TLP 362: The Spiritual War in Your Home, Part 8 | the statistics

The Reality of Satan’s Final Rebellion

Satan will be released, and he will go right back to his possessing and influencing. And it won't be long until his propaganda machine is back in business and the world system is tempting people just like it always did, and those billions of people will rally around Satan for one last-ditch attempt to overthrow God.

Why the Statistics of Spiritual Warfare Matter

Welcome to Truth. Love. Parents. Where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents. Here's your host, A .M. Brewster.

Every war has statistics. There are winners.

There are losers.

And there are plenty of ways to determine who those winners and losers are. Today we're going to be looking at a brief history of the spiritual war in order to determine its casualties. Now, why is this important?

Well, we study history in order to learn from it. More specifically, we study history so that we don't make the same poor choices, and so that we can prepare ourselves for the poor choices others are likely going to make.

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Now, even though today's topic may not appear to be riveting and life-altering, I think you're going to find it extremely helpful. But let's start with a quick review of our study. Number one, our families are daily involved in the spiritual war.

Number two, our family members are not our enemies. They are our allies in this war. Number three, Satan, the world, and the flesh are our real spiritual foes. Four, these three enemies attack us, our spouses, and our kids on the battleground of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

And five, the weapon we use in the spiritual war is available only to Christians who ask God for it, and it's found in God's Word. It's created in righteousness, loaded with truth, cited in through the gospel, and fired by faith.

Now, none of our discussions have focused much on how to win the war. In fact, we've talked primarily about the dangers and the pitfalls, and we're going to do more of the same today. But don't worry.

My desire is not to paint the spiritual war as an absolute hopeless mess. What I'm trying to do is make sure we're not delusional in our thinking, because, you know, it's so easy to do that. First of all, the majority of the world is dying in the spiritual war because they don't even realize they're on the wrong side, or perhaps they're deliberately rejecting the king of the heavenly army.

Number two, too many Christians are being wounded in this war because they forget what it is. Three, other Christians are being hurt and hurting others because they're ignoring the real enemies and attacking their fellow soldiers.

Four, still other Christians aren't protecting their desire the way they should. And five, even others aren't utilizing the spiritual weapon God has given us. We need to see this war for what it is. We need to understand our part, our spouse's part, and our kids' part.

We need to know our enemies, our terrain, our weapons, and the severity of this war before we can truly appreciate the methods and tactics God gives us. Please, allow me to encourage you just a little bit.

God is going to win this war, and those who fight alongside Him will also enjoy the spoils of this war. And in eternity, we will never, ever, ever have to fight a single spiritual battle ever.

Again.

Amen and amen. But before that time, there is work to be done. So let's talk about the statistics of this spiritual war. When I worked at Victory Academy, I used to conduct a number of sessions during the final family camp week of our program.

Each of the sessions was designed to prepare the families to thrive when they got home, but I would always start my first session of the week with some statistics and warnings. Victory Academy has been open for nearly 40 years, and during that time, the statistic has stood pretty firm.

If we assume that eight teen boys enrolled in the program every year, how many of them do you think would go home and thrive after being under the aggressive and constant teaching and counseling of the Bible for nine months straight?

Let's start at the beginning. From my personal experience, the eight guys who lived in my home from year to year, one or two of them would know that they weren't born again. They would enter my house completely certain of the fact they weren't Christians.

The other five to six would generally profess to be Christians. However, over the course of the year, four to five of those professing Christians would, by the grace of God, come to realize they weren't born-again followers of Christ.

Of those four to five, generally three or four of them would make another profession of faith by the end of their time at Victory. So let's just say of the eight guys who came in, maybe one of them knows for certain he's not a Christian and he just doesn't care the whole time.

The other ones come to an understanding that they're not born again. Maybe there's one who already is. We'll say there's one who already is. So of the other six, let's just say that, I don't know, four of them, five of them make a profession of faith.

So by the end of the year, we've got four or five guys who've made a profession of faith plus the additional one at the beginning of the year who was already saved. And we've got one guy who knows he's not saved and has a whole year.

And then maybe one guy who figured out he wasn't saved but really didn't care to make.

A change.

All right.

So that's kind of how it pans out most of the time on average. Of course, definitely, please understand, I have no idea how many of them were actually.

