This episode introduces the subject of spiritual warfare via Derek Prince’s aptly titled book Spiritual Warfare. Topics include the location of Satan’s Kingdom (hint: it ain’t in hell), the battlefield of the spiritual war, and the spiritual armor and weapons needed to bring the fight to the demonic enemy.

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The Kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom of God

According to Derek Prince in Spiritual Warfare, Ephesians 6:110-12 provide the basic gist of the spiritual war between God and Satan:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

For the record, here is Ephesians 6:12 from the KJV, because that wording is going to come up a lot:

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Prince even offers his own translation of the original Greek to bring out some special features of this Satanic war:

For our wrestling match is not against flesh and blood, not against persons with bodies, but against rulers with various areas and descending orders of authority, against the world-dominators of this present darkness, against spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenlies.

He offers his explanation for why he went with this translation:

I say, “rulers with various areas and descending orders of authority,” because that pictures a very highly structured and well-organized kingdom with descending orders of authority and different rulers and sub-rulers responsible for different areas of their territory. I used the word “dominators” in “the world dominators of this present darkness,” because the term “dominate” so vividly describes the way Satan treats the human race.

Whichever version of the Bible you use, Prince can safely say,

Christians … are engaged in a titanic conflict which staggers the mind to consider.

Even Jesus himself gets into the spiritual warfare game, as witnessed in Matthew 12:22-28, starting with a Jesus burn by the Pharisees:

All the people were astonished and said, “Could this be the Son of David?”

But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.”

Prince also mentions that “Beelzebub” means “lord of the flies”, so this is even further evidence that Satan is the head of state of a highly organized empire. After all, 

…Demons are compared to the whole insect domain.

Anyway, Jesus claps back at the Pharisees,

Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.

“If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand?” 

Given that Satan is still a pain in the ass, Jesus is offering a reductio ad absurdum, the conclusion of which is not only that Jesus ain’t Satanic but that Satan has his own kingdom. Thankfully, though, the kingdom of Satan is not the only kingdom in town:

“And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges.

“But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

The last piece of evidence Prince presents is Colossians 1:12-14:

… giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.

For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,

in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

So, in conclusion, we have the two warring kingdoms: the Kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom of God.

Where Satan Lives

But here is something disturbing you might have missed. When you imagine where Satan lives, I bet you are thinking “Hell”. But you are wrong! Consider, again, Ephesians 6:12:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

That’s right; Satan’s headquarters are in the heavenly realms! You are rightly shocked by this but Prince has biblical proof, from Job 2:1-2:

On another day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him.

And the Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.”

So not only could Satan access the presence of God, but the angels were too dumb to notice they were hanging around the Lord of Flies. We see the same thing in Revelation 12:10:

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.”

So after God cast Satan into hell, Satan still has access to the presence of God. What gives? Prince thinks the answer is simple: There are MULTIPLE heavens! Think that’s impossible? Well why don’t you go and read literally the first sentence in the Bible,

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

There is even a structure to the heavens, as explained in 2 Chronicles 2:6:

But who is able to build a temple for him [the Lord], since the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain him?

Thus even heaven has its own heaven, the highest heavens.

Paul himself in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 talks about a third heaven. And this gets Prince reflecting on his former career:

Before I became a preacher, I was a logician and sometimes I cannot get away from logic. Logic convinces me that if there is a third heaven, there must be a first and a second. So there are at least three heavens.

While this is a logical deduction, Prince does make a logical error when interpreting Ephesians 4:10:

He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.

Prince also takes this verse to entail there are at least three heavens,

Notice that phrase “all the heavens.” The word “all” can only be correctly used of at least three. When I was teaching English to African students in Kenya, a student once said to me, “All my parents have come to see me.” I said, “You can’t say ‘All my parents,’ because no one has more than two parents. If you only have two you can’t say ‘All.’ ” The same applies to the phrase “all the heavens.” There must be at least three.

So remember that if you say you are going to buy all the apples in the store, and there are only two left, you are a liar!

But Prince is also reasonable and thinks that some will take this multiple heavens thing much too far. For example, he doesn’t think you should take the phrase “seventh heaven” literally. 

I suggest that is not scriptural. Actually, that phrase is taken from the Koran, the sacred book of Islam, and is probably not appropriate for Christians.

Prince much prefers the phrase “cloud nine”

There are plenty of clouds in heaven and that expression is more in line with Scripture. Jesus is coming in the clouds.

Alright, so what exactly are these three heavens? The first is what we see in the sky, including the moon, the sun, and the stars. The third heaven is the “heaven of heavens”, which is where God hangs out. That leads the second heaven sandwiched in between. It is here, Prince believes, where Satan’s headquarters lie. Prince suggests this explains why many prayers go unanswered; they never make it to God because they get stuck in the second heaven. It’s like Satan is running a radar jammer up there.

