This next group of blog posts comes from the third book in the Basic Training! series: Stage 3 Spiritual Warfare. By this time in the Pureheart process, you’ve locked down your devices, identified your triggers, you’re getting your acting out cycle under control, established accountability with your B.O.B group, and “Severed Spiritual Chains”. Because it is vital to your healing and maturity, we’ve devoted all of Stage 3 to teaching you about Spiritual Warfare. Have you ever met the devil? Demons? Do you know how to stand your ground against the cosmic forces of evil? Do you know how to fight against demons? Or how to equip yourself with the life-saving armor of God? “Stage 3: Spiritual Warfare” offers you a specific strategy for winning the invisible war that rages about you, starting with the fundamentals as laid out in this introductory chapter.

Brace yourself—it’s time for battle!

Satan’s Objectives

If you boil it all down, the devil has two primary objectives: 1) Keep non-believers from salvation. 2) Keep Christians from reaching their full maturity and productivity in God’s kingdom. Let’s tackle these one at a time (again, just an overview).

Keep the Lost Lost

The devil wants unbelievers burning in hell alongside himself. And make no mistake: Every soul sent to hell is a very real and permanent victory for the devil. I know all the theological reasons why God allows this (free will, not taking back authority once given, and Christians who refuse to make disciples of all nations), and yet it still sticks in my craw. God knew Satan’s future and the hellish future of countless millions—so why create the devil in the first place?!

Satan isn’t picky about how he keeps the lost lost. Many people today belong to one of the world’s great religions, and yet Jesus claims to be the only way to the Father. This is an extremely offensive message to people who for generations have sincerely worshiped other gods. Who wants to be told that they are deceived? Have you ever tried to lead a person like this to Christ? Freeing people from such a trap can be very difficult!

If false religions don’t work, how about some carnal, immature Christians? Nothing turns people off faster than religious hypocrites and demonized Christians. The Spanish Inquisition comes to mind: “Christians” torturing people to death in the name of Christ! Of course, if that doesn’t work, the devil can always fall back on the same old same old, and have people fill their souls with money, sex, work, family, addictions, and so on. Simply surviving on this planet can require huge amounts of energy, so who has time these days to get saved?

The way to destruction is wide and easy precisely because the devil and his demons work really hard to keep it that way!

Keep the Saved Acting Unsaved

Guarding prisoners of war takes little effort, so the devil and his demons spend most of their limited energy on this 2nd objective. When the devil loses a captive to God’s kingdom, he immediately switches tactics. Simply put, Satan wants to stop all Christians from reaching full maturity and productivity in God’s kingdom (note how this helps accomplish the 1st objective). I cited 1 Peter 5:8 previously, so just use common sense. Can a Christian living inside the devil’s belly accomplish anything for God’s kingdom? As a Spirit-quenching sex addict, how many years did you spend inside his slimy satanic stomach?!

A devoured Christian is more offensive to God than a lost soul, which is why He spits them out of his mouth. Think about it for a moment: God would rather you be a lost pagan than a devil-belly, deceived, useless, backslidden, and lukewarm Christian (Revelation 3:15-16). Wow!

Like the Christians in Laodicea, the devil wants you deceived, addicted, immature, and carnal. Even better, he wants you deceiving and/or hurting others, even though you claim to be a follower of Christ. Any of this sounding familiar? The statistics on American Christians, for example, are abysmal. Divorce rates, church attendance, Bible reading, tithing, witnessing, sexual sins and addictions—is it any wonder our country is launching itself off the cliff? And yet many of these so-called Christians don’t even believe in Satan’s existence! (See https://www.barna.com/research/most-american-christians-do-not-believe-that-satan-or-the-holy-spirit-exist/ if you want to read some depressing examples of what confused “Christians” believe.)

Sincerely deceived and devoured, they hurtle heedlessly through life, inevitably wrecking the lives of those around them.

Of course, let’s keep it personal. You and I claimed to be Christians, and yet how many people did we use and abuse in our endless quest for self-gratification?

Your Brother in the Battle,

Timothy

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Excerpt taken from Pureheart Ministry’s Basic Training! Stage 3: Spiritual Warfare

Copyright ©2023 Timothy Davis