Do Not Fear the End Times Part 16: Only One True Enemy

Never forget who the true enemy is, and never forget how we fight him.

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Previous End Times Post

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Hello Readers, hope all’s well. It’s time for another Friday Do Not Fear the End Times post.

Within the last few posts I’ve written about demons, witches, and so on. As dangerous as these things are, it’s important not to focus on them too much. If we do, then we see the work of demons and witches everywhere, even when it doesn’t exist. Even when it has another explanation. We start fighting threats that aren’t there. We need to stay balanced. These threats are real, they exist, but we need the spiritual discernment of the Holy Spirit to recognize them.

That, and one more thing. We need to always remember who’s responsible for all this evil, who’s in charge of it all. The same evil power is behind all demonic, witchcraft, New Age, or other evil activity: “The old snake, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (Revelation 12:9).

The One Behind it all

Satan is our one and only enemy. We may be forced to deal with his minions and the fallout of their works, but Satan is our one and only enemy.

Actual demonic spirits can be resisted and driven off when they attack. I detailed this in my previous post. A demon that’s indwelling somebody can be fought and driven off through spiritual warfare. I wrote about this in my Cast Down Jezebel miniseries, check it out for more details.

These spirits are Satan’s servants and a part of his kingdom. They can be fought, but not killed. We do need to fight them off whenever we find them. But Satan is their master and the one who orders them around. They work for him. Satan is the real enemy.

Witches are servants and slaves of the devil, but to be honest, most of them either don’t realize this or they deny it. They don’t know the origins of the dark arts they’re involved in, and/or they deny the evil power that makes it work.

Only in the very worst case scenario do they knowingly understand and consent to working with the devil. Even in these extreme cases though, Satan is the one in control and the one with the power over them. He may pretend to allow them some measure of power over him, or some kind of secret knowledge. This is all the better to trick them and get them to walk down the evil paths of magic. This leads to the damnation of their soul, the only thing the devil is ever looking for.

Although we must call out and contest the activities of witches when we encounter them, we aren’t called to physically battle with anyone. Not even witches. More on that in the next two sections.

We must never forget that Satan is the power in control of everything the witches do. All witches are slaves to his power, and sadly most of them don’t know it or won’t accept the truth of that. Satan is the one we’re opposing, Satan is the one we’re fighting. Not so much the witches.

Finally, the same goes for those who are wrapped up in New Age and it’s blasphemous, idolatrous practices and philosophy. Again, the true origins of what they believe has been intentionally hidden from them. I’ve discussed this point a few times before. Check out my review of The Second Coming of the New Age for more details.

Never forget who’s in charge of everything we struggle against. Never forget who the real enemy is. Besides our own fleshy nature and sinful tendencies, our own selves, we only have one enemy in this entire wide world.

That is Satan. And no one else.

Only One Way to Fight

Never forget this fundamental verse on spiritual warfare, Ephesians 6:12.

(12) We aren’t fighting against human enemies but against rulers, authorities, forces of cosmic darkness, and spiritual powers of evil in the heavens.

Ephesians 6:12 (CEB)

We aren’t fighting physical, human enemies working for Satan (knowingly or otherwise). We don’t have physical, human enemies! We need to always keep our sights on the real enemy: Satan. Though we are also called to engage in spiritual warfare against his minions, the demons. But none of this is physical combat against people.

How do we fight? This is another fundamental tenet of spiritual warfare. Look at 2 Corinthians 10:4-5.

(4) Our weapons that we fight with aren’t human, but instead they are powered by God for the destruction of fortresses. They destroy arguments, (5) and every defense that is raised up to oppose the knowledge of God. They capture every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (CEB)

None of our weapons are physical. If we commit any physical violence against anyone, we wouldn’t be doing the LORD’s work at all. That would be doing the devil’s work. We would be sowing to the flesh. We’d be relying on physical weapons created by man instead of the spiritual weapons that come from God. Spiritual weapons we have the authority to wield as believers.

In other words, we would be relying more on our power and abilities than on God’s. That would mean we have more faith in ourselves and earthly, carnal weapons than in God. So this is also a kind of idolatry. It’s making an idol of ourselves, our power, and the power of our carnal (physical) weapons.

Our spiritual weapons work, thanks to God’s power. These weapons are the only ones that are effective against the devil and his works.

Just as we must never forget who our one and only enemy is, in the same way we must never forget how we fight him and his works. Through prayer, spiritual warfare. By wielding the Sword of the Spirit (God’s Word). Check out my previous post for a real-life example of doing that.