The War

So we know there are two kingdoms duking it out, God’s and Satan’s, and we know God is in the Penthouse while Satan is in a second-floor suite. Sadly, just as prayers can get stuck in Satan’s floor, angels can get stuck there as well when they try and come to answer prayers. In the book of Daniel, and angel hears Daniel’s prayer but only arrives at his side three weeks later. The Angel explains what took him so long in Daniel 13:

…the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; [The angel took twenty-one days because he had resistance and opposition in the heavenlies.] then behold, Michael, one of the chief princes [or archangels], came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia.

So this angel kind of sucked and was helped by a greater angel, the Archangel Michael, who is in charge of Daniel’s people, the people of Israel. Just as one angel is in charge of Israel, This quote also shows an evil angel was in charge of Persia. Prince hypothesizes that there are probably subordinates to the satanic prince of Persia in charge of smaller groups,

For instance, there might be one king over each major city of the Persian Empire, one over each major ethnic group, perhaps one also over each of the various religious and pagan cults of the Persian Empire. We get a picture of a highly organized, structured kingdom with various areas and descending levels of authority with headquarters in the heavenlies and which is a kingdom of rebellious, fallen spirit-beings.

But, why Persia? Prince surmises that the celestial administration is dependent on how we organize things back in the 1st heaven. So since Persia was a major non-Christian empire, it deserved in the eyes of Satan it’s own demonic prince. Since apparently demonic and holy rulers are associated with countries and empires, the whole idea of God being on one side of a conflict is literally true, and this is clearly great for living in a peaceful world.

The Weapons and Battlefield

So if spiritual warfare is, well, warfare, what kind of weapons are we talking about? We’re talking about the boring kind ie “spiritual” weapons as opposed to “fleshly” or “physical” weapons. but what are we going to use our spiritual weapons on? What’s the target? Prince directs us to 2 Corinthians 10:4 for the answer:

… for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. 

But what kind of fortresses you might be wondering? Physical? Spiritual? Fleshly? No; these are fortresses of the MIND!

Satan is waging an all out war to captivate the minds of the human race. He is building strongholds and fortresses in their minds and it is our responsibility, as God’s representatives, to use our spiritual weapons to break down these strongholds, to liberate the minds of men and women, and then to bring them into captivity to the obedience of Christ. What a staggering assignment that is!

These “strongholds”, these sublets in rooms of the mind, come in the form of prejudice and preconception. One example he gives is British soldiers during the American Revolutionary War, who would march into battle while American snipers picked them off from safety. Sadly, the Red Coats couldn’t conceive of any other way of fighting,

It was a stronghold of prejudice and preconception that caused the unnecessary death of thousands of English soldiers. This is just one example of how a mental prejudice can drive people to their own destruction.

But it’s not just the British that are beholden to demonic strongholds; there are also,

religious cults, political ideologies, and racial prejudices. These are found, frequently, among professing Christians.

You can’t use mental weapons like evidence and argument on someone beholden to a demonic stronghold,

A stronghold is something that blinds men’s minds so that the light of the gospel cannot shine in. When a person is in that condition, it is worse than useless to argue with him or her. The more you argue, the more they restate their error and the more firmly they are stuck in that error. The only way to deliver such people is to use our spiritual deliver such people is to use our spiritual weapons and break down the strongholds in their minds.

VICTORY!

So we know what weapons to use (sort of), but how do we use them to achieve victory? Well, it turns out, strangely enough, that we kind of already have? And Prince thinks this fact is so important he repeats it twice in boldface!

Christ has already defeated Satan and all his evil powers and authorities totally and forever.

But all is still not well, because Satan’s main mode of attack is making us FORGET that he has been defeated. He does this by accusing us and making us feel guilty. What we have to do is remind ourselves that we shouldn’t feel guilty because Christ has already absolved us of our sins.

Here is a metaphor. Sovereign Citizens are already not guilty of any crimes because, as we all know, they are not under the jurisdiction of the US. And yet police officers and judges and juries still accuse them of crimes, often hillariously. So it’s their job to remind everyone, loudly, that they are in fact innocent.

The Full Armor of God

Along with the knowledge that Christ has totally already won, we also need to use God’s spiritual weapons. These include weapons of defense and weapons of attack. This includes what Paul calls, “the full armor of God” in Ephesians 6:11.

We need this armor to protect us from “the evil day”. This isn’t just the end times or other prophecized disasters (though Prince is very clear that these might still happen!) Instead, Paul is just talking about the normal temptations and hardships and doubts that Christians face regularly. The full armor of God is meant to protect us from this.

