Spiritual warfare vs bondage
Far too many people get spiritual warfare confused with demonic bondage. I believe this is because of the popular belief that Christians cannot have demons. Those in need of a deliverance often think they are just in spiritual warfare, and it’s God’s will for them to be harassed by the enemy. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Spiritual warfare is a reality and is found in the Bible, but it is grossly taken out of context and misinterpreted by much of today’s church. The Bible makes it clear that it is not God’s will for His children to be harassed or tormented by evil spirits!
Jesus never told us to wage war against oppression
How did Jesus handle demonic oppression? He dealt with it… it wasn’t something He left upto the people to wage spiritual warfare against:
Acts 10:38, “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.”
Could healing those who were oppressed involve casting out demons? Yes! The Greek word for healed means to make somebody whole, and there were other times when Jesus healed somebody through casting out demons:
Matthew 12:22, “Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw.”
What do we find just a couple verses down the page? We find out how Jesus healed the man…
“But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.” (v.24)
Was Jesus and the early church wasting their time?
Let me ask you this, if we were supposed to struggle and wage spiritual warfare against demonic oppression and harassment, then why did Jesus and the early church go around casting out demons and healing those who were oppressed? If all we had to do was draw near to God and resist the devil as our means of dealing with oppression, then would not have Jesus and the early church been merely providing shortcuts when they should have been telling the people to resist the devil and draw near to God?
Clearly there is a time and place for spiritual warfare, but all too often true demonic bondage and oppression is labeled as ‘spiritual warfare’, and the person spends years or even a lifetime struggling against it, when that’s not how Jesus or the early church would have handled the problem.
James 4:7 has been misinterpreted
James 4:7 is where we are told to submit to God, resist the devil and he’ll flee. Many people today are told that this is all there is to dealing with the forces of evil in their lives. They are told that they can solve all their demonic problems this way. This is simply untrue. If you take the time to read the whole chapter in James 4, you will find that it is speaking of temptations thrown at us from the devil in the world around us. This chapter was not speaking of dealing with harassment or torment at all! Verse 7 was taken out of the rest of James 4, and made it say something that it never said!
There is a whole teaching just on this one misinterpretation: Resist the devil and he’ll flee (Exposing a misinterpretation)
Spiritual warfare is very limited
Spiritual warfare is pretty much limited to thoughts the devil throws our way in the form of accusations, deceptions and temptations along with the tearing down of strongholds. Demonic harassment or oppression clearly takes a person outside of those boundaries. You can learn exactly what Biblical spiritual warfare entails in this teaching: Spiritual warfare: The battle in your mind
What are the symptoms of spiritual warfare and oppression?
Before I list some of the common scenarios, I would like to point out that it is not uncommon for a person’s situation to involve both strongholds (which requires spiritual warfare), and demonic bondage or influence. There are also times where two people could have the same problem, but one is caused by strongholds (which are torn down through spiritual warfare), and the other is caused by demonic spirits. If you try to solve your problem by means of spiritual warfare, and aren’t completely successful, then it’s time to consider seeking out a deliverance. It is quite possible to feel a lot of relief by successful spiritual warfare, but still have the core problem remaining, and therefore the unclean spirit can remain until it is actually driven out.
What spiritual warfare usually is effective against
Feelings of guilt or condemnation from past failures and sins are often things dealt with in spiritual warfare. Strongholds are usually found where the person needs to forgive themselves, and realize and accept what Christ has done on the cross. Then they need to let go of their past sins, and focus on how they are a new creation in Christ, and their sins washed away. It is also possible for a person to find this extremely hard if not impossible to do. In that case, I would suspect a demonic bondage where an unclean spirit is involved and it’s resisting their efforts.
If a person does not feel confident in who they are in Christ; if they don’t feel like a King’s kid, then usually what they need is to learn the truth about who they are in Christ and the true loving nature of their heavenly Father.
Sinful habits, struggles against sin, etc. can usually be helped through spiritual warfare as well. If a person is bitter and unforgiving, that can usually be solved through spiritual warfare. It is also very possible for unclean spirits to have gained access into that person’s life through their bitterness, and still need to be driven out.
It is possible for unclean spirits to promote people to commit sin, such as when Saul received an evil spirit, he became very angry. Demons are well known to cause anger problems in a person. Demons are also known for causing bondage to things such as pornography, lust, hate, etc.
What demonic bondage/oppression usually entails
If a person is hearing voices, physically seeing demons, feeling them (especially at night!), sensing a demonic presence following them around, recurring nightmares, losing track of time (it’s 1pm, then it’s 8pm and they don’t even know what happened), etc. then it is almost always a demonic bondage. Voices in the mind, compulsive thinking, obsessive worry, fear, depression (heaviness), etc. are also signs of bondage. Once in a great while, a person may be harassed temporarily by demons, but it is very short lived if there is no bondage involved.
There are also many diseases and sicknesses that are caused by unclean spirits. There were cases in the Bible where people were deaf, unable to speak, or even crippled by unclean spirits! Here are a couple examples:
Matthew 12:22, “Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw.”
Luke 13:11, “And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.”
Unclean spirits are also known to cause mental illnesses and cause a person to become crazy or lunatic:
Matthew 17:15,18, “Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatic (literally translated, it means to be mentally unbalanced or moonstruck or crazy), and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water… And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.”
If you feel the presence of an unclean spirit on regular bases, then that is far more than spiritual warfare. That is a sign that there is a demon present that most likely needs to be driven out.
There is a similar teaching to this one published on Great Bible Study. It’s called Spiritual Warfare vs. Torment (Where do you draw the line?)