Saved.

Okay.

These are just my observations.

All right.

I don't know the heart. And I share this just so you understand that these statistics are not based off of kids who were absolutely rebelling against God in every way possible.

All right.

Many of these guys made professions of faith and their lives really turned around while they were at victory.

Okay.

So some of them, it was, I think it was very legitimate to say that these guys truly were born again while they're at victory and they made some significant strides.

All right.

So we've got some guys who didn't care and some guys who kind of played the game, but some guys who seemed to, as much as humanly possible, really truly be born again. However, despite the fact that 75 to 90 of the terrorist teens who came to my home made significant changes in their attitude toward God and their behavior in the home, and despite the fact that most parents were consistently amazed by their boys' progress while in our program, here is the quote-unquote success rate when the boys went home.

Of the eight boys per year, one to two of them on average would go home and do better than they did before their time at victory. Just one or two. Of the remaining five or six, three to four of them would go home the same, and another one to two might actually go home worse.

And just in case you're wondering, the one or two who went home worse oftentimes weren't the ones who came to us knowing they weren't born again. They oftentimes were the ones who came believing they truly were saved when they arrived.

Now again, these statistics were pretty average, okay? This is what we saw consistently year in and year out. Sometimes, unfortunately, there were even fewer guys who went home and did well. So unlike the best case scenario, note, only about 15 to 20 of the boys in my home had enough victory in their spiritual war that their maturity was noticeable to everyone.

Back home.

Okay, Aaron, but I'm not sure how this applies to us. My children don't need to go to a boarding school. They're not, you know, troubled kids. How do your average children do? Well, that's a really good question, but I need to make one more observation.

Please understand, most of the time when people at church or out in the community would meet the guys from Victory Academy, they would really be surprised that any of them were involved in our program.

They knew that we worked with quote-unquote troubled teens, but we would frequently hear compliments about how nice and well-mannered the boys were. Also, when I would speak at schools and churches, I told people that, from my experience, the boys in my home were not that different from the average boy in the Christian school or.

Youth group.

The biggest differences were that the boys at Victory had simply gotten caught and that their parents had come to a place where they didn't believe they could influence their child anymore. Many of the children in your average Christian school and youth group have also gotten caught, but their parents haven't sent them away simply because they believe they had a little bit more influence in their lives and hoped that that influence could encourage their children to change.

And also, just for full transparency, I probably, myself, as a teenager, should have been sent to a place like Victory Academy for boys. I had serious issues with authority, I stole anything that wasn't nailed down, I was addicted to pornography, and I had a bunch more issues, it just wouldn't be edifying to mention here.

And yet, most people outside of my family and my close peers thought me to be respectful, courteous, obedient, and a good example for other kids to follow. So listen, when I give these statistics, I'm not only speaking from my experience working in Christian schools, boarding homes, and as a family counselor, which is over 10 years of experience.

I'm also talking from my experience as a high schooler who attended good churches. I'm talking from the experience of someone who saw just how sneaky and hypocritical and superficial the other guys my age were, who were in those churches.

And I'm talking from the experience of someone who, maybe on the outside, looked like I had it all together, but I was lying bloody and mangled on the spiritual battleground in my.

Heart.

And I don't think things, maybe, have gotten miraculously better in our culture. Still, in all fairness, I admit these accounts have all been from my own experiences, and they may not seem applicable to you.

The Human Casualty Rate in Scripture

So let's turn to a significantly more trustworthy record of the human casualty. How does God's Word describe the success rate of spiritual warfare? Well, to put it short, my friends, it is not pretty.

We don't have time to look at most of the examples, but if you know anything about the children of Israel, you know that as a nation, they failed far more than they prevailed in spiritual battle. But there is one facet of this war I do want to discuss in greater detail.

In fact, this is the largest spiritual battle and the final spiritual battle that will ever take place. I want to look at just four verses in Revelation 20, but please allow me to set the stage first.

The tribulation is over, the Antichrist, the false prophet, and billions of lives have been lost to the lake of fire. That right there is an interesting statistic concerning spiritual warfare, I think.

Anyway, Satan has been bound for one thousand years in the pit, and Jesus Christ is on his earthly throne. Among his citizens are the redeemed saints who either died before the tribulation or who were raptured.