Now this has all been very DnD so far, but somehow this is where it goes into overdrive because the full armor of God has six named components:

1. The girdle of truth

2. The breastplate of righteousness

3. The shoes of the preparation of the gospel

4. The shield of faith

5. The helmet of salvation

6. The sword of the Spirit

The girdle of truth

Roman soldiers wore tunics that flapped around their nether regions and would inhibit movement. Therefore, they wore girdles to keep all that cloth in line. Just like them, the soldier for Christ must wear a spiritual girdle. But what are the spiritual bits of hanging cloth inhibiting our movement? It’s “sham, hypocrisy, religious cliches, and saying and doing things we do not mean.” Once equipped with the girdle of truth, we can dispense with this baloney and be “active, energetic, effective Christians.”

The breastplate of righteousness

Lots of folks want to poke Romans right in the heart, which is why they wore breastplates. Demons want to poke Christians in their spiritual hearts, so they need breastplates of righteousness. This is not the righteousness of works or religious law, but faith. After all, if we rely on the righteousness of following the law or even our own personal righteousness Satan can find plenty of kinks in that armor. But Paul also describes it as a breastplate of Love,

Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. When you have on that breastplate of faith that works by love, it will always protect you. It will keep your heart from every attack and attempt of Satan to penetrate that vital area of your life.

The shoes of the preparation of the gospel 

A roman soldier needed shoes that would make him “mobile and available”. Just think of your friend who is slow to put his shoes on and holds up your entire group. But what do we need to have available? Obviously an “intelligent understanding of the gospel.” This not only requires study, memorization, and the ability to communicate the gospel but also being able to express the peace of mind.

Let me give you a little example of how this might work. Suppose you are a lady doing your grocery shopping in a supermarket. As you wait in the check-out line, there is a lady who is obviously on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She is nervous and jittery and God directs you to help her. What are you going to do? Are you going to say, “Come to church on Sunday morning?” That will not meet her need. If that was all you could say, you would not have your shoes on.

Having your shoes on means you are ready to do something right then and there when God directs you. First of all, you must have peace. You must let her feel that you have something that she does not have and desperately needs. People can feel peace in other people.

When she reaches out for that peace, you must be able to tell her in simple, nonreligious language just how she can find peace. You must be able to communicate the gospel to her. That is the “shoes of the preparation of the gospel of peace.

The shield of faith

While the breastplate of righteousness protects our hearts, we need one of those big-ass Roman shields to protect everything else and everyone else around us. After all, when we start messing around with Satan, “he may counterattack our minds, our hearts, our bodies, or our finances, so we need to have a shield that covers us.” Sadly, Prince has a really terrifying story to explain why we need to a shield of faith large enough,

I was ministering once to a woman who had a demon of suicide. At a certain point, she received a very definite, dramatic deliverance, and she knew she was free. We both praised God. The next day she came back to see me and related this remarkable incident. She said that just about the time she received her deliverance, her husband was driving along the highway in his open pick-up truck and their German Shepherd dog was standing (as the dog always loved to do) in the back of the truck. For no reason, while the truck was traveling at high speed, the shepherd dog suddenly jumped out and was instantly killed.

The moment she told me that, I understood that the demon of suicide which had left the woman had gone into the dog. Satan attacked the nearest thing he could reach. I learned a lesson I trust I will never need to learn again.

So you better make sure your damn shield is big enough for everybody.

Prince then ends on a very anti-climatic story about starting a radio station where everything went wrong from technical glitches to people getting sick and so on. Prince realized he needed to stretch out his shield of faith, you know, like the woman who had a demon kill her dog.

The helmet of salvation

Just like a regular helmet protects your skull, your spiritual helmet protects your mind. This makes sense given that the mind is the battlefield of the spiritual war, after all. What kind of spiritual head wounds can the Christian suffer? Well, of course, this series wouldn’t be complete without some mental illness denialism in the form of blaming depression on demonic activity. Prince himself dealt with depression, and tried everything except going to see a psychiatrist; he prayed, he fasted, he read the bible. But then he read Isaiah 61:3, which includes the phrase “the spirit of heaviness”.

When I read that phrase, “the spirit of heaviness,” something leaped within me. I said, “That’s my problem! That’s what I need to be delivered from.” I read other passages of Scripture on deliverance, I prayed a simple prayer of faith, and God supernaturally delivered me from that spirit of heaviness

Now that he cured himself of depression, Prince recognized that he needed to prevent himself from further attack. He realized that the helmet of salvation is hope, which he defines thusly,

Hope is a quiet, steady expectation of good based on the promises of God’s Word. In a sense, it is continuing optimism. That is the protection of the mind. Hope is an optimistic attitude that always chooses to see the best and will not give way to depression, doubt, and self-pity.

