Kingdoms in Conflict - The Unseen

City Church Tulsa

THE UNSEEN Kingdoms in Conflict 8.11.24 There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. - C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters The two most common responses to spiritual warfare and the spiritual realm: 1. Obsessive preoccupation 2. Complacent indifference Reasons why Christians are tragically ignorant of and dangerously ill-prepared for spiritual warfare: 1. Ignorance of the Bible 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. 2. Irrelevance of the Bible 3. Victory of the cross 4. The fear of imbalance Many Christians have become so accustomed to operating with no demonstrations of spiritual power that they are bothered by any demonstration of it. – Timothy Warner 5. Insulated life-styles & a western worldview The reason we don’t often see overt demonic manifestations like someone’s eyes roll in the back of their head or foam at the mouth is because any sort of supernatural occurrence would at the very least get you to believe in the supernatural. A smarter, more subtle strategy of Satan is to move stealthily behind the scenes – distorting truth – bring division – selling lies – making church goers church shoppers, turning kingdom people into political people – keeping the church in a state of apathy. - Dr. Karl Payne 2 Corinthians 11:14 For Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. There is a kingdom of God and there is a kingdom of Satan and the two are in conflict. God/the Trinity are pre-existent and all-powerful from beginning and they create out of who they are and what they desire God creates an unseen world with spiritual beings (Job 38, Psalm 82) God creates a physical world with human beings (Genesis 1:26-28) Ephesians 6:10-12 10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 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. Ephesians 1:19-21 That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. As followers of Jesus, we must be committed to rediscovering a biblical imagination for the spiritual world, our authority in Christ, and the weapons of warfare God has given us to overcome the powers of the Enemy. Imagining the world that Scripture imagines, you will recall, means focusing less on the world that created the Bible and more on the world that the Bible creates. - Luke Timothy Johnson, Miracles Will we have “ears to hear and eyes to see” what God is doing all around us in both the physical and the spiritual realms? Will the church be a place shaped by a secular culture that rejects the mysterious or the miraculous or will we embody a community drenched with the possibilities of the supernatural?