You’re two weeks in to this new year. And the enemy is already at it. Working to frustrate your resolutions. But one thing you must resolve and stay at it…putting on the whole armor of God!
Yes, your name is written on a whiteboard in hell, and the enemy has desires to make you fall back, become useless in this Kingdom of Christ you serve as an ambassador. Satan is against anything that looks like Christ.
As you are imagining a whiteboard in a conference room in hell you may think it’s filled with filthy, no-count slugs living in squalid conditions. You may envision a dimly lit room with old pizza boxes strewn all over the tables and chairs, maybe even the floor, with half-eaten pieces of pizza used to stub out old cigarettes. You might envision old, mostly empty whiskey bottles lying on their sides dripping liquor every now and then. You may smell the stench of overflowing cigarette ashtrays and stale cigar smoke that fills the dingy curtains hanging lifelessly askew on their rods. You might imagine demons still passed out on the couch from the graveyard shift several hours ago.
We’re making this up, but it might not be like that. Hell may be spotless, well lit, with modern conference rooms, and the whiteboards are connected to a state-of-the-art system that translates the scribbling on the board into a master computer. This computer might compile inputs for the day into a tracking system that feeds a master scheduling system. Then, maybe, this compiled information is sent to top leaders. His ways are an insidious business. They are probably equipped with the latest technology to manage the overall operation. After all, he is called the prince of the power of the air in Ephesians 2:2. I’ve always wondered if that meant airwaves. I’m sure there are metrics kept about success rates for each day and tracked by week and year to see if they are improving in their use of these black arts on us. While the specific details about this conference room may be made up, the spiritual battle it represents is very real.
It is not fictitious or a caricature. The spiritual warfare we face each day is incredibly real, and in real time. It’s happening now, all around us, every day we’re alive.
Don’t just stand there getting pummeled…. If you’re not fighting, you’re losing ground.
In case you think this is only a few conference rooms, just turn around and walk to the doorway. You’ll see long halls that stretch in all directions as far as the eye can see. Down the halls are the endless rows of other conference rooms. There is standard wicked work done there. They all do it with the same intent, finding infinite ways to get to the end result. Ephesians 6 describes it as the devil’s “evil schemes.” The Greek word is methodias. He has many methods:
- He distracts.
- He detains.
- He entangles.
- He attempts to re-imprison.
- He desires to steal, kill, and destroy.
He will affect the mind, the will, and any emotion he can get his hands on. The methods are endless. If you venture down other halls, you may come upon a massive control room, like the one at NASA, with huge screens of activity and teams that monitor situations around the world.
The two of us can imagine all these things because we are old enough to have had so very many of his flaming arrows land and sizzle in our metaphorical flesh. We’ve fought against thoughts, situations, evil from others … even from those I personally thought were friends. Many times, early on in my life, I wondered why I struggled so much in certain areas, while other Christians seemed to have it all under control. It turned out that some were putting on a good face, as though they were dealing with nothing harsh in life. Looking back, I can see those lies. I know they lied because the enemy was using what worked on me. I didn’t know I was wearing tiny armor. It never crossed my mind until I was past fifty years of age. I spent so much of my Christ-following life with undersized armor. I just did not see satan for who he was and what he was up to back then.
But remember, the armor you have is made of Christ. So, the armor you have is stronger than the enemy you fight.
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