility. What does this all sound like when you start saying those kind of things? Patience is one that's actually mentioned in scripture. You know what influences people the most? Breaks bones. Proverbs talks about a gentle tongue breaks bones and patience persuades a ruler. What is patience? Patience, Long suffering, waiting with hope. That's a divine weapon.”
“But how do you respond to Satan, your enemy, the devil? Do you bind him? Do you pray to him, making sure he knows that, you know. Do you interact with him a lot? Well, we'll get into this verse again and again, I'm sure. James 4:7. We'll close here today. It's not in the notes, but it's in the Bible, so it counts. James, chapter four, verse seven. If you don't have this verse memorized, this is one to memorize, right? James 4:7. This is where I use my small print, but thankfully I got it almost memorized. Submit yourselves then, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. I'll just stop there. Now, think about this. This is spiritual warfare. How do you make the devil flee from you? You talk to him? You pray? No. What must you do? First and foremost, what is your highest priority? Not the first thing you do, like in on order of a list, but in terms of your priorities, in terms of your pursuits. What's the highest pursuit you should do in spiritual warfare? Submit to God. I got to do what God says. Do you realize the more you submit to God, the more you are resisting the devil? Because, look, if you're angry and you want to lash out and you go, no, God says not to do that. You're submitting to him. What are you doing at the same time you're resisting?”
“Spiritual warfare has far more to do with our response to God than anything else. Submit to God, come near to him, and he will come near to you and your enemy, the roaring lion will have no choice but to flee because there's no opportunity. Remember what it said, Luke 4? He tempted and Jesus said, it is written. It is written. It is written. And then Satan left him and said until a more opportune time. What do you think Satan's always looking for? Whether it's Satan, a demon, or the world, what do you think they're looking for? Let me ask you. I'll give you an example. In everyday life, and I'm not saying this is demonic, I'm just saying it's an example of people learn from things. Why is it that if you watch me TV or whatever old TV channels that are streaming these days, that every advertisement on me TV has nothing to do with college tuition or video games, but it has everything to do with medicine, vitamins and end of life insurance. Who's watching Andy Griffith? The advertisers know for the most part you might have a freak out there. Who's young and likes Andy? Andy Griffith. I'll say I'm young. I still have not bought Colonial Pen, but I like Andy Griffith. But I think I'm kind of an aberration on that. Who do you think they're advertising to? And then why during football games all you get is turn to bet. Who do you think they're advertising to? Hey, you get $200 of free betting if you sign up today. They're going for people who are desperate to make money quick. Football is being watched for gambling more than anything. So you got beer, you got chips, you got sexual innuendos, all kinds of things because that's what. But for old people, it's pills and pillows. Pills and pillows, baby. That's what they said. Buy my pillow, right? Why? Because the older you get, the more you're going. That pill might solve the problem. And I hope that pillow is better than the last one I had because there's no come. Do you think Satan is as smart as advertisers out there who know? Don't put that at certain things, put it on certain. Looking for an opportunity. Opportunity. But if you stay near to God, you submit to God. What opportunity does the Satan have? What opportunity do the demons have to draw you away from the Lord if you're pursuing him? Nothing. Right?”
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