THE PRINCIPLES OF SPIRITUAL WARFARE

THE PRINCIPLES OF SPIRITUAL WARFARE

INTRODUCTION: Whatsoever born of the Spirit is spirit and whatsoever flesh is flesh. Being under the leading of the Holy Spirit, John the beloved said, he that is born of God keeps and denies himself. That is, it takes a spiritual man to fight a spiritual battles, because a carnal man cannot fight a spiritual battle.

Therefore, spiritual warfare is a battle of the Spirit and without being born of the spirit, you cannot go into it. You need to keep yourself and also deny “self” which is Mr. Flesh. Do not go into the battle of the spirit with the armour of flesh but if you do, you will be wounded seriously.

Now, are you ready to go into the battle of the spirit with spiritual weapon? As you go, God will be with you in Jesus name. In fact, you are the armour bearer of Christ in the battle; Jesus is the fighter, the captain and the leader. He will see you through. And we have won the battle already, for Jesus said: “It is finished”. The battle is over, Satan has been defeated about 2,000 years ago on the cross by our captain. For the battle is of the hard. Hallelujah!

Definition of Warfare: Warfare means fighting between armies or conditions of being at war. Hence, spiritual warfare simply means fighting against enemies with spiritual weapons. The ultimate aim is total destruction of the opponent in that there will be series of encounters or confrontations as both parties face each other to fight. These encounters are called battles. So warfare is made up of series of battles. At times, you may win and at other times the opponent may want to win, depending on the weapons each of you is using and the strategies adopted.

The more you win the battles consistently the harder the enemy felt your blow. And this will eventually force him to surrender. So, the one that maintain the upper hand in battle wins the war. Let us take the case of Moses and Pharaoh as of a typical case study in spiritual warfare.

God sent nine destructive plagues to afflict them. (each plagues stand for a battle) yet Pharaoh did not yield. This shows how stubborn the enemy can be. Nine battles won by God, yet he would not yield because his backbone has not been broken. Then came the tenth battle, a decisive one, the killing of the first born. Why did God decided to kill the first born? I don’t know really but it seems that in battles or warfare, the enemy or things or people that belongs to him can get hurt or even get destroyed by the opponent if need be.

 Therefore, you need to be sensitive to God during warfare, at anytime of your life. When God turns the case against the enemy of His people, and breaks their backbone, He let go the Israelites (Tell the Lord to break the backbone of your enemy (prayer point). (Ex. 3:7-8; Ex. 14:5-9; Ex. 14:13-14) song of power, Ex 15:6-7.

BIBLE EXAMPLES OF SPIRITUAL WARFARE.

1. Daniel 10:10-14  

2. Job 1&2

3. Jacob Gen. 32-34

4. James

5. Paul

Our Weapons: What is a weapon? A weapon is anything one uses to attack his enemy during warfare. It covers a wide range of materials which vary from one people to another. For example, gun, spear, cutlass, sword, aircraft, bomb, warship, and missile are employed. In modern days, the term goes beyond materials things to include attitude and even letter bomb. For instance, a ban placed on a country to prevent her from exporting her products with the aim of making life difficult for her people is also a weapon of warfare.

In spiritual warfare our weapons are not carnal that is, physical things we can see like guns and bombs because of the nature of the warfare itself (Eph. 6:12). And from this, we can see that our enemies are spiritual forces of darkness, even though they use human being as circumstances require at times, either as agents or as a cover-up to deceive us.

Such is done so that we can get confused about the personality of the one actually fighting against us, and fighting those human agents is a diversion and gives the enemy a good chance to hit so hard. The bible teaches that our enemies are forces of darkness and that things that happen in the physical realm have their root in the spiritual realm. So, once we win in the spiritual realm those human or physical agent or circumstances will either bow or fade away. Our weapons are not carnal (2Cor. 10:3-6).

This text gives a very good description of our warfare and the weapons.

Now, let us see the list of the weapons of our warfare according to the scripture. Thus, Eph.6:11-18 says:

1.                 The whole armour of God, vs 13.  To the body, spirit, soul & mind

2.                 Loins of truth & breastplate of righteousness vs 14

3.                 Your feet shod with the preparation of gospel of peace vs 15

4.                 Shield of faith vs 16 Resist Satan

5.                 Helmet of salvation vs 17

6.                 The sword of spirit: the word of God vs 17

7.                 Prayer & supplication in the spirit vs 18

8.                 The word of God

9.                 The name of the Lord: Jesus

10.            Prayer

11.            Fasting

12.            The angel of the Lord

13.            The Blood of Jesus

14.            The power of the holy spirit

15.            Keep guard over your mind

16.            Authority in Jesus name

The power behind our weapons: (2Cor. 10:4) they are not potent until there is divine input into them. God is the power that causes them to work and makes them effective. This gives us confidence and assurance that, the weapons cannot fail, because their potency does not depend on us who may be weak but on God who never experience weakness. God is constant, so we can always expect the weapons to be constant. This confidence is base on the major attributes of God that can never change. These include:

a.     God`s integrity

b.     God`s power

c.      God`s goodness

The implication of this is that we Christian know that God is not only faithful, powerful and unlimited in his ability but He is also good enough in willing  to use the power in our favour. Thus we can now relax as we use our weapon, knowing for sure that God cares enough for us on earth.

There is no doubt that God is good enough to care for us. Therefore we can rest assured that, anytime we raise any of the weapons up against the powers of darkness, the power of God backs us up. Though it is true that the power of God works in us by His grace, yet we must cooperate with Him so that His power can become so real in our particular situation. This can be done in the following ways.

1.     Be- Born Again: You must be born into the family of God, to be sure of His help, only those who accept Jesus are His sons while the rest are His creatures

2.     Maintain a daily relationship with Him. John 1:8

3.     Maintain Holiness. John 15:10

4.     Depend on Holy Ghost

5.     Resisting the devil. James 4:7