How Evergreen Deals with Demons – Part 2

In Part 1, we looked at the principles for spiritual warfare found in Ephesians 6. Those principles for spiritual warfare are:

1. Be strong in the Lord.
2. Recognize the enemy.
3. Stand for God—and, keep on standing.
4. The belt of truth.
5. The breastplate of righteousness.
6. Our feet fitted with readiness.
7. The shield of faith.
8. The helmet of salvation.
9. The sword of the Spirit—the Word of God.
10. Under-girded with prayer.

In my last post we looked at the first three of those principles: be strong in the Lord, recognize the enemy and stand for God—and keep on standing.

The belt of truth: The importance of truth cannot be understated. Jesus said, “"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) One of the most powerful weapons of Satan is untruth—lies. Satan is the deceiver. We need to have truth in our hearts and in our minds. Notice the order—the heart comes before the mind. We must have the saving grace of Christ in our hearts. The author and perfector of truth must dwell within us. We then need to fill our minds with his truths, lest we be led astray. IMHO the Presbyterian Church does a poor job in dealing with truth. A Presbyterian pastor once told me that the Presbyterian Church has an “ethos of ambiguity.” (He meant it as a complement to the PCUSA.) Satan loves it when we allow truth to become as clear as mud. In dealing with demonic forces it is crucial that the truth of the gospel is in our hearts and minds.

The breastplate of righteousness: Righteousness is a concept that gets down played or forgotten in today’s church. Our righteousness is found in Christ Jesus. We are made clean by the sacrifice of Jesus. We need to confess our sins to him so that our sins can be forgiven. This is the first step in putting on the breastplate of righteousness. Christians have long struggled with sin and grace. In Romans Paul tells us that we should not keep on sinning in order that grace would abound. (Romans 6:1-3) 1 Corinthians 15 tells us to come back to our senses and stop sinning. (1 Corinthians 15:34) In dealing with demonic forces we must wear righteousness. The first step is to wear the righteousness that comes through the forgiveness of sins. The second step is to live changed lives because to the forgiveness we have received. IMHO the PCUSA struggles on the righteousness issue. Too many denominational gatherings end up at a bar or pub. We refuse to take difficult stands on the issue of righteousness. The PUP report FAILED in it’s dealing with the issue of purity. Why? We do not want to tell people that the things they are doing are wrong. This is one of the reasons that many Presbyterian churches are ill prepared to deal with demonic forces.

Our feet fitted with readiness: I confess that this portion of the armor of God is the most difficult for me to understand. This portion of the armor of God actually says, “with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.” The “gospel of peace” does not mean that we are to ignore spiritual battles. A person who is experiencing demons will only find peace when those demonic forces are removed. We must want that person to experience peace. We have to be will to go into spiritual battle in order that peace can be experienced. We have to be ready at a moments notice to go into spiritual battle so that Christ’s peace can come into a person’s life.

Check back tomorrow for the continuation of this topic.