Apprentice2Jesus

Ramblings of a Confessing Pentecostal

Archive for the category “spiritual warfare”

05 Aug 2011
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Fighting the Noon Day Demon

I have begun reading Thomas Merton’s The Waters of Siloe, which follows up his wonderful autobiography, Seven Storey Mountain. This book will give more detail to his life at the monastery in Kentucky.

Early in the book he gives a reminder to monastic orders, or spiritual orders of any kind, really, that is a great reminder for me in ministry.

…it is always a dangerous and insidious temptation for religions to abandon some important element of their Rule in favor of something else that seems, from a human point of view, to be much more useful and valuable at the time. The greatest enemy of religious Orders is not the persecutor who closes monasteries and dispels communities and imprisons monks and nuns: it is the noonday demon who persuades them to go in for enterprises that have nothing whatever to do with the ideals of their founders.

While Merton refers to the Orders, I find this an incredible word of encouragement and warning to the Church in general. I find it a shout from the Spirit to my own life. Maybe if I put it in some “country western” vernacular: “Dance with the one that brung ya!”

We keep searching for (as Donald Miller would put it) God knows what. We get dissatisfied with… with… something. And all it might be is the noonday demon trying to get us to look at the “greener” grass on the other side of the fence. Acedia (the noonday demon) is something like lethargy. We just get tired of whatever it is we’re doing and we think changing things up might help.

The spiritual fathers of the 4th century had a great spiritual weapon to battle this noonday demon: Stay at the task. If the temptation is to leave the noonday prayers (in a monastic order, for instance), stay at prayer. If the study of the Word isn’t “doing it” for you, stay in the Word.

The spiritual weapon for lethargy is persistence. It is to learn to battle through. It is to TRULY learn to hear the voice of God and understand that sometimes what may “bore” isn’t the thing itself. It may be the noonday demon trying to throw us off course. It is important to learn to HEAR the voice of God, then make our move.

Posted in Spiritual Formation, Spiritual hunger, spiritual warfare and tagged , ,
16 Jun 2011

Walking in Kingdom Power is About Using What You Have

I am walking my way through the Old Testament narrative right now and currently find myself in the story of David and Goliath. I love these stories!

When David volunteered to take on Goliath, Saul tried to lend David his armor. They were not fit for David. They had been fit for Saul. David simply said, “I cannot go in these.” He used what he had: his sling.

What do you have? Too often I obsess about what I don’t have. (“Well, if I had THIS our church would do that…”, or some other such dreaming.)

It’s not about what you don’t have. It’s about what you HAVE. What is in your hand? What have you been trained in to this point? Offer it up. It was absolutely absurd to think of going into battle with a sling. But it would have been insane for David to go into battle with untested equipment.

What you have in your life is from God. Use it. Become familiar with it. Then, watch what he can do with it when battles come. Being used in the Kingdom isn’t about what you don’t have. It’s about what you have in your hand, and you offer it up for use in the Kingdom.

Posted in Spiritual gifts, spiritual warfare | Leave a Comment
14 May 2011

The Place of Intercession

One of the great pictures in the Old Testament of intercession is the story in Numbers 16. Moses and Aaron spend much of that time period on their faces before God interceding for Israel. Everything has fallen apart. The spies have returned from Canaan, but they don’t want to take the land. The people are in rebellion and want to head back to Egypt. It’s a mess.

Then, Korah leads a rebellion and challenges the authority of Moses. God steps in and lets the earth open up and swallow the clan. Watching the Lord take out a whole clan, one would think that would cure people of the thought of rebellion. Of course not! They come back at Moses and Aaron the next day and Moses and Aaron are on their faces once again asking God not to wipe them out. A plague starts and Moses instructs Aaron to grab his censor, put incense in it and head out to the people to make atonement for them.

47 So Aaron did as Moses said, and ran into the midst of the assembly. The plague had already started among the people, but Aaron offered the incense and made atonement for them. 48 He stood between the living and the dead, and the plague stopped. 49 But 14,700 people died from the plague, in addition to those who had died because of Korah. 50 Then Aaron returned to Moses at the entrance to the tent of meeting, for the plague had stopped. (Num. 16:47-50, NIV)

What a picture of intercession. Standing between the living and the dead.

Our lives of prayer are meant to be lives of power. We are called to be in the presence of God. There will be times when the Spirit infuses our hearts with a burden to pray in a deeper way. Our hearts may be challenged and we cry out to God. We may find ourselves in that place where we are spiritually standing between the living and the dead. Our prayers lifted up to God reach his presence and something changes.

Grab your censers. Fill them with incense. Take your stand.