They are glorified and completely incapable of sin. There are also unglorified believers who were saved during the tribulation and who didn't die during its atrocities. That's how the millennial kingdom begins.

A vast majority of the citizenry are free from the temptation to sin. The others are devoted followers of Christ, and Satan and his demons are not around to possess unbelievers or wreak physical havoc.

There also is technically no world system. The only spiritual enemy left is the fleshly sin nature still left in the unglorified saints. Now, as the millennial reign of Christ continues, the unglorified believers are having children.

Please keep in mind that the people who were raptured and the people who died before this whole experience happened, these people are not having children, they're not giving and being taken in marriage, okay?

All of that is over for them. So only the people who were unglorified, who are believers, who came into the millennial, those are the only people having children, all right? And these children are growing up and having children because we see from scripture all of that's going to continue as usual.

And the whole time that these kids are living, they're living under the perfect, loving, and holy rule of God himself, present on earth in physical form in the form of Jesus Christ,.

All right?

These kids, they can see the beautiful relationships among God's followers. They can see the promised future of believers as they watch and interact with glorified saints, all right? Paul, Adam, Eve, Elijah, Peter, Ruth, and every Christian who has ever lived is influencing the world for Christ.

They're there. They're all there. Now, of course, their parents still sin and they still sin. But since their parents are Christians, their parents are confessing and apologizing, repenting of their sins.

And this is going to go on for a thousand years. And as far as we know, nobody is going to die for these thousands of years, all right? So some of the very first people to be born during the millennial reign are going to live the entire time.

Now, we also need to keep in mind that every child born during this time has to make the same choice every other human has ever had to make. They need to personally choose to put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior.

They need to be born again and follow him. They're not Christians the moment they're born to a millennial kingdom. They still have a sin nature. They still need to make that choice. So just imagine that scenario for a minute.

Imagine the, it's not perfect, okay, but imagine the near perfection of that environment. You would think the vast, vast, vast, you would think that everyone, not just the vast majority, but everybody born into that would, of course, accept Christ, follow him and be born again.

But is that what happens? Now, I'm sure there will be many who choose to follow Christ. And though I don't know how many, I do know that the percentage is far, far less than we would think. That's right.

Even though hundreds of thousands of Christians will enter the millennium, and even though none of them will die that entire time, and even though they will have plenty of kids, and those children will have kids for hundreds of years, and even though Jesus Christ himself is on the throne of the world and Satan and the world system are no longer operating, at the end of the millennial reign, the vast majority of them will rebel against God.

It might be hard for you to believe that, so let's read the account. Revelation 20, verses 7 through 10. When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison, and he will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war.

The number of them is like the sand of the seashore, and they came up on the broad planet of the earth, and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. Enough people have been born that the earth is repopulated, so that their number is like the sand of the sea, and Satan will be released on these people, and he will go right back to his possessing and influencing, and it won't be long until his propaganda machine is back in business, as more people are following his plan, and the world system is back to tempting people just like it always did, and those billions of people will rally around Satan for one last-ditch attempt to overthrow God.

And there will be so many of them that they will surround the camp of the saints, and these saints include the glorified saints from history past, as well as all the ones saved during the tribulation.

And the conclusion of this final spiritual onslaught will be this, And fire came down from heaven and devoured them, and the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also, and they will be tormented day and night, forever and ever.

And that, my friends, is the last time any human being will ever engage in spiritual warfare for all eternity. But our focus today is not on the glorious victory of God. Our focus is on the statistics.

These children who were raised by Christians in a Christian nation, ruled by Christ himself under the influence of glorified believers from every age of the world, the vast majority of them, when given even the smallest chance, are going to rebel against God.

And how could that even happen? Well, it happens because that's how mankind is. Consider Psalm 2. Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us.

Romans 1, 18 -24. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them.

For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power, and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened, professing to be wise. They became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

From the first sinful humans to the last, the majority of them have rebelled against God. Adam and Eve, free of the flesh and the world, disobeyed God. Of their two sons, both of whom offered sacrifices before God himself, spoke with him face to.

Face.

One of them rebelled against God and killed his brother. Cain didn't have access to violent movies and video games. He wasn't surrounded by wicked kids at school, and yet he killed his brother. And check this out.

