Ephesians

In the Spirit—or the Sinful Nature?

You might be surprised by the suggestion that it is possible to use a spiritual gift in the power of the sinful nature. The fact is that each of us begins life on the basis of the sinful nature, we live our lives fully in the sinful nature until the moment we receive Christ as Lord and Savior, and we easily revert to living in the sinful nature even throughout our Christian lives. That is the inner war that Paul describes in Romans 7-8—the fact that every Christian is a walking battleground in a war between the spirit and the sinful nature.

The world operates on the basis of the sinful nature. We who are in Christ are to operate in the power of the new life in Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit. When we exercise our gifts in the power of the Spirit we become the Lord’s hands, feet, and lips on earth, spreading His healing touch and saving message wherever we go. When we exercise our gifts in the power of the sinful nature, what issues from us is not ministry, but corruption.

Perhaps you have heard preachers speak in the sinful nature—exercising the gift of preaching but doing so out of a self-centered desire for self-exaltation and self-advancement. Such preaching often attracts hundreds or thousands, and sounds very pleasant, but it does not spring from the power of the Spirit. Such preaching ultimately produces death and corruption. Nothing is more tragic and wasteful than to exercise a spiritual gift in the power of the sinful nature.

We need the help of the Scriptures to see what the sinful nature is, and who the Holy Spirit is, and how He operates in our lives and through our gifts. We must continually immerse our minds and hearts in God’s Word, allowing Him to open our eyes to new and deeper insights into the gifts He has given us and how He wants us to use them.

We need to put our gifts to daily use, exploring the unique capabilities with which God has endowed us. And as we use those gifts, we will encounter joys and successes—and we will also encounter obstacles and setbacks. Don’t be discouraged—the obstacles and setbacks can be even more important to your maturity and understanding of your gifts than the joys and successes. God knows that, gifted as we are, we still have rough edges. We need to be planed and sandpapered and smoothed. God has several grades of sandpaper, running from extremely fine to extremely rough! Our job is to cooperate with Him in having our corners rounded, and our coarse and scratchy surfaces polished to shiny perfection.

Discovering Your Gifts

The next question that naturally occurs to us is: “How do I discover my own gifts?” There are two ways that we discover our gifts. First, we discover by doing. This is the same way people discover they have a natural talent, such as musical or athletic ability. You’ll never know that you have what it takes to be a great concert pianist until you first sit down at a piano and take a few lessons. You’ll never know if you have what it takes to be a great quarterback until you at least pick up a football and throw it a few times. Everyone has to start somewhere.

The person who volunteers to help lead a Sunday school class or youth group could one day find himself pastoring a church. A visit to a hospital or soup kitchen could lead to the discovery of a gift of showing mercy. Volunteering to serve on the church finance or personnel committee could lead to the discovery of the gift of administration.

In the process of placing yourself in various ministry situations, you will see other Christians exercising their gifts. From time to time, you will find yourself being drawn to what you see.

You may think, “I have an affinity for that kind of ministry as well. Perhaps God is leading me in that direction.” I believe that what you enjoy doing is usually what God gives you the privilege of doing, because there is joy in exercising our spiritual gifts and in performing the ministry God designed us to do. People take great pleasure in exercising their gifts, because it is fulfilling and satisfying to carry out our God-given function.

The second way we discover our gifts is by having those gifts observed in us and affirmed in us by other Christians. When other Christians—particularly those fellow Christians you see as wise and mature—see God’s gift in you and encourage you to use it, it is a message to consider carefully and prayerfully. Equally important, our fellow Christians can often be helpful in pointing out that we don’t have the gift we think we have. I remember Dr. H. A. Ironside used to speak about those pathetic fellows who thought they had the gift of preaching, but were frustrated that no one had the gift of listening! So other Christians have an important role in holding up a spiritual mirror to us, so that we can see our unique range of gifts more clearly.

Of course, the key to discovering our gifts—whether we discover them through doing or through the affirmation of fellow Christians—is that we ask God in prayer to open our eyes and reveal our gifts to us. These are spiritual gifts, not natural talents, so we urgently need the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who leads us into the fullest knowledge and richest expression of our unique, God-given charismata.

Ephesians Appendix: Spiritual Warfare

Return to Table of Contents

Facing Reality, Facing the Battle¹⁶

We can only truly understand life when we see it as the Bible sees it. When we come to the Bible, we learn the truth. Here the world is set before us as it really is.

