Part 1: True Spiritual Warfare

Church, you may be seated.

All right.

Okay. Good morning. Real quick, by the way, I turned off the two heaters. They turned back on at 10 a .m. and it's like, is it warm in here? It's warm in here. So fix that. Praise God we have a baptism this morning.

Praise the Lord. It's gonna be great. Well, church, as we begin the new year, I thought before we hop right back into our expository series in the first letter to the Corinthians, it would be a good time to discuss what I think is a very important matter, okay?

Why Spiritual Warfare Matters

And that's gonna come from 2 Corinthians 10. So if you wanna open up 2 Corinthians 10 now or go to your printout, have that ready. That's what we'll be expositing today. 2 Corinthians 10. As I mentioned in my prayer, today we're gonna be talking about spiritual warfare.

And it really is a very important topic. It's something that we need to consider even going into the new year. But it's also a very popular topic among evangelical Christians these days, especially those in America.

There's no end to the amount of videos and articles and podcasts, books, conferences, sermons, and ministries on the subject of spiritual warfare. And who are we supposed to believe on that? Who has the truth?

Is it the ex-Satanist guy who has a big YouTube following? Is it men like Neil T. Anderson who has authored many books on exorcisms, generational curses, and how Christians, Christians need to have their demons removed or exorcised from them?

Is that even biblical? And I would, little heads up, I don't think that's biblical. I don't think it's possible for a Christian to have a demon inside of them. Will we believe the deliverance ministries that are out there?

These leaders who are often of the prosperity gospel, and they have dollar signs in their eyes, and they recognize that essentially, a bunch of people in the unbelieving world who might be demon-possessed don't want to go to a deliverance ministry and have their demon removed.

Why?

Because they're unsaved, they're unbelieving, they don't care, they're in their sin. But what these people found out in these deliverance ministries is that essentially, a way to make money is to tell Christians that the root of all your problems is all the demons oppressing you or possessing you.

And everyone has different demons and they're attached to you or they're inside of you. And with that information, with that false theology, I would say, they go to these people and they set up these events and they have even ministries in different states and you go and Christians pay money or give a gift, as they would probably say, and you have your demon removed.

Instead of what?

Instead of learning the word and being part of a local church and being sanctified and being matured in Christ and having accountability and having all those things. What's easier? What do you do? Well, maybe the problem that I have is I have a demon, they would say.

Okay?

So who's right about all this stuff? And even the most loving people, people that I love, people who you love, well-meaning people have come to you in your life and in my life and they've given us sometimes wrong information on spiritual warfare.

And so, as I was preparing this, I couldn't help to think back to my time when I first learned about this after Christ had saved me and then I went to Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. I was earning my master's in theology and finally it came to the point in my schooling where I took a class called Spiritual Formation.

Spiritual Formation. And in that class, we talked about spiritual disciplines, reading the Bible, prayer, we talked about spiritual warfare, we talked about the spiritual realm, the spirit realm. And at some point in the semester, we were given a project to explore the spiritual discipline of solitude.

And so, that is a legitimate spiritual discipline. You see Jesus do that, he goes off by himself. Some of the prophets went off by themselves and they went in solitude and they sought God. And so, I said, okay, all right, let's do that.

And we were given a list of recommended places to go practice our solitude. And I saw one and I was given this location to go to and it was called the Franciscan Renewal Center. And I had to be there alone for like eight hours or something like that, I don't fully remember.

And arriving there, I immediately saw statues out front. It was a 25 acre property. It was a huge property in Arizona against a small mountain in between Arcadia and Scottsdale, Arizona, the Franciscan Renewal Center.

And so, I went there and I realized it was a Roman Catholic property. And their website says that it's a place for renewing lives through spiritual growth, healing, transformation and service to others.

And I was kind of taken aback. I said, why would my professor, part of a Southern Baptist denomination oriented seminary, why would they send me here? Why would this be on the list? But I figured he knew best.