The sword of the spirit

Prince thinks we need the sword for a different reason; even with the rest of the armor on, Satan will still be able to stand around and be annoying even if he can’t actually harm us. The Sword is, as you may have guessed, the Word of God because like the Word of God it pierces and penetrates. For our truly hardcore listeners, you may remember our very first episode when we talked about the sword of the Word of God coming out of Jesus’s mouth. But Jesus used the Sword of the Spirit before Judgment Day, so how did he use it?

The prime example is when Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert. The weapon of Satan was doubt, but Jesus each time used the same weapon, saying over and over “It is written” He didn’t both with theology or religious affiliation but only the Scripture itself. But remember, you have to speak it,

It is significant that the sword of the Spirit is not the Bible on the bookshelf or on the nightstand. That does not scare the devil. But when you take the Scripture in your mouth and quote it directly, then it becomes the sword of the Spirit.

So, if you’re mute, you’re shit out of Spirit. 

The unprotected area

Now you might be wondering at this point “wait a minute; everything is protected except my back. What gives?” Well, Prince says that is on purpose! First, it tells spiritual warriors never to turn their back to the devil. You’re just giving him an opportunity to stab you with a spiritual knife. Second, you can’t protect your own back, so you have to rely on your fellow spiritual soldiers to do that for you.

Weapons of attack

Now it’s all well and good to be protected against the devil but that is not enough; you must bring the fight to the enemy! Prince expresses this with a pithy phrase:

Jesus pictures His church in the light of two primary activities: building and battling. These must always go together. It is no good doing battle if we do not build. On the other hand, we cannot build if we do not battle. So we must think always in terms of building the church and battling the forces of Satan.

Prince thinks Christians have been too defensive, waiting for Satan to strike and then defend rather than the other way around,

My experience is that most Christians have the attitude: “I wonder where the devil is going to strike next?” I suggest to you that the boot should be on the other foot. The devil should be wondering where the church is going to strike him next!

There are four main weapons in the spiritual arsenal: prayer, praise, preaching, and testimony. 

Prayer

Prayer is the greatest of all spiritual weapons. Paul even mentions it directly after listing the full armor of God in Ephesians 6:18

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests

And though Prince routinely reminds us that our weapons are not physical, he cannot help himself from using intense military metaphors,

Think of prayer as an intercontinental ballistic missile. This is a missile that is launched from one continent, directed by an advanced guidance system to a target in a completely different continent to destroy an assigned target. There is no limitation of time or distance in prayer. Prayer is like that intercontinental ballistic missile. With it, we can assail Satan’s strongholds anywhere, even in the heavenlies.

So you might think “Cool, I can pray at night like normal and launch my missiles to Satan” but you would be WRONG! Jesus requires that we pray day and night to be effective warriors!  A good example of this is when Peter was arrested by King Herod. Although he was in jail surrounded by guards, the church prayed for him day and night. This resulted in an angel freeing Peter from jail and then that same angel striking King Herod dead!

Praise

When we praise God’s awesome work and totally rad vengeance, we get a piece of that strength to carry out our spiritual warfare.

Preaching

If you have been following along closely, you’ll know what you should be preaching, but Prince has a reminder just in case,

It is solely and exclusively the preaching of God’s Word. It in no way applies to the preaching of other things, such as human philosophy, political ideologies, or even elaborate theology.

You also have to be careful not to preach a version that “self-serving rebels” want to hear but the Real Deal. If you do so, then the Word of God,

It is a hammer that will break in pieces every rock that opposes the purposes of God. It is like a sharp sword that pierces to the innermost recesses of the human personality and lays bare the secrets of men’s hearts and minds.

Preaching has a number of effects. One is “extraordinary miracles”. Prince himself makes the inference that we aren’t talking about ordinary miracles but extraordinary miracles. Preaching also has the power to reveal the secret agents of Satan who hate hearing the Word of God spoken out in the open. Third, preaching can eliminate occult influence in an area. So if some of you are dabbling in Ouji boards or even yoga a good deal of preaching will be required to break that spell.

Testimony

Prince starts with a useful distinction between preaching and testimony

Preaching is presenting the truths of God’s Word directly, but testimony is “witnessing” or “being a witness.” Testimony is speaking from personal experience about incidents that relate to the Word of God and confirm the truth of God’s Word.

Apparently, you also need supernatural power to be a witness, which I don’t see why. Also, this doesn’t mean you merely witness the power of Christ but act as a witness. So you can’t just see it happen; you have to go on the Witness stand and give testimony in spiritual court.

Conclusion

To be effective in spiritual warfare, we must continually take the offensive with the weapons God has provided for us. It is not sufficient to merely defend ourselves and wait for the Lord to deliver us. We are an army of conquerors, and the nations of the world are ripe for a people who will conquer them with the Gospel of the Kingdom.

Peace be upon you.