Posted in Prayer, Spiritual hunger, spiritual warfare and tagged , | Leave a Comment
18 Feb 2011
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Sudden Winds

I met with my spiritual mentor yesterday and we both found ourselves in awe of the Word of God yet again. It was one of those times where I think, “Good grief! How many times have I read that and NOT seen this?!”

The text was the end of Mark 4 and the beginning of Mark 5. The chapter break hurts us. We see the story of the disciples in the boat in Mark 4. The storm comes. Jesus is asleep, they wake him up… you know the story. And we leave it there.

Then, we pick up with Mark 5. Jesus sets the Gadarene demoniac free. Separate story.

What we pondered yesterday was how the stories were the same story, and the repercussions of that fact. The storm… sent by Satan? Why not? What was on the end of that journey? The Gadarene demoniac. A man who was tormenting an entire region. Satan had a stronghold. If Jesus gets there, the demoniac would be set free. The region would be loosed of its grip, possibly. (Now, the region still chooses to fear. They chase Jesus away, which is another sermon altogether!)

But Satan could see the pattern.

Thus, the storm.

The storm could be seen as “normal,” or it could be seen as a direct attack. A way to keep Jesus from reaching the demoniac.

It’s a powerful thought. What are the times in my life when I’ve identified “storms” and missed something? Was it an attack instead? The enemy blowing me off course so I didn’t reach some destination? I can look back and see some points in life where I could use 20/20 hindsight. There were times I was blown off course but at the time didn’t see it.

It’s a good way to stay alert. My own life needs to be able to discern those sudden storms. It’s not that they’re all “the devil.” But it’s not always “just a storm,” either.

Posted in Bible Study, spiritual warfare and tagged ,
19 Nov 2010
2 Comments

The Divine “Yes”

Yesterday I was at a day of fasting and prayer for pastors in our district (actually a section in our district). It was wonderful to get away for a day to spend time seeking the Lord in prayer, especially with other pastors and a few other church leaders as well.

There was a point in the day that was an incredible adventure in prayer. When it comes to intercession, I get nervous. I have to admit it. I make a petition before the Lord and really ask for him to work in a situation. That’s not the problem. It’s when I really sense there is a declaration in my spirit from the Spirit of God that there is a definite “YES” to this request. I don’t mind hearing, “YES.” I did ask, didn’t I?

But when it comes to this powerful sense I had yesterday, I don’t have this experience very much. The situation was praying for three people battling cancer. Their situations are incredibly grave and we’ve been praying as a district for these friends for a LONG time. Yesterday, however, as someone led in prayer collectively for them, the Spirit flooded my heart. The next 20 minutes were spent praying in the Spirit, praying in tongues, praying in English, declaring things in my spirit that I sensed the Lord was saying, “Just go with this.”

In my spirit there was an attitude that rose up and said, “This sickness will not take them out. The enemy does not win this one.” (I don’t get those kinds of words very often. Not like that.)

I spent my time in prayer walking and declaring what I sensed the Spirit telling me to declare. NO to cancer. NO to the attack of the enemy. YES to healing. YES to deliverance.

It was a time where there just seemed to be a divine “YES” to this situation. Heaven was open, the Kingdom was moving, and all I was doing was agreeing. There was no immediate indication as to healing, of course, but I long to hear soon what the Lord may be doing in their lives!

The time of prayer was a time I admit I don’t experience very often. It was just a time of openness in heaven and the Spirit saying, “Join this chorus.”

There are times of intercession where the prayer is tough. Those moments yesterday, praying for huge mountains to move, were incredibly easy in the Spirit. The Kingdom was moving and I was along for the ride.

Posted in Prayer, Spiritual gifts, spiritual warfare
10 Mar 2010
3 Comments

Do We Understand the Times?

I just finished my first Stanley Hauerwas article. I have heard his name for quite awhile but had never ventured into any of his writings. I finally linked to one and read it. Normally when I read such intelligent pieces having a dictionary by my side is helpful. Even that didn’t help. I understood the words. Individually. When he put them together in the manner he wrote… well, that’s where I got off track.

One of the problems of good theologians is they are horrible illustrators. They simply do not give concrete examples of how this may work out in our world. It sounds great… but maybe it’s not so great. I’m not sure.

For the most part, I am fairly sure I like what he said.

To the question I posed as the title of my blog, I am pretty sure he would say we do NOT even NEED to understand our times. At least, not in the way we want to understand our times. We keep wanting to put labels on things, and that is not what the Church should be worried about.

“Christians, therefore, have little stake in the question of whether we live in a postmodern time… Israel and the Church are not characters in a larger story called ‘world,’ but rather ‘world’ is a character in God’s story as known through the story that Israel is the Church. Without them there is no world to have a story.”