So, I checked in at the front desk. I stepped out onto the property. By the way, there's different packages. You could spend the night at the Franciscan Renewal Center if you just wanted to know. You could spend a couple of hundred to stay a few nights.

And so again, renewal with God is gonna cost you. There's different money packages. You could spend the day there for 75 bucks, things like that. I got in for free because they saw I was a student doing this for a class.

So, anyways, I stepped onto the property. And I'm not kidding, I was inundated with strange thoughts. Just even forms of panic that I'd never had before as soon as I got onto the property. And so, I started walking.

It's a 25 acre property. And I was walking towards the back. I said, let me get away from this stuff. And I walked to the back in this wilderness type area. And there was what was called a spiralized labyrinth.

There was a spiral labyrinth in the earth. And there was a sign that said, if you want spiritual wholeness, you should pray and walk the labyrinth. Walk the labyrinth and pray to God and you will experience spiritual wholeness.

And so, I didn't enter into it. I immediately started to pray. I said, Lord, what is this? Spiralized labyrinth? What is this thing, okay? And so, as I was praying, I became more unsettled and I walked away and started heading in the other direction and I found a small, ornate building, great architecture.

It was a beautiful, small building. It was almost like a hut. And so, I walked over to it. I was trying to look for a place more private to pray. And it was called the Prayer Grotto. The Prayer Grotto.

And I opened the door. And I'm not even kidding, I almost jumped back because there was a life-size idol of Mary. And it was like, oh my gosh, eyes were right on me. There were statues of other saints and idols in there.

And it's like, when I opened the door, it was so freaky. It's like they were looking right at me saying, hey, this is our turf. What are you doing here? And I was like, I closed the door. I said, oh Lord, what is this?

I was so unsettled. So, I walked away again after I slammed the door and I saw now a building that said this is where they hold Mass every week. And I said, I'm not going over there. Finally, in the center of this huge compound, I found a courtyard with some trees.

And I sat down on a bench. And I'm just telling you, the most insane things were assaulting my thoughts. And everything in me wanted to just jump up and sprint out of there. I just wanted to get out of that place.

But I sat there and I opened up my Bible finally. And when I sat down, I just decided to open it up. I don't think that's something like, God, what do I need to know today?

Open it up.

That's testing the Lord our God. But I do think that in that providential moment, I opened the scriptures and I landed on Psalm 37. Our deacon, Eric, read verses one through 20 today. And I started to read it and it was such a moment of strength for me.

It kept saying, do not fret because of evil. Do not fret. Do not fret. Evil and evildoers will be cut off. And the psalmist kept saying, wait for the Lord. Rest in the Lord. And it even said that the Lord laughs at those who plot against Him.

And so one of the most comforting things, finally I came to verse 24 in Psalm 37. And it said this, because I felt like I was falling. I felt like I got there and I had just been falling. And it said this, though a righteous man may fall, he will not be hurled headlong because the Lord is the one who holds his hand.

And I said it out loud. I said, Lord, you're holding my hand. You've got my hand. You're holding my hand. The Lord is with me. I don't need to fret even if I'm surrounded by a wave of evil or a multitude of demons.

I don't need to be afraid. No, not with God on my side. And this peace washed over me. And so I was determined to spend the rest of my remaining hours there and get my assignment done. And so what I did is I wanted to get away from all these idols and this spiral labyrinth and all these things.

And in the corner of this, I mean, 25 acres is huge. I went over to this corner and there was a garden with pink and orange roses, white roses. There was a water fountain and there were trees. And I said, Lord, that's where I'm gonna read my Bible.

I'm gonna read my Bible right there in what you created. I'm gonna worship the Creator and I'm gonna sit in your creation and ponder you. And as I read my Bible, I had it open and I was reading because it was like as if I was a soldier who needs to have his sword unsheathed.

I needed to be ready at any time. And so I was just reading my Bible. And finally I drove home and I thought to myself, why was I sent here? Why was this even on the list? My professor wanted us to have some sort of spiritual connection with God as we sought solitude.

