Spiritual warfare is real.
As Resources Director for e2 effective elders, I get to help field questions from church elders. Besides “where do we find new elders” and “what’s elder governance,” an increasingly common question posed to us goes something like the following:
Someone in the church has asked us to come pray over her new house and her kids as they start this new chapter in their lives. She’s fairly new to our church, but she also told us when she asked for prayer that she and her daughters are mediums—and not at all positively! She sounded defeated when she said it, like they don’t want to be mediums and see spirits, but they do. Scratches sometimes appeared on the walls of their previous home, they would find things out-of-place from where they’d been left, and lights would inexplicably flicker. How do we pray for her?
Spiritual warfare is real and elders are front-line shock troops.
Elder governance, one of e2’s primary coaching topics with churches literally around the world, is structured around “5 P’s.” Those 5 P’s are: Prayer, Preaching, Policies, Pastoral Care, and Protection. This article is all about protection (and in a broader sense, prayer and pastoral care).
“Spiritual warfare is real and elders are front-line shock troops.”
As Paul “turned in his letter of resignation” to the elders of Ephesus while at Miletus, there is a specific direction (Acts 20:28) he gave them that’s pertinent to this discussion.
- Greek: prosekho
- New Living Translation: Guard
- New International Version: Keep watch
- Holman Christian Standard Bible: Be on guard
- New American Standard Bible: Be on guard
- Message: Be on your toes
- Mounce Interlinear New Testament: Watch out
- New Revised Standard Version updated: Keep watch
- English Standard Version: Pay careful attention
- American Standard Version: Take heed unto
- King James Version: Take heed therefore
Protecting the people of a congregation requires close oversight, whatever your favored translation.
This direction from Paul in Acts 20 is often discussed in light of “doctrine,” the authoritative beliefs of a congregation. Doctrine doesn’t keep us up at night, though. Spiritual warfare, broken relationships, worries of all kinds, and sometimes promptings from the Holy Spirit Himself are what keep us up at night. Protecting a congregation goes far beyond “doctrine.”
Spiritual warfare is real, and it affects people in myriad ways. An answer to Daniel’s prayer was delayed because of spiritual warfare (Daniel 10:12-14). We suffer physically because of spiritual warfare; we see that in both Old and New Testaments (Job 2:8, skin lesions; Mark 9:17-18 seizures by demonic possession). One guy was so overcome by demonic oppression that he beat iron shackles off his wrists and scared away everyone who saw him (Mark 5:1-5). Spiritual warfare drags us away from God’s presence, titillates us into indulging in sin, which, when we play with it and let it grow, “gives birth to death” (James 1:15).
“Spiritual warfare, broken relationships, worries of all kinds, and sometimes promptings from the Holy Spirit Himself are what keep us up at night.”
Elders can and should help to protect people against all that and more (with appropriate caveats about humility and capacity). Jesus is infinite. We aren’t. By the power of intercessory prayer, we step aside in our frailty to invite the King of all kings to have His way in whatever situation is challenging us. Our enemies are real and they are potent, wreaking physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, and relational havoc all around us. Jesus is infinite. We’re not—nor are our spiritual foes.
While they can suggest tempting ideas (“Have yourself a little snack,” Matthew 4:3, Luke 4:3), there is no biblical evidence they can read our thoughts, as God can (Psalm 139, Matthew 12:25, Luke 6:8, 9:47, 11:17, Romans 8:26). They can go just about anywhere, but only to one place at a time (Mark 5:10); they’re not omnipresent as God Almighty is (Ephesians 1:23). They can afflict our bodies, but they can’t do anything against our souls (Job 2:8, Matthew 10:28) without our permission.
In utter contrast to King Jesus, who nearly always deflected praise, attention, credit, and glory to God (whether to Holy Spirit or to His Father), demons love to receive attention. They’re frequently described as “shrieking,” “crying out,” or otherwise being very loud (references in Mark, Luke, Acts). They like attention and are quite capable of garnering it. We also know that, conversely, they’re perfectly adept at hiding in shadows, misdirecting, deceiving, and deflecting attention when it suits them. They’ll do whatever most-suits their self-interests.
“They’re perfectly adept at hiding in shadows, misdirecting, deceiving, and deflecting attention when it suits them.”
You already knew all that, so what do we do with it?
