We battle not against flesh and blood

What enemies do we face?

The epistle of Ephesians tells us that our enemies are not other people (flesh and blood). It says that there are spiritual beings who are the real enemy. One way to think of this is to view the person who opposes the truth about God as the objective, not the enemy. In other words, that person is someone you want to convert. Ultimately, it's his or her choice. But the real question here is this. Who exactly are we up against?

The first letter of Peter tells us that the angels have longed to learn the Gospel of Jesus from those who preach it. In other words, those women who first saw the Resurrected Christ really were the first to know about it. (other than God of course.) So angels learn things from humans? Angels learn things about God from humans? Can't say I would have guessed that one.

And then there's 2 Corinthians 10. Paul tells us that although we are in the flesh, we don't wage a fleshly war. He says we demolish arguments that set themselves against the knowledge of God. It's unclear whether he means we battle in the realm of ideas or whether he means our arguments are weapons in a spiritual battle. And yet, arguments are weapons in a spiritual battle for the mind. While the spiritual battle cannot be reduced to an intellectual debate, there can be a spiritual battle for the intellect. In other words, a loving hug as well as a reasoned argument are both part of a spiritual battle. And let's not forget that the knowledge of Christ is something angels are learning about from people.

It remains to be seen whether they have anything left to learn or not. But what about the enemies? The letter from James is often misquoted as saying that demons believe in Jesus. But it actually says demons believe there is one God. He adds that they are afraid. But John tells us that God is love. He says that perfect love drives out all fear and that he who fears has not been perfected love because fear has to do with punishment. In other words, these demons have an incorrect understanding of God. Their theology is off. And they apparently don't believe in Jesus at least as far as James says.

In the Gospels, demons recognize Jesus and yet they try to oppose what Jesus is doing. They want to tell everyone who Jesus really is. But Jesus was revealing this slowly until his dramatic declaration at the trial. He called Himself the Son of Man for years and then revealed through old testament prophecy that this was a way of calling himself God. This took place at his trial. This makes his declaration of His own divinity stronger than just a random declaration one odd day. But my point is that these demons clearly have the wrong idea about God.

So let's make a logical inference from all of this. We are in a spiritual war with supernatural beings who have miraculous powers far exceeding our own. And yet they have things to learn from us and we can defeat them with knowledge, ideas and arguments among other things. And yet what is the interplay between logic and emotion? Using your feelings as a guide is obviously bad. At times they can give you insight into the truth. But other times feelings can make you an evil person. So you have to have a way to judge your own feelings. Nevertheless, the intellectual debate serves as a barrier to protect the feelings. You don't have to engage emotionally when you are smarter than your opponent. In other words, people use argument and evidence as a defense of an inner emotional self. To get at that, then you have to demolish strongholds, as Paul cleverly puts it. Once that is done, then the steps forward are more about encouragement and love. But let's focus on the arguments for now.

This is where things can get interesting. Borrowing Paul's language, what ideas are prevalent in the world today that set themselves against the knowledge of Christ? In the western world, atheism is a big one. While it's been about 4% of the population for almost 100 years, as an idea it has more influence. It has a larger life through liberal Christianity. Some theologians and pastors are actually atheists. They are just masters of saying they believe in God without meaning it. And a larger group of them believes in God, but will say that Jesus never Resurrected. And even larger group will say they believe in God and Jesus, but discard Paul's writings. For example, that is where former president Obama stood on the issue. Liberalism exists on a spectrum. But the entire spectrum derives it's conceptual strength from one place. It's all about doubting God, which is the basic idea behind atheism.

And at the very least, people tend to choose Fideism in the face of the call for evidence. In other words, they claim it's just a matter of faith without evidence. This has always amazed me. This is Christians literally agreeing that atheism is true while at the same time choosing to believe in Jesus. It's a way of agreeing that the demand for reason and evidence has not been met by Christianity. Really, it's worse. It's a way of agreeing that the demand for reason and evidence will never be met. These people just insist on believing it anyway. But they agree that they have no way to prove it true.

I remember a Sunday School teacher being offended at an atheist TV program which purported to disprove God's existence. His argument was to say in an offended way, “You can't prove that one way or the other. You just have to take it on faith.” It's absolutely fascinating. Really? We can't prove it one way or the other? Then you sir, are an agnostic. I will say it again. You sir, are an agnostic. You simply choose to believe in God even though you also affirm that nobody knows whether God exists. What amazes me is that this passes in our culture for the most sincere believing Christians. This type of person is pro life, claims the Bible is God's word and never misses church. He just believes all of that stuff even though he also thinks he has no reason to do so. He says God exists. He also says there's no way to know if God exists.

