Against Wicked Spiritual Forces

WE ARE NOT FIGHTING AGAINST HUMAN BEINGS BUT AGAINST THE WICKED SPIRITUAL FORCES in the heavenly world, the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of this dark age. Ephesians 6.12.

The number of people in distress in our large church of about 8,000 is beyond belief! One wonders how we could have so many believers with so many problems each week! When people with needs are called out to be prayed for, ‘a small army’ comes out! Many are sick. Some come in proxy for those desperately ill and dying. There are those in wheelchairs. Lots are there with dire financial needs. People with marital or children’s problems are not few. Trouble in the workplace is common. People with anxiety and depression abound.

Seeing this pitiable sight every week and engaged with others in praying for them, at times I myself feel distressed and even depressed. My wife and I share this mutual concern and make frequent intercessions for them. We also pray for the vast number of God’s suffering people all over the world, known and unknown.

We question God, “Why do you give so much trouble to Your people? Why is it that many are in deep distress and others suffer and some even die?" A distressed sister asked the same question. Then she answered her question herself by saying, “It must be that the devil is attacking me!” All trials need not be from Satan, we are the cause for some!

However, what the apostle said long ago is a solemn fact which we tend to forget! “We are not fighting against human beings but against the wicked spiritual forces in the heavenly world, the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of this dark age”. We have always had ‘a kind of knowledge that all evil and sickness are from the devil’. But it didn't bother us much!

Dear believer, you need to realise that your spiritual temptations and trials and sometimes your physical and material struggles are ‘from the wicked spiritual forces’. Job’s woes would tell us that. It is time you begin to use ‘all the armor that God gives us’ in order to gain victory over Satan and get deliverance from your physical and material woes. Don't fight your battles alone in your strength. You cannot leave the ‘fight’ against your sickness to the physicians and medications believing that the battle is ‘only physical.’

You need to know the spiritual weapons God has made available to you and use them. Try to make use of them increasingly: "Know the truth and be truthful. Be right with God. Be a witness for the gospel of Christ. Hold on to your most precious faith. Be saved through the gospel. Read the Word. Use the Word as Your sword against Satan, as Jesus did. Above all pray, ask God to deliver you from the Evil One".

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, You taught me to pray, “Deliver me from the evil one/evil”. Help me to fight him when he attacks, with the weapons You have given me. Amen.