And I definitely had a spiritual encounter, but it wasn't the one that I think he expected. Different spirits were found. It was only when God fought for me that I found rest. When I read his word, when I found his word.

One more story, one more example of wrong spiritual warfare. In that same class, at the end of semester, we had a final project. And I was to go to a private place with a mentor of my choosing, someone that I trusted.

And I chose my campus president. I had got to know him. I had a good relationship with him. But again, I was confused and skeptical.

What are we doing?

What is this project? Because there, in this room, I was sitting with this man that I knew, but I barely knew. And he was supposed to lead me as I started to out loud denounce generational curses and sins that I did with the occult.

I started to say all these things. Lord, forgive me for using a Ouija board. I had never used a Ouija board, but I had to say these things. I had to say all these things. Lord, forgive me for this. Lord, I denounce this.

I go against this God. And I had to say all these things, things that I had never even done in my life. I had to. And we had to pray all these certain formulaic prayers. It had to go this way and that way.

We had to say it perfectly like this. And it would be finally, at the conclusion of this meeting, I would have complete freedom in Christ finally. That's where I would get freedom in Christ. But that was so very wrong.

I had already confessed my sins to Christ when He converted me. I had already asked for forgiveness. I had thought back then, even then I thought, Lord, You already cleansed me with clean water. You've already given me a new heart.

You've removed the heart of stone. Ezekiel says, you've given me a heart of flesh. You have regenerated me. I thought the Holy Spirit is in me. Doesn't that count for something? God Himself dwells in me.

And that's not enough. I'm not free. You're telling me I'm in bondage? I'm not free. Jesus says in John 8, verse 36, so if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. He sets us free. Romans 8, verses one through two, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. I'm already free. I was already free. You're already free. You're free. You've been set free, church. But this professor, this author, this book, this project said I wasn't free.

I was in bondage. I was still in complete sin. And only after I buy these books and do these things will I finally be set free. Never again. I want to save you from the confusion and heartache that these wrong ideas of spiritual warfare often give us.

The Bible is called the sword of the Spirit. The Bible is the truth. It is the Word of God. He will tell us how to fight our sin. God's Word will tell us how to fight the world.

And the devil.

There may be wonderful men and women who teach on this or give great testimony, but we need to see what the Scriptures say about this subject, because there is no end to those who teach this falsely. And so yet at last, Scripture is the only unfailing, inerrant, divine authority and standard for the Christian man or woman.

We put stuff on YouTube. We do testimonies, but in the end, our videos and the videos of other men and women online aren't the standard. It's the Word of God. You see, many in pursuit of going after this subject have adopted a cultic and mystical worldviews in order to bolster the plain spiritual warfare of the Bible.

You have mantras, bindings, incantations, formulaic prayers, hedges of thorns, seeking knowledge from demons, communicating with spirits, false healings, false exorcisms, and a lot more. And there are those among these people who can perform true signs and wonders, but they're like Simon the magician in the book of Acts.

Even Jesus warned that there would be false prophets and false messiahs who would arise and they would be capable of doing signs and wonders. People would marvel at what they can do. But God warns us through Christ that that would happen.

God warns us even through Moses in Deuteronomy that if a prophet arises among you, if a man rises among you and says I'm from God, and he can do many signs, even things that are miraculous, the signs alone don't authenticate him as being from God.

The Lord says in Deuteronomy, if he is devoid of the truth or if he leads you after other gods, even if he does signs and wonders and they're real, don't believe him, don't follow him. You see, the miracles that Jesus performed were always accompanied with the gospel.

His whole gospel ministry, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The Son of Man has come to forgive sinners of their sin. And then he would remove demons and he would heal people and he would do these things.

The same is true for the apostles in Acts. Truth was always joined to signs and wonders.

Okay?

And now some will even say that this is, spiritual warfare is a battle of territories. That there's all these territories everywhere that are claimed for Satan and demons and they have these territories where there's hordes of them and we have to go in and remove all these demons and we have to go in circles and do mantras and pray for them to go away and things like that, that we have to do this.