One of the most fundamental truths the Bible presents to us is that, behind the facade of this world, there is an invisible battle raging. This battle takes many casualties, and there are no innocent bystanders, no noncombatants. Every human being on this planet, whether he or she is aware of it or not, is forced to take one side or the other in this great cosmic war.

Paul writes:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. (Ephesians 6:10-13)

In this passage we see that Paul’s view of life can be summed up in a single word: struggle. Life, he says, is a conflict. The reality of Paul’s words is confirmed constantly by our experience.

We don’t like to hear this. We would rather think of life as an idealized, peaceful journey, drifting from birth until the moment God calls us home to be with Him. It is disturbing and troubling to think of life as a struggle and the world as a battleground.

Paul wants us to understand the struggle we face so that we can withstand the onslaught and emerge victorious. And the only way we can hope to survive is by understanding the nature of the battle and the enemy we face. “Therefore put on the full armor of God,” he tells us, “so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground” (Ephesians 6:13). What “day of evil” is Paul foreshadowing in this passage? Clearly, Paul implies that all days are not the same. Some times are more evil than others. There are seasons in life when pressures are more intense, when problems are more insoluble, when everything seems to come upon us at once. Sometimes it is an actual day, sometimes it is a week, sometimes months. But thank God, all of life is not that way. There are good days, and there are evil days.

Tragically, most of us take the times of refreshment, blessing, and glory for granted, never returning a word of thanksgiving to God for the good times in our lives. We see the good times in life as our due, and see the evil days as unfair intrusions into our perfectly ordered lives. The fact is, evil is our due as sinners, and all the good we receive is a gift of God’s grace, for which we should be continually grateful. Instead of complaining about the evil days, we should recognize—with the realism of the apostle Paul—that life is a constant struggle, varying in intensity over time, but extending from the cradle to the grave. That is reality.

Our Enemy

In Ephesians 6:12 Paul tells us, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” This is a crucially important point: our conflict is not against flesh and blood. The invisible war involves human beings, it is waged within and around human beings, and there are human beings on both sides of the battle lines—but human beings are not the enemy. Those human beings who appear to be against us are really nothing more than pawns of the real enemy. Our struggle is not man against man. Our enemy is an inhuman enemy.

Our battle, in short, is not against other people. As long as we look only for human enemies, we are in danger of being blindsided by the real enemy. Arrayed against you and me and the entire human race are forces beyond our comprehension—rulers, authorities, powers of this dark world, and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Once we accept the proposition of a spiritual battle, then so many events in history become clear: the repeated persecutions against Christians and attempts to destroy the church; the relentless attempts through history to ban, burn, and eradicate the Bible; the pogroms against the Jews and the genocidal Holocaust of World War II; the repeated attempts by various nations to scour the nation of Israel off the map. Clearly, there is a vast demonic conspiracy seeking to upset God’s program, but His plan is sure, His ultimate victory will take place in the fullness of time.

Rulers, Authorities, Powers, and Forces

Our real battle is “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). The world, Paul tells us, is in the grip of invisible world rulers! The world rulers of this present darkness are headed by the devil, whom Scripture says is a fallen angel of malevolent power and cunning. That is not the claim of an isolated passage of the Bible. That is the consistent teaching of the Bible from beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation—especially in Genesis and Revelation, in fact!

Jesus Himself put His finger on the whole problem when He said to certain men of His day, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). In that analysis, the Lord stripped the devil of his disguises and revealed his true character—a liar and a murderer. What the devil does is because of who he is, just as what we do is due to what we are. Because he is a liar and a murderer, the devil’s work is to deceive and to destroy. Scripture calls him “the god of this age” who “has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). The world listens to everything he says, and he spins a beautiful, attractive lie that makes the world drool with desire. But the end of his lie is destruction, murder, and death—death in all its forms, not only the cessation of life, but also in the form of defeat, despair, meaninglessness, and emptiness. Whom the devil cannot deceive he tries to destroy, and whom he cannot destroy he attempts to deceive.

We must learn how to overcome the rulers, authorities, powers, and forces arrayed against us. They cannot be fought by weapons of the body. The weapons of our warfare are not of the body, but of God. Our weapons are mighty, capable of pulling down satanic strongholds and bringing into captivity every thought. (See 2 Corinthians 10:4-5.) That is our arena—the realm of thought, of ideas, of soul, of spirit, of will, of obedience. That is our challenge—to submit ourselves to the military leadership of our Lord and Commander, Jesus Christ. That is our battle cry— “Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power!”

The Strong Man—and the Stronger Man

Notice that Paul suggests that the only ones who can successfully battle against these dark forces are Christians: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood” (Ephesians 6:12). The phrase “our struggle” refers to the struggle of Christians. Only Christians are capable of being victors in this war; all others are victims.

