Spiritual Warfare Vol ume 1 Joseph A Cortes 1 Spiritual Warfare, Volume 1 Table of Contents Fit for the Spiritual Fight 1 Are You Ready for Boot Camp? 10 Was Satan a Cherubim? 22 Seducing Spirits, another Gospel, another Jesus 39 The Perverting of the Church 56 God of this World 65 Damnable Prosperity Doctrine 73 Wheat and Tares, Part 1 86 Wheat and Tares, Part 2 97 Do not be Complacent 109 Misusing and Misapplying Scripture 124 No Condemnation 134 Fit for the Spiritual Fight Spiritual warfare is what I believe Christians should spend more than half their studies on. Once you become a Christian, the battle line is drawn, and the devil, his demonic army, and all the evil spirits under his control try to destroy the trust and faith you have with God and Christ Jesus. The last thing the devil wants to see is you reconciling your connection back with God and Jesus Christ and His blood. As soon as you draw that battle line and become a new convert for Christ, you are in a fight between eternal life and eternal death. For that reason, Christians should spend the first three years after being converted understanding what the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about and what Christ did for them. This should be an intense study and they should live daily increasing their knowledge of what the Bible has to say about spiritual warfare. It is that important. Unfortunately, this is not always available. I challenge you, go to any university or Christian related Bible college and see for yourselves how much time is dedicated to understanding this subject. The devil has blinded several generations now. I know some of that is because of end time prophesy, but the devil has blinded several generations of man from understanding what spiritual warfare is all about. I have scanned just about everything you can read and everything that people have preached. They want to teach and preach about spiritual warfare, but they spend only a short time on the subject before going off in a different area of the Bible not related to spiritual warfare at all. I am not saying all of them do this, but many preachers, teachers, and pastors do not spend the necessary time to equip their saints making them fit for the battle. As I said, and I will keep repeating throughout this series, the battle is between eternal life and eternal death. If you lose, it is going to be eternal death, but if you are victorious through the blood of Jesus Christ, you will be ruling and reigning with Christ Jesus throughout eternity. At least once a month Christians should spend time studying the battle we are in; how to fight the good fight of faith, using the weapons and knowledge God has given us, including how to apply those weapons to your everyday lives. I was reflecting and realized, whether from the Lord or from years studying spiritual warfare, that I am more equipped to preach this series than any series I have preached so far. You will see in this series how spiritual warfare is connected to the Fruit of the Spirit I have taught on already. I will point out these connections as I teach in this series. As for myself, I was raised a Catholic with a Portuguese cultural background. I have seen people possessed, people changing personalities, voices, and witchcraft that goes beyond the bizarre. Without going into a lengthy description of what I have been through, before I even became a Christian, I experienced some things that are frightening to most. They were frightening to me then, but now I understand. I guess I have a respect of whom we are fighting against because of the things I have seen. I will probably enlighten you on some of those things, especially when I teach on Ephesians 6:12. I have seen things in the Catholic Church and in the Protestant church, to give you both extremes that would frighten you beyond measure. I have experienced spiritual warfare in a way most have not. Most preachers that preach on spiritual warfare, especially on the Christian armor in verses 14 to 17 of Ephesians 6, do so to give you some insight, but they really do not concentrate on verses 10, 11 and 12, which is about knowing your enemy. In this series, I will concentrate more on 1 these three verses and by the time I am done you will know the devil, your enemy. You have to learn in order to know you enemy. For example, how many people can actually give me at least a dozen names for the devil and the reason why those names were given to our enemy? Without going to the internet or some commentary or dictionary, how many could recite back to me at least twelve names? There are more than twelve, but tell me at least twelve names for the devil, devil being number one. Likewise, do you think this country goes to war without knowing who the enemy is? And even though there may be a lot of intelligence and research, is there really an understanding of the enemy? Often in war, we face things that we never expected because we are not prepared for what happens after the invasion. The invasion is the easy part; it is the continuing day-to-day events that happen afterward. The sneak attacks, the cowardly attacks on not only our soldiers but also civilians, the manipulation of minds to try to convince people one-way or the other. Any country does what it can to figure out who their enemy is, or at least give their best efforts to try to figure out what is to be faced before going into war or battle. However, Christians are often naïve and more excited about going to their praise worship, music concert, or choir practice, but not excited to learn about whom their enemy is and why God’s Word makes it important for you to know who he is. The Bible introduces us to the devil after only a few chapters into Genesis. Our sinful nature makes us what we are today, and even though Christ converts you and you are living as a new person through Christ Jesus, you still have a sinful nature. Those of you who say you do not sin any longer are fooling yourselves. You sin every day. You just sinned by saying that and may not even know how it was a sin. Additionally, it is a shame Christians do not want to understand and it is a shame. The world has a better concept about warfare than Christians do and it aggravates me tremendously to see lackluster preachers that do not want to spend more time on this subject matter. That will not be one of my faults. To repeat myself, Christians should spend at least half their studies on spiritual warfare. At the very least you should dedicate some time once a month reviewing what you have learned and see if there is more you can understand and learn through God’s Word about this subject. It is my intention to use Ephesians 6 as a launching point to all the messages that I will preach on spiritual warfare. Before beginning this series, I prayed, “God where will you have me start this series?” and it came to me after I read verse 10. In this series I will be reading throughout the Bible, but we will begin at Ephesians 6:10 where Paul writes, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” It is my hope that when I am done you will have a better understanding of how powerful this one verse alone is. This book is titled “Ephesians”, because Paul is writing to the Ephesian Church in Ephesus. Also relating Jesus’ words, John also wrote to the Ephesus church in Revelation 2. There were several letters written by John to the churches of Asia and one of them is the letter to the church of the Ephesians, the Ephesus church. Beginning in Revelation 2:1, Christ tells John, “Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; 2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.” Now I have read, studied, and heard all kinds of messages on the “first love” in my 33 years of Christian life. They all want to relate it to your worldly relationship with your partners, your husbands and wives, using it as an example how we lose our first love, but you cannot compare this first love to a relationship you have with anyone here in this world. You have to put a spiritual application on this, not something physical you can see and touch. It is a spiritual application. “Thou hast lost thy first love.” How do Christians lose their first love? Most Christians will answer: I stopped going to church regularly, I stopped choir practice, I should have attended one extra prayer meeting, I should have gone to missions and fed the poor or assisted in any way I could.