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Post by Maarten on Dec 17, 2011 9:14:06 GMT -5
I suppose it is wise to define 'spiritual warfare'.
When you fall short in pursuing the things of God, in a natural way, clearly that will have spiritual consequences. In such a case however the primary cause of the spiritual struggles will be natural. When you have discouraging thoughts that keep you from God, you need to repent of that and turn back to God. However in this struggle, the devil might be quick to tempt you into falling back further, in which case there is a struggle of a more spiritual nature as well, but it primarily consists of resisting any temptation you might come across and putting your faith in God, rather than anything clearly supernatural. In my experience, some people blame the satan for a lot of struggles, where really it is their own fault. If anything tempts you to sin, to be discouraged, to be depressed or whatever, - though the satan may play a role in this -, it is primarily your own fault. James 1:14 says: 'But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.' Though in the context this verse is refuting people who claim to be tempted by God (as some kind of test I suppose), I believe this is a general principle. Therefore I would rather reserve the term 'spiritual warfare' for those things that are clearly supernatural. But I must admit, I haven't before this put a great deal of thought in the usage of that term.
(Maybe I'm just tilting windmills here, because I came across people who abuse the term spiritual warfare in this way.)
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Post by Kerrick on Dec 20, 2011 17:00:44 GMT -5
Thanks everyone for your input. That's a lot to chew on indeed. As Josh said, spiritual warfare has many different ways in which it materializes and affects us. I agree that it can look like a little voice pushing pride upon us, but it can also be the physical manifestation of "spiritual beings." The subtle means of attack make sense to me, but why would demons repeatedly attack someone (anyone) outright, only to be shut down every time? These demonic dreams and experiences I have had all look similar in the way that I am attacked, afraid, then with faith and confidence I expel them in Christ's Name and they leave. What's the point? Why bother? Just to watch me squirm a little? I dunno, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me...
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Post by skully on Dec 23, 2011 4:59:33 GMT -5
hmm, me neither :/ sometimes even when i do see a demon or at least sense one, i've actually tried to talk to it before and tell it that it's attempts to frighten me are pointless (however they never answer and they eventually leave). but as far as i know, they still do that because they enjoy tormenting people. they want us to be afraid and to believe that we have no hope and most of all, they just want to basically brainwash us to believe that our sinful nature is acceptable. you can argue my case if you want, but it's just my opinion and i'm really just guessing
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Post by Maarten on Dec 23, 2011 13:00:17 GMT -5
What kind of examples of spiritual warfare do we have in the Scriptures?
All I can think of are the many exorcisms, the temptation of Jesus, Peter being influenced somehow by Satan to argue against Jesus (Mat 16:22-23) and Paul being somehow hindered to travel to the Thessalonians (1 The 2:18) (I recall Paul being hindered in travelling somewhere in Acts as well). So we have the actual demon possession and we have temptation. Although detail is lacking, Peter seems to have been somehow more subtly influenced by satan, but we are kept in mystery as to what caused Peter to be influenced by satan. The account of Paul being kept from travelling by satan tells us even less of what actually happened and we can only speculate.
It seems to me in the examples the Scriptures give us of demonic activity directly against humans are few and somehow don't correspond very much to what some people describe to me in spiritual warfare. I suppose Jesus saw satan in the desert, but apart from that, we are never really told of anyone who saw or sensed anything demonic. We are not told of dreams. We aren't told what caused it. etc. The only properly documented occurrence of spiritual warfare in the Scripture seems to me to be actual exorcisms and the account of Jesus' temptation. Apart from that there are a few possible mentions that seems to be too vague to be of much use.
Now, I don't mean to be attacking anybody who experiences these things, nor even to draw any firm conclusions. This was just a thought I had and it is only based on the Scriptures I could recall during the few minutes spent typing this post, so possibly some relevant passages are missing. So I would like to ask two questions: 1) Did I miss any important bible passages? 2) if I did not; how come there is a difference with the examples of demonic activity with humans given in Scripture and those commonly described by Christians nowadays?
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Post by Muffy on Dec 23, 2011 23:59:21 GMT -5
[deleted]
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Post by skully on Dec 24, 2011 4:47:05 GMT -5
@ muffy: WTF?! @ maarten: you do have a good point there, but there are a few things you are missing. scripturally (and btw i'm not sure if this is even true or not so i'm only asking). wasn't Judas Iscariot physically tormented by demons and didn't he even see demons himself shortly after betraying Jesus? wasn't it from both that and the excruciating guilt he felt after betraying Jesus what led him to commit suicide? or was it just the latter? another thing I wanted to point out, is that eventhough most of the posts on here are focused on demonic attacks, "spiritual beings" can also include angels. and of course in the bible, an angel visited Mary in a dream. an angel also visited the shepherds on the night of Jesus' birth, and an angel appeared before the tomb to tell ( i forgot their names lol) that He has risen. although i may be talking about angels, there is obviously a lot of evidence in the Bible that many people physically saw angels and even saw some in their dreams. why then, would it be hard to believe that demons can do the same since they are too spiritual beings yet there is little biblical evidence of them being physically seen or seen in dreams? another thing i wanted to say is (and i'm only giving my opinion on this) is that mayhaps one main reason why there was little-no evidence in the Bible that anyone literally saw/sensed demons yet so many people claim that today is because of the difference in times. i'm thinking they [the demons] are only doing this because the end times are much closer.
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Post by skully on Dec 24, 2011 4:49:47 GMT -5
p.s: i just remembered this too: you're also forgetting the book of Revelations and how John the Baptist witnessed the apocalypse,rapture,etc. He also saw how Satan and his followers were defeated and thrown into the lake of fire. technically, wouldn't that be considered a "vision" John had?
