Not of Flesh and Blood

“For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against persons without bodies – the evil rulers of the unseen world, those mighty satanic beings and great evil princes of darkness who rule this world; and against huge number of wicked spirits in the spirit world.”

Ephesians 6:12 (NLT)

Now is not the time to tiptoe around controversial issues for fear of losing a follower or a friend because of what is at stake if we don't– where someone will live out their eternity. No, now is the time to speak truth and to live that truth. But first, we must know truth. Some will say truth is subjective. For them it is. But not for believers in Jesus Christ.

We have an entire book explicitly spelling out truth – God’s truth. We believed it enough to accept that Jesus is who it says He is. This truth is what caused our heart to surrender itself to follow after the Son of God; to accept Him as our substitutionary sacrifice. I certainly believe it enough that it spurs me on to be hopeful for Heaven. I hope you do too.

So then, if we believe these truths, shouldn’t we also believe all the other truths found in the pages of the Bible? The hard truths. Truths like Satan, evil, satanic beings, and spiritual realms. I don’t like these truths but that doesn’t make them lies.

If, in my strong dislike of these truths, I choose to ignore them, I am ignoring God’s Word. I don’t want either of us to do that because even in the hard truths, there is great hope. Greater yet are the consequences if we ignore God's Word as a believer.

When we realize that what we’re seeing in the world today is the intended end orchestrated by the Evil One to divide and deceive us by means of complete erosion and manipulation of truth, only then can we feel hopeful. Sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? Yes, but for evil to exist there must also be good. God is the good and that is why we have hope.

Hope is alive on every page of the Bible and it is alive in our world today. It doesn’t stop existing in the midst of evil. It isn’t idle. It remains active, maintaining its steady, immutable existence. Perhaps, in the midst of evil, hope beckons to us even more urgently, shining its light in the dark for those who believe there is a seen battle going on right now in an unseen world.   

How can a battle occurring in an unseen world be seen in our world? Just look at what’s happening in our world. Satan has deceived us into believing our civil liberties are in jeopardy because of our brother-in-law who votes differently than we do. Or that our country is falling into enemy hands.  It is, but the enemy doesn’t wear a suit and tie and sit in Washington. Satan is the ruler of this world and he is engaged in an all out war against God. He always has been.

He is not motivated by love like God is. He is motivated only by pride and a desire to usurp God’s power. He wants worship he’s not deserving of. And he will do things like deceiving someone into believing their trauma justifies causing trauma for someone else. He will deceive someone into believing they are hated because their lifestyle is different. He will deceive yet another into hating a complete stranger because of their lifestyle choices.

All these things are not the disease. They are symptoms of the disease.

Evil is the disease.

Once our great adversary has deceived someone, he manipulates them into assassinating a young husband and father in broad daylight on a Wednesday afternoon while speaking at an Utah college campus.

Charlie Kirk was not assassinated because his views were different than those of the assassin. He was assassinated because he believed in Jesus Christ and he was not afraid to say so. He was assassinated because of spiritual warfare, not personal or political differences.

Differing views are not worth killing over because they have no eternal worth. What has eternal value is our faith in Jesus. Satan is evil, not dumb. He doesn't want Christians sharing their faith with others because that would be another soul he won't be able to take away from God.

Spiritual warfare is the reason we worry about sending our children to school. Not because someone of flesh and blood could hurt them, but because “someone” without flesh and blood wants to. And all for the sinister, greedy desire for worship that will never be theirs.

Friend, because I have not immersed myself in the truth of God, I’ve been deceived into thinking that the enemy looks like my neighbor who has a bumper sticker on their car representing something I am opposed to, or the political incumbent I didn’t vote for. That intolerance, loss of civility, loss of respect for the sanctity of life, celebration of murder, left vs. right, school shootings, and assassinations are results of a broken system and a polarized political climate. They are not. They are proof of an unseen world – a spiritual world – where Satan is at war against God…and us.

Only believers in Jesus Christ can have hope in today’s world because we know who wins the war Satan is so over-actively engaged in.

Only believers in Jesus Christ can lay aside their own political beliefs and personal judgments and pray for the ones who have been deceived by the Father of Lies lest we  ourselves become deceived.

Yes, there’s a war going on all around us. Scripture tells us more wars are coming.

But so is Jesus.

Don't be deceived into thinking otherwise.