Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Is Spiritual Warfare Real? | Torah | Numbers 14:39-45

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

Do Christians need to fight evil? What does spiritual warfare even look like? How can you be prepared for battle? In today’s episode, Jensen compares Israel’s battle in Numbers 13:39-45 with the battle Christians fight every day. Listen to find out the key to victory. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Numbers 13:39-45

Welcome to 10-minute Bible talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. Today we're picking up in the middle of Numbers 14. Here the Israelites are on the cusp of the promised land, about to take what God has promised them for so long. And they refuse to enter and complain to God because they're afraid of the people who live there. They don't trust God to deliver this land to them. return, God will not give this generation the privilege of entering the promised land. Those who left Egypt will die in the wilderness, and it is their children who will inherit the land. Now, upon hearing this news, the people mourn this loss, this new reality before them. And then, they try to take matters into their own hands.

Verse 40. early the next morning they set out for the highest point in the hill country saying now we are ready to go up to the land the lord promised surely we have sinned but moses said why are you disobeying the lord's command this will not succeed do not go up because the lord is not with you you will be defeated by your enemies for the amalekites and the canaanites will face you there because you have turned away from a lord he will not be with you, and you will fall by the sword. Nevertheless, in their presumption, they went up toward the highest point in the hill country, though neither Moses nor the Ark of the Lord's covenant moved from the camp.

Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and attacked them and beat them down all the way to Horma. Afraid of dying in the wilderness, regretting their complaints and its constant, consequences, the people of Israel try to fix the mess they've made. And they end up making an even bigger mess. They go to battle to take the promised land and they die in that battle because they did not go with the presence of God. They left behind the ark that signified God's presence and Moses, God's messenger to the people, and they took matters into their own hands. They may have thought they were prepared with swords, but they waited into battle without the only weapon that mattered.

God's presence. Now, this may not seem super relevant to you. Like, when's the last time you've marched out into battle without God? Or even, you know, marched out into battle at all? You'd probably say, like me, it's been a minute. But scripture tells us that every time we wake up and walk up. out our front doors, we are walking into a battle. Ephesians 6 lichens the Christians walk to a fight against the devil. Verse 10. 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. Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything to stand. Our lives are a battlefield, whether we realize it or not. Every day we face the schemes of the devil, the pull of the devil, the spiritual forces of evil, trying to lure us away from God and deeper into darkness.

Now, what I just said might sound more like a science fiction novel than reality to you. That's honestly the bummer about living in the 21st century. Our modern minds tend to assume that the physical world is all there is, and we write off the spiritual realm as childish whims and fantasy. But if you claim to be a Christian, you have to start becoming comfortable with the spiritual realm, the world of angels and demons, the world of spiritual warfare. Because the Bible tells us it is a war we are fighting every day.

And if we don't acknowledge it or refuse to believe it is even happening, then we have no hope of winning. There are spiritual forces right now in your life trying to lure you away from believing in and experiencing the goodness of God in your life. And those spiritual forces, they might not be appearing to you as ghosts in the night or demons you see in scary movies, but that doesn't make them any less real or any less powerful. They are going to battle over your time, keeping you busy and occupying.

enough to not spend time in the word. They're going to battle over your emotions, pushing you to worry and question God's goodness in your life. They're going to battle over your thought life, making you question God's design and the validity of Scripture in a modern age. They're going to battle over your morality, tempting you to question whether God has any right to tell you how to live. There is a war waging over every area of our lives. Every day we step foot on a battlefield, and every day that we fail to recognize this is a day that our lives continue to be shaped by the world rather than by God.

Because this is true, we can relate to the Israelites facing a battlefield before them. Unfortunately, more often than not, we can also probably relate to the emotions they had that drove them into battle. So the Israelites were fearful. They had worry and regret, and they took matters into their own hands. But when they took control, they made a choice to go to battle without God. And as we saw when facing the physical enemies of the Amalekites and Canaanites, this was a bad idea.

They were ill equipped with the wrong weapons, and they died on. the battlefield. Even more so, when we are facing a spiritual battle for our souls, stepping foot on the battlefield ill-equipped can be even more dangerous. If you're like me, when you start to see this battle before you, when you start to see your life as either being shaped by spiritual forces of darkness, or by the creator of the universe, then you may be tempted to look like the Israelites. I get fearful. I regret the way I spend my time, the ways I'm distracted, the ways I failed, and I try to take matters into my own hands. I sit down and I make a game plan. I set alarms. I turn off notifications on my phone. I set time limits on social media. Maybe I even delete

social media. I sign up for Bible reading plans and force myself to be better. But sheer power of will will never be enough to fight this battle. And just like the Israelites, my weapons are not strong enough. We cannot win this battle when we are equipping ourselves with the wrong tools. Ephesion 6, the passage we read before reminding us that our lives are a battle. Will it continues on to help us get a picture of what kind of weapons we need to fight this battle? Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place and with your feet fitted with the readiness

that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And pray. Pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people. Ephesians is calling us to action. It is calling us to pick up our weapons. But those weapons, they're rooted in deep relationship and dependence on Christ. Those things I want to do, setting time limits on my phone and waking up early to read my Bible, Those are good things.

The Israelites brought a sword to the battlefield. Probably a good thing to bring to an ancient battle. But they forgot the presence of God needed to be with them. Similarly, I try to manipulate those good things by sheer force of will to make my life look like the way I think it's supposed to. I forget that those actions and habits, they aren't the end goal. The end goal is to equip myself with righteousness, with peace, steadfast faith in Christ, with knowledge of scripture and with connectedness to Christ in prayer.

The end goal is to cultivate the presence of God in my daily life. Because of the end of the day, it is he who will overpower the spiritual forces of darkness in my life. Not my will. The armor of God will not pop up in our lives overnight. It will take habitual changes. They will form slowly. But every day as we step out into the world where spiritual forces are at work, we have to fight to cultivate a life that invites God's presence to have power in our lives.

Power over how we spend our time. Power over our thoughts. Power over our morals. Power over our emotions. One simple way to walk into battle equipped with the presence of God is through prayer. Paul reminds us to pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people. Let's do that now.

God, I ask that you would open our eyes to see the battle before us. We ask that you would go before us, that your presence would guide us. We ask for forgiveness for the ways that we try to grasp for control and fight in our own ways. Lord, protect us, protect us from the temptations of this world. Grant us the strength and discipline to grow habits that will open our lives up to be a place where your presence can thrive. May our lives be an offering to you. And may our faithfulness push back the powers of darkness in this world. Amen.

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