SPIRITUAL WARFARE As some of you are aware, I have just returmed from a 2-day Spiritual Warfare confernece. I was so blessed and encouraged by all that were present, I can't begin to tell you. As a result, I felt that this issues' Bible Study be on spiritul warfare. We can never spend to much time in this area of our walk with Jesus Christ. We, contrary to what the Church is telling us, WE ARE AT WAR! This is a new kind of warfare. The Hebrews first learned this in the Exodus. In their bitterness and utter helplessness, they began to cry out for deliverance. Jehovah's response was to send a deliverer, Moses. Now Moses didn't have weapons as we think of weapons. Unlike the patriot missles, tanks, STAs, fighter jests and the like, Moses' weapons were his public confession of God and his obediance to His Word. Moses' faith and obediance caused God to defeat Pharoah, the mighty wind, and a sea that stood in the way of their deliverance. Not human activity, but faith and obediance. Today, as then, our weapons are not against flesh and blood, but against all principalities, all powers and all spiritual wickedness in high places. Through Christ's death, all these satanic powers and principalities were defeated. In fact, Christ led captivity captive. We must remember that Satan and his powers were created by God. It was satan that perverted them. Because of this, it behooves us to know their origin and what God's Word says of their revolt against Him. Keep the following study in your Bible. 1. How do you feel when you are told what to do by someone in authority, rather than to be given a choice? READ COLOSSIANS 1:15-17 2. Who are we told holds everything together? 3. How many times do you see the use of the phrase ALL THINGS in these verses? 4. Since it is by Christ that the whole of creation hangs together, what might possibly have prompted God to create unnermable spirit beings and endow them with intelligence and freedom of choice? READ JOB 38:4-7 5. From these verses what do you think was the mood of this interacting communiuty of spirit-beings before time began? 6. What caused this particular mood to be generated? READ ISAIAH 14:13-14 Ezekiel 28:11-17 8. How did God respond to the revolt? 9. Describe this situation in your own owrds. What in you resonates with satan's impulse to revolt? READ GEN. 3:14-24 The story of how satan tempted Adam and Eve and God's response to the evil introduced into His good creation. 10. List and describe four specific ways in which evil marred God's handiwork (vv. 14, 16, 17 & 22) 11. How do you see satan's desctructive hand at work in the world today? How are they connected to the fall in Gen. 12. RESPONSE: Pray that God will give you the wisdom to recognize and resist the deceptive schemes of the devil. For further study: Hebrews 1:6-7, 13-14 on the creation of angles. 2 Peter 2:4 & Jude 6 for more on the fall of angels.