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Post by Maarten on Dec 26, 2011 5:25:26 GMT -5
wasn't Judas Iscariot physically tormented by demons and didn't he even see demons himself shortly after betraying Jesus? wasn't it from both that and the excruciating guilt he felt after betraying Jesus what led him to commit suicide? or was it just the latter? I looked it up, and only Matthew gives us an account of Judas' death: Matthew 27:3-10: 'Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” And they said, “What is that to us? You see to it!” Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself. But the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, because they are the price of blood.” And they consulted together and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the value of Him who was priced, whom they of the children of Israel priced, and gave them for the potter’s field, as the LORD directed me.”'Good point. It is still interesting to see that there are relatively much more occurrences of people seeing angels, rather than seeing demons. p.s: i just remembered this too: you're also forgetting the book of Revelations and how John the Baptist witnessed the apocalypse,rapture,etc. He also saw how Satan and his followers were defeated and thrown into the lake of fire. technically, wouldn't that be considered a "vision" John had? Well, I suppose there is a difference between actually seeing/sensing a demon and having some sort of spiritual vision where you see it. Btw, revelations was written by John the Apostle, not John the Baptist . (Or so at least that's the traditional opinion)
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Post by skully on Dec 27, 2011 2:28:42 GMT -5
oh, ok. thanks for showing me the verse oh well, at least his name was John lol
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Post by Azrael on Jan 8, 2012 22:28:48 GMT -5
I'm not really sure what my take on angels, demons, and the like is. A lot of the time they are mentioned in the Bible it is in a metaphorical context. Or a cultural context. Anthropologists often find skulls from NT times with holes in them indicating people drilling to drive evil spirits out. Fear of demons was prevalent. Also, the lack of diagnosis for psychological illness is a pressing element in the case for rethinking what the text meant when referring to the heavenly host and the fallen.
Then again, there have been a lot of weird things observed and testified to. The exorcism was in fact based on a true story which led two prominent psychologists to do a 180 degree flip on their belief in demonic possession, drafting a research paper on why it is real.
Personally, I hang several Enochian sigils in my room and keep the 5th pentacle of Mars on every door frame of wherever I stay. My general thought is that if they work, woo hoo. If they don't, whatever. Not like it's much effort. Also it's a conversation starter and it looks pretty cool.
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Post by Metzuda on Jan 9, 2012 23:04:51 GMT -5
Whoah, haven't been here in a while!
I would recommend reading the book Spiritual Warfare by Dean Sherman. Most of the stuff that people have suggested in this topic are covered in the book, and a bit more.
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Post by skully on Jan 11, 2012 2:19:11 GMT -5
I'm not really sure what my take on angels, demons, and the like is. A lot of the time they are mentioned in the Bible it is in a metaphorical context. Or a cultural context. Anthropologists often find skulls from NT times with holes in them indicating people drilling to drive evil spirits out. Fear of demons was prevalent. Also, the lack of diagnosis for psychological illness is a pressing element in the case for rethinking what the text meant when referring to the heavenly host and the fallen. hmm, that is an interesting argument to think about. i personally like to search for scientific/historical evidence that supports spiritual cases such as this and hopefully someday i can do more research on that...if only i had the time Personally, I hang several Enochian sigils in my room and keep the 5th pentacle of Mars on every door frame of wherever I stay. My general thought is that if they work, woo hoo. If they don't, whatever. Not like it's much effort. Also it's a conversation starter and it looks pretty cool. i hope you don't mind me asking, but what are your spiritual beliefs? i take it you're not a christian?
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Post by skully on Jan 11, 2012 2:21:07 GMT -5
Metzuda: i'll definitely check it out soon. lately i haven't been having any noticeable encounters with angels and demons especially like the ones i've mentioned before, but i definitely wanna do more research on them and what the whole point of my encounters were
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Post by Azrael on Jan 11, 2012 17:19:18 GMT -5
I'm not really sure what my take on angels, demons, and the like is. A lot of the time they are mentioned in the Bible it is in a metaphorical context. Or a cultural context. Anthropologists often find skulls from NT times with holes in them indicating people drilling to drive evil spirits out. Fear of demons was prevalent. Also, the lack of diagnosis for psychological illness is a pressing element in the case for rethinking what the text meant when referring to the heavenly host and the fallen. hmm, that is an interesting argument to think about. i personally like to search for scientific/historical evidence that supports spiritual cases such as this and hopefully someday i can do more research on that...if only i had the time Personally, I hang several Enochian sigils in my room and keep the 5th pentacle of Mars on every door frame of wherever I stay. My general thought is that if they work, woo hoo. If they don't, whatever. Not like it's much effort. Also it's a conversation starter and it looks pretty cool. i hope you don't mind me asking, but what are your spiritual beliefs? i take it you're not a christian? Oh, no. I am. I'm just currently at a crossroads with a lot of my stances. Since really digging in and trying to read the Bible in a Hebrew cultural context, I was left trying to reevaluate what was part of the historical description and what was part of the poetics. Demons are one of the things that is tough to place. They are typically referred to in symbolic terms, sometimes as rulers of different kingdoms, other times as spiritual oppressors. Actually, the Bible gets very interesting if you read it as the devil being a part of human nature in the back of our minds which has always tempted us and led us astray. It gets very trippy when Jesus is in the desert. It instead becomes a war between his very divine nature and his humanity. As for the passing interest in the occult, I get a laugh out of a lot of it. A lot of the Occult is based on Christian rituals, though. The fifth pentacle has scripture in Hebrew around it. I guess you could say it's like having scripture hanging in your house, albeit it's a little more interesting.
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