When it comes to the area of spiritual attack some overemphasize and blame everything on the devil and his minions, but the more prevalent reaction is to dismiss him altogether. To deny the spiritual realm and their influence on humanity would require one to take an eraser to large sections of Scripture. The reality of spiritual principalities and powers are openly described in Daniel 10, in explaining the delay in the response to his 21 day prayer, we read in 10:13 from the angel dispatched to Daniel, “But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia.” We don’t know the numbers of angels or demons, but simply that angels outnumber demons 2:1, (Revelation 12:3-9). To our peril, we tend to deny this reality. The world we find ourselves in is much more complex than meets the eye. The spiritual beings interact with one another, they interact with us (both angels and demons), and we humans interact with one another. Over and above all of this is Almighty God, Who is above all creation.

We read in 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” People love to argue their opinions for or against the dangers of marijuana. Aside from everything else, especially with legalization, we have a world who is defenseless (not sober) against the devil. If you don’t think Satan is happy about this change in American society, think again. We read of God’s armor and our fight in Ephesians 6:10-18. For the sake of time and space, I will only mention 6:10-14, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness.” We must understand that when it comes to this fight we have two choices, to confront the devil in our own strength or in the strength of the Holy Spirit. If Satan can convince you to take him on in your flesh he is powerful and has a major advantage over you. If we fight against him in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit being much more powerful than Satan, now gives us the major advantage.

We don’t fight Satan in our opinion of what truth is. This is the arena where most like to battle: opinions. We read in John 8:31-32, “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Outside of a steady diet of God’s Word (the reason behind the One Year Bible study), we cant gird ourselves with truth, for we don’t know it. When it comes to the breastplate, many mistakenly believe this has to do with our own righteousness, but we read in Isaiah 64:6, “But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;...”. If we want to take on the demonic beings in our own feeble righteousness it would be a huge mismatch. In 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” In reality our armor comes from Christ. We withstand our enemy in His truth and in His righteousness. Outside of Him we are defenseless. We read in John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” So, we all have a choice. Satan is real and he is powerful. If we choose to deny his existence that doesn’t take him away, it simply leaves us defenseless. If we choose to walk around apart from Christ, and/or high on one substance or another, again we are defenseless. But if we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, and become righteous according to what He accomplished, and yield to the power of the Holy Spirit, then we have nothing to fear from our enemy, the devil.