In his excellent booklet The Discerning of Spirits (affiliate link), Frank Hammond lays it out clearly:

You cannot fight the devil with carnal weapons. You cannot, for instance, use your fist and punch him or his demons in the nose. Fleshly weapons are not effective against the devil, only the weapons God has supplied are effective.

Frank Hammond, The Discerning of Spirits, Page 8

We may have the need to fight (or defend) against certain works of the witches or New Agers. And the Holy Spirit may alert us to the activity of a demonic spirit that’s indwelling somebody. In that case, we would have to war against that spirit.

But none of this combat is ever physical. Witches, New Agers, people being ridden by demons … none of these people are our enemies. We should feel compassion for them, think of them as captured POWs in the war. They’ve been captured by Satan’s forces, though there is a chance to break them free with spiritual warfare. But Satan is the one we have the conflict with!

Never forget who the true enemy is, and never forget how we fight him.

Don’t Judge—Everyone Deserves to Be Saved

(23) All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory,

Romans 3:23 (CEB)

Everyone is a sinner, myself included of course. And before coming back to Christ, I too was lost deep in the New Age deception, which I’ve mentioned a few times on this blog. I walked in sin and was lost, living completely without God.

But Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and He goes out to look for all the lost sheep. Every single one, myself included of course. He has infinite patience, and He doesn’t give up on a single one of us. He sees everyone’s value despite our sins, and loves us unconditionally.

What do you think? If someone had one hundred sheep and one of them wandered off, wouldn’t he leave the ninety-nine on the hillsides and go in search for the one that wandered off? If he finds it, I assure you that he is happier about having that one sheep than about the ninety-nine who didn’t wander off. In the same way, my Father who is in heaven doesn’t want to lose one of these little ones.

Matthew 18:12–14 (CEB)

If He did that for me, and He probably did that for you reading this, then we need to let Him do that for everybody. Everybody deserves that chance, of course. We can’t be judgmental, exclude people, or keep them away from our church services and so on. If we do then we’re keeping them away from what they need! And again, if I got that chance, if you got that chance, then every lost sheep deserves the chance for Jesus to find them.

We have to respect the inherent value in every person, like Jesus does. It doesn’t matter if they’re involved in grievous sins like witchcraft. The sin is not the person. The sin is what they do, but it’s not the person. We need to separate the two. Every person is loved by God and definitely worth saving! So we can’t judge any witches, can’t judge any New Agers for their sins. Not only will judging not save anyone, but Christ Himself taught us not to do it:

(1) “Don’t judge, so that you won’t be judged. (2) You’ll receive the same judgment you give. Whatever you deal out will be dealt out to you. (3) Why do you see the splinter that’s in your brother’s or sister’s eye, but don’t notice the log in your own eye?

Matthew 7:1-3 (CEB)

And as far as sins go, remember Romans 3:23, which I quoted above. Everyone is a sinner. It doesn’t matter if we think our sin “isn’t as bad as witchcraft,” we’re still sinners all the same. Do you remember what Jesus had to say about judging and calling out for someone’s punishment when we have sins of our own? “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

(7) They continued to question him, so he stood up and replied, “Whoever hasn’t sinned should throw the first stone.” (8) Bending down again, he wrote on the ground. (9) Those who heard him went away, one by one, beginning with the elders. Finally, only Jesus and the woman were left in the middle of the crowd.

John 8:7-9 (CEB)

We also need to remember that Jesus comes specifically to call the sinners. People involved in witchcraft (etc.) are loved by God and Jesus wants to rescue them. And He will, if they’ll accept Him as their LORD and Savior. That’s not something we can do for them. They have to do it for themselves.

When some of the legal experts from among the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, “Why is he eating with sinners and tax collectors?” When Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. I didn’t come to call righteous people, but sinners.”

Mark 2:16–17 (CEB)

But that can take time. It took like over a decade for me. We need to give Jesus time to work, to let Him do what He does. What only He can do. Give Him time to go out and find that one lost sheep.

We may know people wandering lost in sin, engaging in witchcraft, astrology, New Age, and so on. But all we can really do about that is try to show and tell them they’re lost. And pray for Jesus to shine His light into their world like He did when converting Saul, who then became St. Paul.

Other than that, treat them with kindness and compassion when you deal with them. Remember: None of these people are the enemy. They’re POWs captured by the enemy power. They deserve compassion and sympathy, and they can also be broken free of that evil power.

