Spiritual Authority (1)

Before engaging in spiritual warfare, we must understand the truth about the reality in which we live. The first of our weapons of spiritual warfare is the belt of truth.

Take your stand with the truth like a belt around your waist (Eph 6:14).

If we don’t understand the truth about spiritual reality, we will lose the battle. If we stand in the truth that God has revealed, we will go onto victory.

The second spiritual weapon is justice.

and putting on the breastplate of justice (Eph 6:14).

To achieve spiritual victory, we must have an understanding of God’s justice as outlined in the law of Moses. If we do not understand the nature of true justice, we will be defeated again and again.

The truth is that we need to understand that we are involved in an intense spiritual war. There are no easy victories. If there were, then evil would have been driven out of the world a few hundred years after Jesus completed his ministry. The battle is tough. The spiritual powers of evil know that they are defeated, but are fighting hard to desperately hold onto power. They know that their days are getting short, but they will not give up, because the alternative is total defeat.

The spiritual powers of evil are using their two best weapons, Israel and political power, to hold to power. As long a the Jews reject the gospel of Jesus, and humans trust in political power, they will be able to hold onto a place of power.

In many local situations, there is not Christian with sufficient authority to deal with some of the challenges that arise. The politicians usually have greater authority than an individual Christian or group of Christians.

The spiritual powers of evil usually concentrate their forces to attack the leaders of an institution. If they can get the leader or leaders to participate frequently in a particular sin, the leaders are submitting to the spirits that are seeking to control them. If several leaders engage in the same sin, over time, the evil spirits get serious control over the institution. Often it will be a spirit of pride or a spirit that loves power and control.

Once government-spirits get control over the leaders of a nation, they do not let go, so the same spirit will control a nation down through the ages. This why governments often carry on in the same way, even when elections put one human government out and another in. The parties have different policies, but they are controlled by the same government-spirit, so they behave in the same way.

The powers of evil prefer working through nation-states, because they are the institutions with the most authority. Governments exercise enormous authority, so the spiritual powers of evil get a better bang for their buck. They can really leverage their power.