But I tell you, brothers and sisters, in Psalm 2, the father asks the son, says to the son, ask my son and I will give the nations as your inheritance, the ends of the earth as your possession. We see that take place in Daniel chapter seven.

There's one like a son of man who came up to the ancient of days and to him was given a kingdom and a dominion everlasting that will never fade away. It's all yours, it's all yours. And Jesus says in Matthew 28 of the Great Commission, all authority has been given unto me.

This is all mine, Christ says. And he says, just in case that we would think otherwise, Jesus says, in heaven and earth. In heaven and earth. That means the spiritual realm and the physical realm. Everything is the territory of Christ.

There's nothing not one to Jesus Christ. We just need to go. That's what he says. You just need to go to all places. Go and proclaim the truth by the order of the king. This is not a battle of territory.

Spiritual warfare has always been a battle of truth and lies. Fact and falsehood. And so to see this, we go to one of the most important passages on spiritual warfare in the Bible. Look at 2 Corinthians 10, verses three through five.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations in every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.

And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. That is the word of the Lord. Let's pray actually. Dear God, we thank You that Your Word has been given so powerfully and been preserved for us, Lord, that we may look to it as an inspired manual divine instructions, Lord, that we could see Your very character and Your very nature through it.

But that also means that we can see how You define the spiritual realm and how You define how we fight in the spirit and even how we fight physically, Lord. And so God, help me to get out of the way. Lord, I pray now, because even I have come to this subject, God, with so many presuppositions.

God, I pray that whatever we learned as children, whatever we saw and experienced, Lord, in the past at different churches, Lord, that we would conform all these things to Your Word. Help us to see Your Word for what it is, dear God.

Please be with us. Keep our every focus on You. Let not the enemy snatch away our attention now. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. I know that was a long introduction. The rest of it's not gonna be very long.

So let's get into it. To borrow from one commentator, Paul has detailed in these verses how we are to fight, what we fight, what we fight with, and why we fight. How we are to fight, what we fight, what we fight with, and why we fight.

And to figure those answers out, we have to first understand the context. If you've learned anything from me, I hope that you've learned when I preach any subject,.

We look at the context.

Context, that means with the text. What's before it, what's after it? Let's see what this is all about, okay? And thus far, we have not been in the second letter to the Corinthians, we've been in the first letter to the Corinthians.

So what is happening here.

Paul’s Defense of His Apostolic Authority

That the Apostle Paul needed to write.

A second letter to this church? Well, Paul wrote 2 Corinthians to reaffirm his commitment to the church in Corinth. He sought to reconcile with those who had previously wronged him before. He continues to address the issue of division within the congregation.

We saw that in our study. And he continues now to defend his apostolic authority against men who were called super-apostles. They were seeking to undermine him and his teaching. And Paul defends himself against them.

You see, some of them said Paul did what he did simply for money. Oh, this guy just goes around for money. Or they said he was a hypocrite. Paul is a man who says to do one thing, but he does another.

They were seeking to undermine him, to remove his authority. He helped start that church in Corinth and they wanted to remove Paul. And these false apostles even attacked Titus, saying both Paul and Titus didn't have apostolic authority.

They have no authority here,.

No authority from God. They even mocked Paul's physical appearances and his countenance and his teaching. And so Paul then responds in chapter 11, verses 13 -15. All these are in your printout, by the way.

He says this,. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore, it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness whose end will be according to their deeds.

In this letter, he even quotes some of these people who oppose him sometimes. He says in chapter 10, verses 8 -10, for even if I boast somewhat further about our authority which the Lord gave me for building you up and not destroying you, he says, I will not be put to shame.

For I do not wish to seem as if I would terrify you by my letters, for they say, here it is, for they say, his letters are weighty and strong, but his personal presence is unimpressive and his speech contemptible.

They criticize Paul and say, the man can sure write a harsh letter, but have you seen him in person? Were you here last time when he came? He's a weak and mediocre looking man.

He has a limp.