On top of that, it causes severe damage to Satan’s kingdom and his plans when one of his most effective workers converts to Christ. If a veteran witch can see the light, her whole coven will suffer from her absence. They’ll become much less effective overnight. Meanwhile, her talents will be put to work for Christ. It’s a win-win!

To cause the most damage to Satan’s kingdom, win souls. That’s all he wants anyway, all he’s ever looking for. Win souls, convert souls.

Never Give up on Evangelizing

Now accepting Jesus Christ as one’s LORD and Savior is a personal choice based on true faith. You can never force someone to have faith in anything. True faith isn’t forced, and forced faith isn’t true. In other words, we can lead people to Jesus in our own way, but we can’t make them have faith in Him.

And it doesn’t matter if they say they have faith in Him either. What people say means nothing on its own, because people can say anything. Talking is easy. How can you know whether someone’s faith is genuine? It’s impossible to know 100%, because that’s completely personal. But their actions should give you some idea. That’s a topic for another post though.

Having said all that, none of it releases us Christians from our obligation to evangelize to these witches and so on. But if we can lead people to Jesus, but can’t make them have faith in Him, then what’s the point in trying to convert the witch?

Well it’s like I said earlier: Let Christ do what He does. Never underestimate the value of the seeds you plant when evangelizing. If you can really make an impression on somebody, they’ll remember what you say. As they keep walking the dark paths of witchcraft (etc.), they’re likely to experience disturbing, supernatural spiritual experiences like the one I described in my previous post.

When someone has an experience like that, it’s going to make them really stop and think. I don’t care who they are, they will. And when people encounter things like the shadow people, they know on some primal, instinctive level that these things are pure evil. It’s like our human soul recognizes that. It’s kind of like the idea of genetic memory or something.

Our souls recognize the shadow people and demons as pure evil. And our souls recognize something else as pure good: Jesus Christ. So when someone has an encounter with shadow people or anything that evil, they’ll know they’re in trouble and go looking for something good. Even hardcore witches have been scared away from their craft in this way.

If someone has a disturbing encounter with shadow people (etc.), they’ll be looking for Christ. He might even reveal Himself to them, actually. But it’s up to Him whether He does that or not, and for whom.

But if this person can remember you evangelizing to them, maybe they’ll come to you for help. Assuming you’re not doing evangelizing that’s more anonymous, like preaching on a street corner. Unless they talked with you and learned your name, how will they come back to you when they need to talk to you again?

Anyway, never underestimate the value of the seeds you plant while evangelizing. Sometimes it takes years for Christ to shine His light in a person’s life. It takes as long as it needs to take. People need to grow, mature, learn lessons, and even hit rock bottom before they’re ready to accept Christ.

And always be kind and compassionate when preaching. Remember, the sinners we want to save are all loved by God! We must always treat them as such. Everything we do, we should do with love, the first fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22). If someone remembers you as a kind and friendly evangelist, they’ll feel more comfortable coming to you when they need to.

And all that comes back to the whole point of this post: Never forget who the true enemy is.

We have only one true enemy: That’s Satan.

Flesh and blood humans who serve Satan’s purposes are not our enemies. Satan is.

We aren’t involved in physical conflict with anybody. Our fight is spiritual and so are our weapons. This is critically important. We’re not trying to win in the physical realm, but the spiritual.

We can’t judge the witches and New Agers because they deserve the same chance to be saved that we had.

Jesus Christ has come specifically to save such people. He loves them and so must we. We are all sinners and have no right to judge them.

Winning these souls does damage to Satan’s kingdom and his plans, by taking his prized servants away from him and converting them to Christ’s service. So never give up on evangelizing to witches (etc.).

Keep your eyes focused on Christ, and rely only on His guidance through the Holy Spirit. Relax and don’t obsess over our spiritual enemies, the demons. If you do you’ll see them everywhere. Stay focused and balanced, and remember that we only have one enemy: The devil.

Anyone else we might be tempted to consider an enemy is merely one of his pawns, and their soul is his prize. If we get absorbed in conflict with them, then we’re relying on and walking in the flesh. That’s not where our true fight lies.

Fight the real enemy, and do it the way it counts.

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Until next time, be strong and do good!

Your new best friend in Christ,

99:9

<<<EXALT THE LORD OUR GOD AND WORSHIP AT HIS HOLY HILL; FOR THE LORD OUR GOD IS HOLY>>>

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