The Real Battle

Our culture, and far too many believers, live in spiritual naiveté. This is most clearly illustrated in the "sacred-secular" myth. Only spiritually discerning Christians will make it in the days ahead

Sam Smith & Kim Petras, performing their song “Unholy” at the 2023 Grammys

CS Lewis warned about chronological snobbery–the idea that MODERN = SMARTER. But our modern culture, while technologically advanced, is spiritually quite naive. Nowhere is this so clearly displayed as in our view of religion. 

We've been convinced that to be religious is spiritual, and to be secular is to be irreligious or scientific. This illusion that there are religiously neutral spaces in life or society shows a deep ignorance of what it means to live in the real world. 

We must harden our resolve not to buy into this modern mythology. Scripture makes it clear that every person is being influenced by and interacting with the spiritual realm.

In the ancient world, this was much easier to see because the gods who were worshiped had idols in temples and amulets stamped with their images that could be worn as necklaces and earrings. 

Scripture clearly indicates that these idols in fact had true entities behind them. Paul says the sacrifices offered up were being given to demons whether or not the people offering the sacrifices realized that (1 Corinthians 10:20)

These demons influenced how the people thought. They could communicate with these people. They could even lend these people supernatural powers. Consider the magicians of Egypt, or the Python girl who followed Paul predicting the future. 

In reality, all of these spirits themselves are servants of their chief.

Paul calls Satan, “the god of this world who has blinded the minds of unbelievers” (2 Corinthians 4:4).  The human organization of life always has a spiritual and religious center to it. And that spiritual and religious center has actual spiritual personalities interacting with it, influencing it, and exerting force to achieve an outcome aligned with Satan's ultimate agenda: To steal, kill and destroy.

There are only two sides each person and society can be aligned with, because there are only two kingdoms at play in the spirit realm, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. 

To abandon the Lord is never a move towards independence. It is always a surrender to Satan's kingdom. There is no spiritual Switzerland. There is no neutral zone. The great tragedy is that so few people recognize this.

Each kingdom has its strategic aims. Jesus laid them out: “The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that you may have life and have it to the full.” This is why Jesus coming was so very amazing, because he brought the Kingdom of Life with him. Anyone could enter in and be set free from slavery in the kingdom of Satan.

A friend recently told me about his grandfather, who drove a Jeep for a General in World War II. In a harrowing, haunting experience, he drove his commander to one of the Nazi death camps. They could smell the horror of that place from two miles away. The grandfather told my friend, “I will never forget that smell.”

There are many who would interpret those furnace fires in strictly secular terms. “This is what ideologies of hate create.” Of course, those explanations are part of the picture. But they leave out the most important part. This is what happens when people are aligned with the kingdom of Satan. This is what happens when an entire society has offered itself up to the devil's agenda.

The Nazi death camps and modern day abortion clinics are not godless spaces. They are deeply spiritual, signs of worship and loyalty. The furnaces of Dachau and Buchenwald were sacrificial fires on Satan's altar. Just how self consciously aware the participants were in those acts of worship were is irrelevant.

Satan, unlike God, doesn't care if his worshipers know and love him. His desire is not to enlighten them, or share himself with them or bring them into a relationship with himself. His desire is to use them to destroy as many other people as they can and then to destroy themselves.

The battle of our time is no less spiritual than the one described in Revelation. In our day, Satan doesn't employ the tools of pagan idols. But Satan and his generals are still being worshiped. Today Satan has found new vehicles for destroying life. But if we look closely we can see these secular movements are in fact deeply spiritual.

They require child sacrifice, castration, blind loyalty, and those who offer up these things may even be granted supernatural aid and assistance by the god of this world. But we don't have to wonder what his strategic aims are. They haven't changed since Jesus revealed them to us.