Spiritual warfare in the West is far different than spiritual warfare in the rest of the world. Unfortunately many westerners will never know this truth.
In the West most Christians see spiritual warfare as rebuking demons from their spouse, friends or situations. It is common in the west to be rebuked as being afflicted by a demonic entity if you do something or say something contrary to someone's Western Christian beliefs.
One of my favorite books is The Screwtape Letters written by C.S. Lewis.
The premise of the book is a lesser demon (Wormwood) writing another greater demon (Screwtape) and being instructed on how to influence Christians in the church, specifically a British man with whom they are trying to influence to damnation.
The big problem in the west is that in the modernization of the world and the change of worldviews we have begun to explain away spiritual things, to make them normal per se. We have been trained as a child to explain away supernatural phenomena. One of two things tend to happen here; either too much emphasis is placed on the supernatural, and in the west it is mostly ghosts and demons; and secondly little or no belief in supernatural. Where God is just a character in a book and demons are only alive in the movies. Worst yet, Satan doesn't even exist. Either way Satan wins! Too much emphasis on the negative spiritual realm gives him credit where it doesn't exist, and too little emphasis is his biggest secret and he is allowed to sneak into our lives.
Ephesians 6:12 says; "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the rulers, against the powers of the dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
Yes, we do have an enemy here in the world in the flesh, sin and the enemy. Spiritual warfare is primarily happening in our minds and in taking our thoughts captive. Adam and Eve's sin was in thinking that God wasn't telling them the truth, or that He was hiding knowledge from them. Their sin started as a thought.
The spiritual battles that we fight have already been won. We need to be approaching spiritual warfare from the victory that has already happened. The person or thing that is in front of us is not necessarily the enemy. When you are approaching a situation that doesn't originate from the Devil, and you start rebuking it, of course he will step in and give it more control over your life.
The Bible says in 1 John 4:1 "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from... because many false prophets have gone out into the world."
When you are experiencing something that you think is an attack the first thing you should do is test it to see where it's origins are. (It is either from God or the enemy) We are to test everything against God's word. If it is from the enemy, battle it from the perspective that the battle has already been won and claim that. If you are praying the devil out of things what you are doing is praying to the devil.
I am a firm believer in Jesus Christ as the son of God who came to the earth as a man and God. I will not pray to anyone but him, God or the Holy Spirit. Yes demons exist, yes we have spiritual battles, But the emphatic truth is the battle has already been won by King Jesus.
I will stand firm in that and profess that, instead of fearing an attack from darkness.
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