See what I mean? I have no idea if I got the idea or not!

One of the ideas he pushed was the Church does indeed have enemies. I could not agree more. He did not care to identify any enemies, so I am not sure if I agree with him beyond that point. For instance, the devil didn’t seem to come up and I remember this passage from Ephesians 6…

At any rate, he is firm that the Church does indeed have enemies. It’s interesting because we live in an age where we try desperately NOT to have enemies, unless it is with some other branch of the Church. We would just rather fight ourselves. We think it’s cool we can vote for a Democrat, smoke a pipe, and drink a beer, so we slam conservative, fundamentalist Christians. How cool.

We think it’s stupid to smoke a pipe and drink and beer and can’t imagine voting for someone who would allow the unborn to be killed, so we… you get the picture.

Hauerwas aims right at that presumption. The Church tries not to have enemies, but we make up standard ones to replace the real ones.

“Christianity, as the illumination of the human condition, is not a Christianity at war with the world. Liberal Christianity, of course, has enemies, but they are everyone’s enemies — sexism, racism, homophobia.”

I found that quote interesting in light of the academic conference I attended last weekend where one plenary session spent all their time on those three “enemies.” And it was a Pentecostal conference! (When did we go liberal?)

I honestly do not see where Hauerwas takes this whole “enemies” thing. You can read the article and instruct me. I’d love to know. (Please be kind to me. I’m simple.)

I honestly DO know we have an enemy. It’s fairly clear in Scripture. One of my Lenten readings was in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus confronts the Gadarene demoniac and has to ask the demons their name.

“My name is Legion, for we are many.”

I can so clearly remember my Church History professor, Walter Sundberg, give a lecture on Satan as our enemy using that text. Satan will crop up in any way possible to take down the people of God. So, I know we have an enemy. He comes in many forms.

But we have a Victor. WE are the winning team as the Church of the living God. Remember these words from Luther’s hymn:

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

Posted in Church, Spiritual Formation, spiritual warfare, Theology and tagged , ,
06 Feb 2010
1 Comment

We Don’t Need Apostasy

We just need boredom. Our enemy is not interested in our utter rejection of the gospel if we are simply bored with our Christianity.

I ran across this great C.S. Lewis quote from The Screwtape Letters:

If you can once get him to the point of thinking that “all religion is all very well up to a point,” you can feel quite happy about his soul. A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all — and more amusing.

In our entertainment-driven church model (and I think again of that insane use of MMA for “evangelism”) it is a good reminder that Satan will use ANYTHING to take us out. If need be, he will simply make you BORED with Christianity. We will end up looking for the adrenaline rush instead of Christ.

Posted in Culture, Discipleship/Spiritual Formation, spiritual warfare and tagged , , ,
04 Feb 2010
1 Comment

Whose Report?

I am preparing for my Sunday message in 1 Thessalonians. I will be preaching on the devil. Fun stuff.

One of the tactics the enemy uses is deception. We will often believe the lies of the enemy over the truth of God. It’s often because we spend more time listening to the deception instead of the truth. We are more likely to believe the report of the enemy over the Lord’s report.

Whose report do YOU believe?

In Zechariah, the enemy stood beside Joshua the high priest just pounding him with accusations. The symbolism is found in the nasty garments Joshua was wearing. The enemy kept on pounding away.

The Lord stood there as well. The Lord stood up to the lies and said, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this man a brand plucked from the fire?”

Whose report do YOU believe?

The enemy pounds away, but we need to hear the word from the Lord. HIS report is the truth. It is the TRUTH that sets us free.

Posted in spiritual warfare and tagged , , ,
17 Nov 2009

Do we know the forces with which we deal?

The scariest words I may NEVER want to hear in my own life come from Acts 19:15. It is the episode of the seven sons of Sceva. They are trying to cast out a demon in the name of Jesus who Paul preaches. The demon’s response: “Jesus I know, Paul I know, but who are you?”

GULP.

We don’t go around with an exorcist business these days. (Well, some do.) But my question today is this: Do we understand the spiritual war in which we are engaged? Or, do we want to ignore it?

One of the great criticisms regarding US policy and terrorism is we refuse to recognize we are at war. Terrorist groups have declared war on the U.S. and we prosecuting them like American citizens. The criticism is that we are not recognizing the war in which we find ourselves.

That may be true spiritually. We just don’t want to acknowledge the spiritual forces in high places. Somehow, that makes us feel better. Do we encounter these demonic forces more than we recognize?

Posted in Bible Study, Prayer, spiritual warfare and tagged , , | Leave a Comment

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