If you and your elder team are requested to pray over a situation that’s obviously come to a head because of spiritual warfare, here are a few ideas to “get the wheels turning” mentally. This list isn’t exhaustive and your fellow elders will also have good pointers that the Holy Spirit will give them as you discuss the situation as brothers, but just to get started…
Practical Actions
1. Pray for yourself/yourselves.
Invite God to have His way in you and around you. Plead with Yahweh Almighty to overwhelm you, direct you, guide you, protect you, and more. We pray first, middle, and last because of how our Savior and King dealt with spiritual warfare. “This kind can come out only by prayer” (Mark 9.29, NIV). While it’s true He didn’t always say that about every demonic encounter He had, Jesus also never said, “With this kind you don’t need to bother with prayer.” So fight on your knees. Prayer with fasting is best of all.
2. Pay attention to everything.
The accuser and his minions are, more than anything, conniving, deceptive, misdirecting, hypocritical, phony cons. (We deliberately use “minion” because it denotes “a servile dependent, follower, underling, petty official”; that’s what demonic hordes are to the chief accuser.) Sometimes, their purposes are best-served by being subtle, which is probably their default most of the time in “developed,” highly secularized, less religious societies, such as ours in North America (also Europe, Australia/New Zealand, etc.). In cultures where religion and especially non-Christian religions are more prevalent, anecdotally, we tend to hear more stories about overt and noticeable actions and effects of ungodly spiritual beings. While there probably is not “a demon behind every bush and an angel in every empty parking spot,” the enemy’s minions will always work selfishly and in just such a way to accomplish whatever it is they want with greatest effectiveness. That might mean overt attack, or it may mean subtle, oblique maneuvering. They’re dirty fighters and will do whatever they can to get what they want—death, destruction, loss (John 10:10). Therefore, in trying situations, we must do both what Paul told elders and what Peter told all Christians (respectively, Acts 20:28 and 1 Peter 5:8): guard, watch out, keep alert, take heed.
“In trying situations, we must do both what Paul told elders and what Peter told all Christians: guard, watch out, keep alert, take heed.”
3. In unity, get help.
When “1st Church/Jerusalem” faced spiritual opposition in Acts 4 from the Sanhedrin, “all the believers lifted their voices together in prayer to God” (verse 24, NLT). Judah’s people corporately fasted and prayed following Jehoshaphat’s example and leadership (2 Chronicles 20:1-30). God responded to unholy Nineveh when the whole city corporately fasted and prayed (Jonah 3, especially verses 7-9). Corporately, verbally, pray.
4. Be clear in your prayers and in your conversations.
God speaks clearly. The accuser deceives. “It is not because I’m wiser than anyone else that I know the secret of your dream, but because God wants you to understand what was in your heart” (Daniel 2:30, NLT). God wants us to understand! Paul spent nearly all of 1 Corinthians 14 dealing with understanding “speaking in tongues” and having orderly, sensible, organized worship experiences. God loves clarity. Jesus told us to speak plainly and straightforwardly. “Just say a simple ‘yes I will,’ or ‘no, I won’t’; anything beyond this is from the evil one” (Matthew 5:37, NLT, emphasis added). In complete contrast to clarity and plainness from God above, the accuser and his minions want to “outsmart” and “scheme” against God’s people (2 Corinthians 2:11). They act, putting on the appearance of “angel[s] of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14).
In that vein of clarity versus misdirection, we should pray and talk about the situation being faced with bold specificity. When a demon-possessed young girl followed Paul and Barnabas around Philippi for multiple days, he turned around, looked her in the face (we can reasonably assume), and boldly said to her oppressor, “I command you in the name of Jesus [the Chosen One] to come out of her” (Acts 16:18, NLT). Paul’s words were direct, plain, bold, specific, forthright, and short. Upon confrontation, the demon apparently left without any more drama. In contrast, when a demon verbally accosted Jesus, its words immediately misdirected to a “straw man” scenario, “Have you come here to torture us before God’s appointed time?” (Matthew 8:29b, NLT). Jesus had given no hint about punitively inflicting any punishment, but distraction, misdirection, and “whataboutism” is what the enemy and his minions do.
“God speaks clearly. The accuser deceives.”
Returning to Paul, recall also his confrontation in Acts 13. Paul saw Elymas trying to deflect and redirect Sergius’s attention away from God’s Good News, so Paul confronted Elymas bluntly. “You son of the devil, full of every sort of deceit and fraud—enemy of all that’s good! Will you never stop perverting the true ways of the Lord?” (Acts 13:10, NLT). Paul dealt with spiritual warfare directly, bluntly, and quickly. Do the old saying: “Call a spade ‘a spade.’”