Jesus makes this point clear in Luke 11. There He is challenged by the religious leaders because He goes about driving out demons. His opponents say that He is able to drive out demons because He has a relationship with Beelzebub, the prince of demons—another name for Satan. The name Beelzebub means “lord of flies.”¹⁷ The Jews regarded hell as a cosmic garbage dump, and in a real sense they were right, for that is exactly what hell is—the awful repository of wasted lives. The being who reigned over this garbage heap was the devil, and because a garbage pile always attracts flies, they called Beelzebub the lord of the flies.

When these religious leaders accuse Jesus of casting out demons by the authority of Beelzebub, Jesus replies, “If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? I say this because you claim that I drive out demons by Beelzebub” (Luke 11:18). His argument is simply this: Satan never fights against himself. Satan is too cunning to divide his forces in that way. If he did, his kingdom would fall. Therefore, Jesus suggests that any man under the control of Satan has no possibility of deliverance apart from an outside, intervening force.

He elaborates in Luke 11:21, “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe.” Who is the strong man? Satan. What is the house of the strong man? The world. What are the strong man’s possessions? People. Apart from the intervention of God, we as human beings are under the control of Satan (see 2 Timothy 2:26). We are powerless and hopeless in our own strength. As 1 John 5:19 tells us, “We know that we [Christians] are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.” That is the position of the Bible—the world has fallen under the control of Satan. Not the world of trees and mountains and lakes and seas; that is God’s world. But the world of organized human society has fallen under the control of Satan, and there is no possibility of escape apart from outside intervention.

The Crisis of History

In Luke 11:22, our Lord introduces us to the solution to the problem of human evil: “But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him [the strong man], he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils.”

Who is this stronger one? It is Jesus. He is speaking of Himself. He says that when a strong man (Satan), fully armed, guards his house (the world), his possessions (human beings) are securely kept within his grasp. But when One who is stronger comes (Jesus), He breaks the power of that strong man, and frees the possessions (human beings) from the evil strong man’s grasp.

This is the good news: Jesus is the stronger man who breaks the power of Satan and sets us free. In the mystery of the cross of Jesus, in the power of His resurrection, we who have been born into a world under the dominion of satanic forces are now set free. The power of Satan and sin has been canceled and broken. There is no other power that can do that but the power of the “stronger” man, Jesus. Jesus came into the world “to destroy the devil’s work” (l John 3:8). Paul says that God, through Christ, “has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves” (Colossians 1:13). This is what the gospel is for. If we try to channel it first into smaller areas of life, such as applying it to social concerns, we only reveal how far we have mistaken its purpose. The gospel ultimately finds its way there, certainly, but it must first and foremost make its impact upon this basic problem of human life—the problem of sin and enslavement under the dominion of Satan.

Our Lord reveals one other crucial principle in Luke 11:23: “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters.” Jesus is saying that no neutral ground is possible. If you are not on the Lord’s side, you have sided with the enemy. If Jesus has not delivered you from sin by grace through faith, then you are still under the bondage and control of the dark powers of Satan. There are no exceptions.

Jesus Christ spoke of Himself as the divider of men. He divides nations, societies, communities, families, and even church congregations into two groups—those who are with Him and those who are against Him. Either you have received Him or you have rejected Him. Either you are a child of God—or you are a child of wrath. There is no middle ground.

Jesus has come to destroy the devil’s work. That is the nature of the real but invisible war that rages within us and around us. You must decide today. You must choose one side of the battle line or the other. Whose side are you on?

The Satanic Strategy

Now we will give closer attention to Satan’s strategy—and our Lord’s counter-strategy—for the actual conduct of this battle.

The devil is a cunning and wily strategist. Read the Old Testament and you will see that nearly every saint, every prophet, every patriarch, every one of the great and glorious kings of Israel was defeated at one time or another by the devil. The wisest and greatest of men are absolutely helpless to outwit the devil by their own human power.

Yet we are not without hope. The Bible tells us that we can be victorious over Satan. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,” says James 4:7. This diabolically brilliant strategist who has held the world in chains for centuries will flee when you are alert to his schemes. What, then, is the satanic strategy?

