Fighting Your Real Adversary

A Wrong Diagnosis

Have you ever gone to the doctor to find out what was wrong with you but was misdiagnosed? The doctor thought one thing was wrong and prescribed the proper medicine to help deal with the problem and nothing changed. The sickness still remained. The reason being is that the medicine you received was the wrong medicine.

A misdiagnosis always leads to an improper solution. A certain medicine might work wonders on curing a disease but is totally worthless against other diseases.

So you go to another doctor to get a second opinion. She rightly determines what is going on in your body and gives you another medicine designed to bring healing and it works. The reason it is effective is due to the proper diagnosis given and the proper medication prescribed.

I want to suggest that there is a lot of misdiagnosing taking place in the spiritual realm that may be stopping you from experiencing the fullness of God’s salvation in your life. I know it happened in my own life.

It Wasn't My Flesh

I grew up in the home of a violent alcoholic. I never knew what kind of mood my dad would be in when I came home. I would quietly open the door and walk in on “eggshells” wondering what I would encounter. Would dad be in a good mood or a bad mood?

I’m not going to go into detail what took place in my home, but it was not pleasant. The older I got the more angry and violent I became. There were many weekends where I would get drunk and pick a fight with someone I did not know.

I had an explosive temper. I would blow up at the least little thing. When I did get angry I could feel this intense rage rise up within me.

When I got married my wife and I would argue a lot. I was easily irritated. When I got angry, I was really angry. I would have thoughts in my mind like, kick her guts out. Beat her til she can’t move. I never hurt my wife physically, but I constantly had thoughts of doing so.

Three years after we were married I accepted Jesus as my Lord and savior. Many things changed immediately, but the anger remained. Now that I was a believer I started to have an understanding of the flesh.

The Bible talks about the war going on inside of a person with their flesh. So I learned to keep the anger down and crucified my flesh. The only thing is that I was never able to crucify my flesh. I keep hearing the voices in my head and kept feeling the intense rage rise up in my chest.

Within months of being saved the Lord called me into the ministry. I started looking for a Bible college to attend and decided on Eugene Bible College in Eugene, Oregon. The school is now called New Hope Christian College. After four-and-a-half years of college, I graduated and moved to Grand Forks, ND to pioneer a church.

The rage in my life continued while I was pastoring for about twelve years. I would constantly try to crucify my flesh but it never resolved the problem. I would get better at handling the rage externally but it was always there exploding inside me with the constant voices of harming those who made me angry.

It Was a Demon

I attended a deliverance conference with my wife one weekend. I went for prayer on the topic of a spirit of anger. As the person ministering to me began to command the spirit of anger to come out of me my fists clenched and I wanted to give him an uppercut and knock him out.

I resisted hurting him and began to command the spirit to leave my life. I felt the rage inside me escalate and then finally burst through my chest. I was set free. In one short ministry session, I was set free. I was delivered from what I consider to be a spirit of murder.

Everything changed. I no longer had the rage. It’s not that I never got angry again. But when I did get angry the rage inside and the voices in my head were gone. 

A couple of times the spirit tried to come back. I could feel it pressing in above my right ear. I was fascinated by this. The spirit was no longer inside me, but it was trying to get back in. I simply told it to go and it left me.

The Right Diagnosis

Here is the main point that I want to make from this testimony. For eighteen years I tried to crucify my flesh and was unsuccessful. I had the wrong diagnosis. My problem was not my flesh. My problem was a demonic spirit that was influencing my life.

I could “crucify my flesh” a million times and it would never make a difference. It was when I actually participated with the man ministering deliverance to cast the demon out of my life that I was set free.

It has been well said. You can’t cast out the flesh and you can’t crucify a demon. You must crucify the flesh and cast demons out.

Maybe you’ve been struggling with demonic powers in your life and you never even considered the possibility of it being demonic. Jesus gave us one way to deal with demons. He told us to cast them out. If you do not directly speak to a demon and command it to leave, it will stay. I am proof of that. So is my wife, Suzette.

She dealt with a spirit of fear from early childhood for over thirty years. She was deathly afraid that someone was going to rape her and kill her. She kept this hidden for many years. She even quoted the Bible verse over and over that God has not given me a spirit of fear. Yet, she was fearful.

One day we were driving somewhere in the car and Suzette told me about the fear she was experiencing. I reached my hand over to touch her and commanded the spirit of fear to leave her life. In less than a minute, Suzette was totally set free from the spirit of fear.

If you are dealing with a demonic influence in your life, then you must stand in the authority of Jesus Christ and command the devil to leave your life.

Fight Your Real Adversary

I want to show you some of the Bible verses that explain the battle that you are in. Understanding that the devil can influence your life and remembering last week’s list of ways you can tell of his possible presence.

The Bible clearly tells us that we are in a battle against demonic forces. It says,

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:10-11)

There is an array of demonic forces that Paul tells about. We are encouraged to be strong in the power of the Lord and to put on the armor He proves for us so we can stand against all the schemes of the enemy.

You must never be fearful of the enemy. God is with you and gives you everything you need to overcome anything the devil may throw your way.

 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. 5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

You are never expected to fight against the enemy in your own strength. God provides you with weapons that are divinely powerful. These weapons can tear down every fortress the enemy has erected in your life. It is God’s power that sets you free from the power of the enemy.

Peter warns you that the devil is actively seeking to bring his destructive work into your life.

 8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)

I know that we have looked at these verses in other posts, but one thing you must understand is that the devil is real and is probably at work in your life. If you don’t recognize his presence, you will never be able to get him out of your life. He wants to stay hidden so you will not force him to leave.

I don’t want you to go to the other extreme either, blaming everything that happens to you on the devil. When you do this there is the possibility of overlooking your personal responsibility and the works of the flesh in your life. Next time we will look at dealing with the flesh.

Remember that a proper diagnosis is the only thing that will lead to a proper resolution in your life. Knowing what is causing the trouble is the most important thing to discern and using the correct solution is the second.

In later posts, I will be explaining in detail how you can deal with the demonic influences in your life. Right now I want you to expand your understanding of the possible ways the enemy may be at work in your life.