So why does he believe? Evidence indicates that people conform their religion to their social connections. In other words, it will take time for culture and society to alter itself. Church and Christian doctrines permeated Western culture for centuries. That structure of shared values and beliefs won't disappear overnight. New structures will have to be built. But once they are built, then people like the Sunday School teacher won't have much of a reason to believe anymore. Once he's surrounded with many secular institutions and ideas, why hang on to God and Jesus? You long ago decided you have no way of knowing they are real anyway right? You just kept on believing in them even though you admitted you didn't really know.

This leap of faith idea appears to be born in Germany in the 1800's and fully formed by the time of Soren Kierkegaard in the 1900's. He described faith in Jesus as a sort of self defining step in life. To him, there is no proof either way. But his view is that there is a nobility in self declaration of freedom as you take a stance on the issue. There's the rub though. What would happen if that nobility of Christianity eroded? For example, Muhammad owned slaves. For many in the West, awareness of this fact means they will never take Islam seriously again. It's just not holy, noble or any of the above. So what if Christianity can be similarly tarnished? What if we can create a culture in the West that's purely secular? Let's take a look at these two ideas.

Secularism is the idea that religious ideas, institutions and interpretations of life have no social significance. It's the idea that religion is neither wrong or right. Rather it just declares religion irrelevant. I remember seeing a woman who was horribly upset that her son was suicidal because his wife was leaving him. She said, “What do we do?” Someone asked her, “Is he a Christian?” After a confused pause she replied, “That doesn't have anything to do with this. I want to know whether he needs a different psychiatrist that might put him on a different medication.” In other words, she was a Christian. But that had nothing to do with marriage, divorce, spiritual struggles, emotional strength, morality, and hope. In other words, secularism is the idea that there are areas of life that have nothing to do with religion. But secularization is the idea that the secular domain of life is growing. How much has the secular grown?

Obviously this touches on the question of whether religion should be part of government. On that issue, I think Christianity itself provides a basis for freedom to believe whatever you want no matter how silly. Christianity should never be spread by force. But there have to be limits on this freedom because the Bible also says that the government has a God given responsibility to punish evildoers with violence. If non Christians run the government, then this is not new for Christians who should obey this government. If Christians run it,then they should allow people to believe what they want but within some sort of limits. For example, you can't murder 3000 people with jumbo jets because you believe Allah told you to. We the people of the United States will hunt you down and execute you, and we defy Allah to do anything about it.

But again I ask this. How much has the secular grown? What about on the personal level? Does your religion have anything to do with your everyday life? What does God have to do with buying groceries or watching sports? As secularization takes place, the religious portion of your life becomes increasingly private and even only remembered occasionally. Pretty soon, you'll be looking at your life through the glasses of an atheist most of the week. On Sunday, you'll see things in a Christian way at church. But those glasses can be put back in the box when you get home from church. What gives your life meaning? Imagine you are a teenage boy. Is your identity a redneck country boy, concert rock and roll kid, football player, math nerd, etc? Did God enter in to any little bit of how you view the way to live your life? Look at the TV shows and media. Constantly they are filled with stories about how people both go wrong in life and how they go right. And yet the Bible never once enters into the conversation.

So while the secular alternative is already growing, Christianity is also being dishonored. It's widely accepted today that the Bible's anti-gay stance is a form of racism. Then the Bible is declared to be anti-women as well. The funny thing is that the Bible doesn't say that homosexuality is some sinister evil. It just says that it isn't what God intended and a person who can't be committed to a wife or husband should commit his or her life to serving God. And I'm more than happy to defend the idea of female preachers and teachers. The funny thing is that critics of Christianity distort the writings of Paul here, and that many believers agree with their distortions.

2 Peter 3: 15 – 16 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

Peter commends us to read Paul. But he also says that some of what Paul says is confusing and that unstable people distort these things. In other words, Paul is easily misunderstood and twisted. The Bible literally says this. And Peter says this in a section where he is warning us to watch out for false teachers. Yes, that's false CHRISTIAN teachers. To these sorts of criticisms, you tend to get others added. But it's often Paul that's the first on people's minds.

Therefore, I think a spiritual battle plan is quite obviously inferred from all of this.