The only human being who ever consistently defeated the devil, not only in life but also in death, is the Lord Jesus Christ. He put His finger squarely on the strategy and the tactics of Satan when He said, “…the devil…was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). How does the devil plan to oppose the work of God in the world? By murdering and destroying. One of the names given to the devil in the book of the Revelation is “Apollyon,” which means “Destroyer” (see Revelation 9:11). To destroy is to create chaos, to lay waste, to ruin, to make desolate. There you have the explanation for the whole tragic story of human history: a Destroyer is at work among men. Our God is a God of creativity, beauty, harmony, order, and perfection. There is enough evidence left in the world of nature, and in the world of ideas, to see this marvelous symmetry, beauty, and perfection of God. The world was created as orderly and beautiful.

Then came the Destroyer. It is his delight to smash, mangle, twist, mutilate, disfigure, and blast in every way he can. It does not make any difference whether it is bodies or souls, flesh or ideas, matter or spirit—the aim of the devil is exactly the same in every case. That is why the devil can never offer anything positive to human beings. He can make nothing. All he can do is destroy what God has made. His power is totally negative, completely destructive in every way.

The devil carries out his tactics by lying, distorting, counterfeiting, and masquerading. He uses illusion and fantasy to lure human beings to their destruction. This is what Paul calls “the devil’s schemes.” Read through the Bible and you will see how many times the work of the devil is referred to this way—as snares, traps, illusions, wiles, and schemes.

The tactics of the devil fall into two major divisions. He attacks the human race both directly and indirectly. And through these two avenues he maintains his worldwide control over the human race. The Bible tells us there are hosts of fallen, rebellious angels called “demons,” whom Paul calls here rulers, authorities, powers of this dark world, and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

The term “heavenly realms,” of course, does not refer to heaven, the dwelling place of God. It refers to the realm of the invisible, the unseen, spiritual realities of life. The devil and his hosts are not visible. The devil’s activity is carried out in the heavenly realms, where God works, as well as the devil.

The Bible tells us very little of the origin of the devil and his angels, these authorities and invisible powers. There is enough to suggest that Satan was created originally as an angel of light and strength and beauty. There is a brief reference to the fall of this great angel due to the sin of pride (see Isaiah 14:12-15; Ezekiel 28:12-19). Lifted up by pride, he set out to rival God and, in doing so, he fell from his exalted place, taking a third of the angels with him. They became the devil and his organized kingdom of darkness, set in opposition to the kingdom of God. It is through these hosts of wicked spirits that Satan is able to make a direct assault upon human life.

Direct Assault

This demonic direct assault is what the Bible refers to as “demon possession,” the outright control of a human personality by the power of a wicked spirit. It also extends to such activities as soothsaying, occultism, spiritualism, and related black magic arts such as astrology, fortune-telling, voodoo, and so forth. While there are many charlatans and frauds who practice in these areas, deceiving people for dishonest gain, I believe there are also genuine practitioners of black magic—and such people are in league with demonic spirits.

The Bible consistently warns against dabbling in these matters. Under the Old Testament law, the people of Israel were strictly forbidden to have anything to do with spiritists and those who make contact with the dead (see Deuteronomy 18:10-12). This prohibition was because any investigation into this realm immediately lays one open to powers beyond people’s understanding. This is dangerous ground. It opens the way, oftentimes, to outright demon possession.

Some people confuse demon possession with mental illness. The Bible, however, makes a distinction between mental illness and demon possession. The writers of the Scriptures were certainly aware of this distinction. One of them, Luke, was a physician himself and was acquainted with the distinction between diseases, mental illnesses, and demon possession (see Luke 4:40-41). In Matthew 4:24 a careful distinction is made between those who were afflicted by diseases, those who were demon possessed, and those who were mentally ill.

It is important to note that biblical cases of demon possession do not conform to the clinical pattern of mental disease. There are diseases of the body and there are diseases of the mind. Diseases of the mind, like those of the body, present standard clinical patterns which can be recognized. But when you examine the biblical accounts of demon possession you find that they do not fit the standard patterns of mental diseases.

Throughout the Christian centuries, there have been outbreaks of demon possession described by missionaries in many lands. Wherever Christian teaching spreads, the direct assault of evil powers is held in check. Even secular teaching based on the Bible and Christian values has an ability to keep these manifestations under control.

But when education becomes purely secular and denies the reality of God and the validity of the Bible, then even though men and women reject superstition and profess a degree of sophistication about such matters, they invite direct satanic attack. As our world grows more godless and secularized, we are finding a rise of demonic manifestation sweeping over our culture. Today, witchcraft and the occult are widely considered alternative religions, right alongside Christianity and Judaism.

We are in desperate need of revival, of a revived and revitalized church that will stand against the demonic onslaught against our society. When the gospel goes out into a society with prayer and power, demons are held in check.