He looks like someone who's been beaten with stripes far too much. And that's hit him in the head a little bit. He's not harsh in person though. He can't even speak well. Pathetic actually. That's what they were saying.

Contemptible. Pathetic. And so Paul intends to visit the Corinthians again after this letter. That's how our chapter starts. We're in chapter 10, verses 3 -5, but look at verses 1 and 2. Look at verses 1 and 2.

Now I, Paul, myself urge you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. And then he quotes them again. Look, I, who am meek when face to face with you, but bold toward you when absent. I ask that when I am present, I need not to be bold with the confidence with which I propose to be courageous against some who regard us as if we walked according to the flesh.

You see his sarcasm here. I, who am humble when face to face, but bold when I am away writing letters. That's what they say. But he tells them that he will do what he needs to do. He can be very bold when necessary.

In fact, he was one of the most courageous and bold men of the early church. The Apostle Paul. But he doesn't want to have to be bold in front of them when he sees them. He doesn't want to have to bring down the hammer when he sees them.

This is what Paul wants. This is what he hopes the letter accomplishes. He wants the true believers in Corinth who are already there to be courageous themselves. Have courage. Be bold, true believers of Corinth.

Correct, rebuke, or even remove, if need be, these super apostles. You're better than this. I gave you the truth of the Gospel. I gave you the Word. But you're over here listening to men who are trying to discredit what we're saying, but we have seen the risen Lord.

We have given you the truth. Remove the false brethren who have said that we walk according to the flesh. I'll tell you what we walk by, and that's where our verse starts. In fact, even in v. 6, the verse right after ours, he says he's ready to punish all disobedience if necessary.

I'm ready to come and punish. And so, sandwiched in between v. 1 -2 and v. 6, where he's saying I'm coming, I'm warning you, deal with sin, deal with these super apostles who are accusing us, and then sandwiched in between there are v. 3 -5, and then he says, and if you don't, I'm coming to punish.

And so what he says in v. 3 -5 are, we're apostles of Christ. We're true apostles. These super apostles are false. They really belong to Satan. They're disguised as workers of light. And they actually walk according to the flesh.

They accuse us of walking according to the flesh. We walk according to the Spirit. We walk the right way. We walk the spiritual way. They do their ministry one way, another way, a false way,.

A fleshly way,.

But that's not how we walk. That's what they accused him of. So here's his response. And this will answer the question of how we fight. How do we fight in spiritual warfare? V. 3 -4. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. Now you hear the word flesh. This is the word sarx in the Greek. And it is often used by Paul for that opposing fallen nature that you and I possess as believers.

It's all connected to our humanity and we long for it to be gone. But here, Paul uses the word flesh in its basic definition. Our physical nature. Our physical bodies.

And so he's saying,.

For though we walk in our physical bodies, we do not war with our physical bodies. And the apostle was someone who possibly had bad eyesight. I mentioned that to you before in a sermon that he said, some of you have said you wish you could give your eyes to me.

And that could maybe be an indicator that Paul was starting to lose his eyesight. We know that he walked with a limp. He was possibly a lot shorter than other people. He had all these body limitations.

But whatever they were, they did not limit what he had access to in the Spirit. Whatever his physical limitations were, they did not limit what he has access to in the Spirit. And the same goes for you and me.

You could be the weakest person physically. You could have terrible diseases. There have been amazing, incredible saints who have had the worst cancers and diseases, but they've been the most powerful spiritually.

Most wisdom, most maturity. You see that. They're not always directly correlated. Therefore, though we walk physically, we wage war spiritually. Wage war. Some of you have noticed that Paul likes the soldier analogy.

He says in Ephesians 6, put on the full armor of God. He says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1, fight the good fight. Fight. He says earlier in this letter to take up the arms, the weapons of righteousness and truth.

And he uses the soldier analogy, the fighting analogy a lot, but this is no analogy. This is not an analogy this time.

This is real.

There was a real battle occurring during Paul's time. There's a real battle occurring now in our time. And it's spiritual in nature.

It's spiritual.