When a situation like the opening hypothetical confronts you and your elder team, call it what it is: spiritual warfare. In this example, with a woman talking about being a medium, acknowledge that oppressive reality and banish any demonic influence in Jesus’s Name. Don’t accommodate spiritual compromise in any way, excusing-away stories, avoiding the problem, copping-out in any way, or socially “sweeping it under the rug,” saying or assuming it’ll just go away if it’s all left alone.
5. Be assertive, active, and offensive in your prayer about and against the situation.
Biblical examples of pointed, direct, offensive prayers abound. Whether we talk about and reread “imprecatory Psalms” and/or Jeremiah’s plea to God to “deal with” people plotting against him (Jeremiah 18:18-23), there is ample biblical precedent of faithful followers begging for swift, decisive, divine intervention. (One can find multiple different lists of “imprecatory Psalms”; the following come from some of the most-frequently listed.) Among these 8 chapters quoted below, there are no less than 32 direct appeals to God Almighty. 
- “Punish the wicked, O God!…Break the arms of these wicked, evil people! Go after them until the last one is destroyed.” (Psalm 10:12, 15, NLT)
- “Let sudden ruin come upon [wicked people]! Let them be caught in the trap they set for me! Let them be destroyed in the pit they dug for me.” (Psalm 35:8, NLT)
- “Break off their fangs, O God! Smash the jaws of these lions…” (Psalm 58:6, NLT)
- “Let their eyes go blind so they can’t see and make their bodies shake continually. Pour out your fury on them; consume them with your burning anger.… Erase their names from the Book of Life…” (Psalm 69:23-24, 28, NLT)
“Pour out your fury on them; consume them with your burning anger.”
- “May his children become fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children wander as beggars and be driven from their ruined homes.” (Psalm 109:9-10, NLT)
- “O Babylon, you’ll be destroyed. Happy is the one who pays you back for what you’ve done to us.” (Psalm 137:8, NLT)
- “Let my enemies be destroyed by the very evil they have planned for me. Don’t let liars prosper.…Cause great disasters to fall on the violent.” (Psalm 140:9, 11, NLT)
- “…Listen to what my enemies are saying. Let screaming be heard from their homes as warriors come suddenly upon them. For they have dug a pit for me and have hidden traps along my path.” (Jeremiah 18:19, 22, NLT)
Following biblical precedents like these, be direct, specific, and unashamed in pleading with God above for the immediate and utter halt of physical and spiritual harm. When Jesus dealt with demons and their collateral damage, He was never verbose. He was direct and plain. “Go” was all He said to send a legion of demons into a herd of pigs (Matthew 8:32; Mark 5:9).
6. Go physically to where prayer is needed—and in a group.
When Jesus sent His Twelve and/or 72 (Mark 6:6-13, Luke 9:1-6 and/or Luke 10:1-20), He always sent them in pairs. Don’t go without someone “watching your 6.” “A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord isn’t easily broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12, NLT). Whether 3 of you go physically or two of you go with your third cord being God Almighty Himself, don’t go alone. In weightlifting, we recruit a spotter. Military pilots take off with a wingman. Soldiers watch each others’ “6.” Commercial flights always have two pilots. Go together.
“Holy ground” is more an Old Testament concept than New, but the importance of place doesn’t wholly disappear post-Jesus; it more or less goes with us in the New Covenant (“where two or three gather” in Matthew 18:20, “let’s not neglect meeting together” in Hebrews 10:25). When Paul and Silas prayed from prison, God intervened throughout the entire prison (Acts 16). When believers prayed for boldness after Peter and John were arrested and released, God shook the entire building where they met (Acts 4). If spiritual warfare is happening in a home, go to that home. If it’s in a person’s life generally, meet them directly, in person. As brothers in Jesus, clasp hands and pray then and there, not just by text or over a phone call.
“If spiritual warfare is happening in a home, go to that home.”
Final Thoughts
Spiritual warfare is real. It’s nasty, no-holds-barred dirty street fighting that wreaks havoc in the lives of people: relationally, physically, mentally, emotionally. Elders can and must help to protect people from those struggles. Only Jesus can fully protect us. But time and again, when “each other” and “one another” show up in the New Testament, it’s clear that God chooses to do much of His work through the lives of you and me, His people in this world.
“The Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8b, NLT). Join Him in His work. Fight on your knees. Go with a brother into that good fight. Then watch Him do the remarkably, immeasurably more (Ephesians 3:20), and give Him all the credit He deserves in the aftermath.
From e2 effective elders. Used with permission.