From the creation of an innocent world with only two humans who began having kids and whose average lifespan was 700 to 900 years, okay, so less than the lifespan of the people during the millennial kingdom, God had to destroy everyone but Noah and his family within a worldwide flood because, Genesis 6, 5 says, then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Interestingly enough, the Tower of Babel incident happened less than 1 ,000 years after the flood. Mankind's hearts are so deceitful and so desperately wicked, we run from our loving Father. We want our self-autonomy so badly that we will engage in daily, ridiculous, sure-to-fail attempts to usurp God.

In episode 274, I talked about much of this. It's called Why Your Family Has Ups and Downs. I also talk about the addictive, powerful sway of the flesh in episode 199, your child's bungee, the nature of sin and parenting.

In fact, TLP family members have exclusive access to a curated list of all of our podcast episodes that deal specifically with the nature of sin. I'll include a link in the description, and I'll include a secondary link if you'd like to join the TLP family for free.

All of those episodes should help you better understand the powerful influence of the flesh on our families. Unfortunately, they will all remind us that, statistically speaking, more people will run from God than to Him.

A Call to Fight for Your Family’s Victory

Why am I sharing this with you? Why would I take so much time to share that the statistics aren't pretty? I'm doing this to light a fire. A fire has been lit in me and in my home. I am different because of this study.

I'm even more determined now than ever that my family will not become another statistic. I'm more determined that I will not become just another statistic, and I want that for you and your family. Now, before we end today, I do want to share some encouragement.

I know this episode may not have left you with a very bright outlook for your family, especially if one or more of your kids is already struggling, but I want to offer hope because God is a God of hope, and He is bigger than all of this.

Our next few episodes are going to be all about the tactics God expects us to employ against Satan, the world, and the flesh. That will be exciting and practical. But then we're going to take the final episode of this series to detail the glorious victory God has promised to all who believe in Him.

It will be so encouraging. It will be the perfect way to end the series. But for now, let me leave you with this. Yes, Satan, the world, and the flesh may be tempting you to be dismayed and discouraged by the fact that, statistically speaking, most people deny Christ.

Matthew 7, 13 through 14, the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

But I want to share one more statistic with you. It's true that parenting is not a formula. We talked about that in episode 110. But when it came to Victory Academy for boys, do you remember that one or two out of eight kids who would go home and do better than they did before coming to Victory?

Do you remember those guys? Well, it's interesting to note that, generally speaking, the boys who went home and thrived went home to parents who had also spent their sons nine months working on their own growth in Christ.

I noticed over and over how the parents who submitted to God acknowledged their own faults and started owning their own sin. Those were the homes that thrived more consistently, even when their son didn't seem to change.

Now, granted, none of this is a guarantee, but those are the statistics. In fact, back in episode 279, two parents who had sent one of their boys to Victory Academy came on the show and talked about how God had worked in their life, and it was such an encouragement.

I would love for you to go back and check that out, okay? Also, it's important to note that our two-part episode, The Experience of a Righteous Parent, walked through Psalm 112, and we noted that the children of righteous parents are blessed.

And we know that if our kids are going to continue in the way glorifying God, they have to first be trained to do so, and we're the ones commanded to do that. So the chances of families having success in their spiritual warfare is increased when mom and dad experience personal victories in their own spiritual warfare.

And really, that's what Truth Love Parents is all about. Our goal is to help equip parents to glorify God by becoming the people God wants them to be, by experiencing personal victory in their own spiritual battles.

We can't promise that what you learn from these podcasts will change your kids, but if you submit to God's truth that we share, you will be changed, and the chances that your kids will start experiencing victory in their spiritual lives will be increased.

Your kids are ultimately responsible for their choices, but you can play a huge part in that. So if you'd like some more focused help in how you can overcome in your spiritual battles, please contact us at counselor at truthloveparent .com or give us a call at 828 -423 -0894.

Remember, if we want our children to grow up into Christ, we must parent in truth and love. If we want our kids to have victory in their spiritual war, we must have victory in our own. To that end, join us next time as we look at The Spiritual War in Your Home, Part 9, How Your Family is to Engage Demonic Forces.

Truth. Love. Parents. is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional, premeditated parent. Join us next time as we search God's Word for the truth your family needs today!