And so our weapons won't be physical either. You don't battle a spiritual war with weapons and tools crafted by men.

You don't.

You need weapons from heaven. If we're going to make any advances in the spiritual war, we have to employ God's weaponry and strategy.

But I'm telling you,.

There is such a temptation to use tools and weapons made by men. All these new ministry ideas pop up all the time. And because I'm a pastor, the times that I go on Facebook, and now it's just full of ads by the way.

I can't stand it. I want to see what my family is doing. Friends from the old church. But now if I scroll, because my social media says I'm a pastor, I get sent all these advertisements for all these new products.

Hey, if you're a pastor and sermon work has been pretty hard, we have this new AI app that'll help you write your sermon. No kidding. We'll help you write it.

We'll do it.

Hey, we have these videos come up of these guys. They're like, hey, we understand. You're in a church plant. You're in a hard place. You need to know the magic sauce on how to build that congregation up.

We could give you the tools to bring so many people in there, and your giving will be through the roof. Right, I see these things all the time. These gimmicks come up. And that's what people have used to fight the spiritual war.

They've used these ideas, these programs, these apps. Ministries and clubs and practical conferences, carnal ideas for the church. And then of course, all the things that I said about removing demons from people, all these things.

But in the end,.

You can't use the things of this world's kingdom to grow the kingdom of God. And we don't like that. In some ways, we don't like that we have to deal with the spiritual. Dealing with the physical seems easier, does it not?

I mean, if you gotta either deal with your sin or go out and clean the garage, you'd rather clean the garage than clean yourself, right?

It's just easier.

That's our propensity. But it's like thinking, when you think that there's a physical weapon that you could use to deal with a spiritual war, it's like thinking when God says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

It's like taking a piece out of your Bible, taking a piece of paper, a page out and eating it. Well, man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Let me eat some of the Bible.

And some of you have eaten paper and you're crazy. I'm telling you that now. But that's the wrong idea. Now, an example of this is just like our series in Paul's first letter. Do you remember they began to cherish human philosophy?

They began to cherish so-called wisdom of the worldly wise. And Paul says, don't you realize you have the mind of God? You have access to the mind of God. And on the day of judgment for believers, he said, don't you want the praise that comes from God later in heaven, than the praise of man now in the church or the marketplaces?

Because if you remember, the Corinthians started to love the things of this world, the wisdom of this world, the philosophies of man. They didn't know that they had access to God. And so he reminds them, he says, I'd rather be a fool for Christ, preaching the foolish message of the cross and Jesus Christ crucified.

And it confounds the world, it goes against nature. It's not physical, it's spiritual. And therefore the way we fight follows the same pattern. How we fight, how we do spiritual warfare is not with fleshly or worldly gimmicks, despite what the charlatans may tell you.

You know, I once knew a man, I once knew a man who carried a bag of salt that was blessed by a priest in his pocket. And he had this bag of salt and he held it to his chest. And that's where he put his hope in.

He said, I've had this bag of salt, this priest blessed it, and now none of these creatures, none of these demons can come after me.

I have this salt.

And that's what he had. I remember, I've seen people, I don't mind a cross around your neck. I think it's fine to have a necklace with a cross, but there have been people who take that cross and when something happens where they escaped some sort of thing, they escaped something that was bad and they're actually fine.

They take the cross and they kiss it and they go, it's because of this. They don't turn their heads to God, they turn their head to the crucifix around their neck and go, this is it. One time I bought a car, and I bought a car, and it was this Subaru, this old Subaru, and all on the dashboard were images of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mary, and there was even Buddha and some Hindu gods on it and all these things.

They were taped onto the dashboard. And when I bought the car, I inspected the whole thing and look, I'm sure some of you would go, bad juju, I'm not buying that. Whatever, I'm not afraid. But I checked it out.

Mechanically, it worked well. The mileage was fine. And I said, whatever, I'm just gonna rip those off and clean the interior anyways. And I remember when they were signing the title over to me, the lady said, you're gonna wanna keep those on.