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Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well. ~ 1 Timothy 1:18
Whether you know it or not, due to the fact that you are in the family of God through believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are engaged in a battle between good and evil, God and Satan. And, your involvement in this battle is of utmost importance.
In today's text, the Apostle Paul admonishes Timothy to engage further in this battle. The Apostle uses a Greek verb from which we get our English word “strategy” which means to fight as a soldier. The strategy is already in the word of God to be discovered on a daily basis: the strategy is prayer and obeying the word of God.
This fight is not a brief fight, it is a long-term continual war. The believer in Christ is to gear himself up to fight this fight. This is a cosmic warfare of massive spiritual proportions. It is not a physical war, this is a war fought on the spiritual level.
Timothy was in Ephesus, and the Apostle Paul had left him there to battle against false teaching, teaching that is contrary to God's way of thinking and living. These false teachings had come into the church in Ephesus and these false teachers were in positions of prominence, power and influence. Godliness was under attack, and Timothy was being charged to confront it.
This war began long before the writing of Paul's first letter to Timothy. This war was begun by the rebellion against God of Lucifer who is a created angel. The Lord Jesus said of Lucifer in Luke 10:18,
“I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” It was at that point that the Lord Jesus changed Lucifer's name to “Satan” which means enemy or adversary. This war has always been a battle between the will of Satan and the will of God.
In 2 Corinthians 10:4 we read, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.”
This means we dare not use our intellect, wisdom, or our natural talents in this war. This means we can topple Satan's kingdom by appropriating God's power through prayer and the word of God.
In Ephesians 6, Paul instructs us to put on the armor of God, which begins with the belt of truth, a commitment to fight on the basis of God’s revealed truth. Then, we put on the breastplate of righteousness, which is the righteousness of Christ. We dare not fight out of our own goodness, it is not enough. This is why His righteousness has been applied to our moral account. Then, our feet must be covered by the gospel of the preparation of peace. Finally, our helmet is the helmet of the hope of eternal salvation, and our sword is the Word of God.
The Word of God is not a fleshy weapon. When we go out and try to attack the kingdom of darkness with our own opinion, we will get no place. When we go out with the Word of God, things happen. The Word of God has tremendous power, and it is our primary weapon in this battle.
Spirituality is learning to live out of the Word of God and we do so by thinking and obeying His word. To excel in whatever we are learning, we must first steep ourselves in God’s Word. When we place a tea bag in hot water and quickly bounce it up and down, we won’t have very good tea. However, if we steep it slowly, we will extract all of the flavor and the goodness out of the tea bag.
We must do the same thing with God’s Word if we want to really
excel at warfare. I am learning that reading the word slowly and reflecting upon it throughout the day is the best way to incorporate it into my life. Steeping myself in God’s Word gives His Spirit who lives in me, to teach me throughout the day. This is the key to being successful at engaging in the battle. And, I am learning that the Lord teaches us in advance of our battles as we are faithful to be in His word and talk with Him about that which we are reading.
Joshua 1:8 says of God’s Word, “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.”
There will always be walls of resistance in our minds and the minds of others that must be pulled down. These walls are thought processes that are not the thoughts of God found in His word. When our thoughts are being influenced and rearranged by God's word, we will begin to defeat demonic forces.
When Joshua and his army marched around Jericho for a week, the spectators thought they were crazy. When the Jews trusted God and obeyed orders, they brought down the high walls and conquered the enemy (Josh. 6). Once the walls in our minds and those with whom we work, have been torn down, the door to the heart can be opened to His influence. This is not only true with God getting through to us, it is also true with regard to us getting through to those who have long been held captive by the Prince of darkness.
Are you engaged in the fight?
