Greg and Amy explain that the negative things believers experience are not necessarily spiritual attacks but are part of living in a broken world. They encourage Christians to respond in faith, trusting that God works all things together for good while rejecting bitterness or reliance on other spiritual sources.
Transcript
Question: Is being tired, having headaches, COVID fatigue, etc., all essentially spiritual attacks? Are all negative and bad things that happen to us spiritual attacks?
Greg: I don’t have any reason to think that’s the case. Jesus experienced weariness, but there’s no indication, when we read that, that he is experiencing it in virtue of some spiritual attack. Remember, there are three enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil. It can be characterized in different ways, but part of our difficulty is living in a fallen world in a fallen self.
We groan with the expectation and the longing of being whole again. Now, that is a function of the flesh and our fallen natures. Can the devil take advantage of that? Absolutely. The fact that I come home bushed at night from a full day of broadcasting, that’s not satanic attack. Can the devil tempt me, in virtue of my physical weakness, to be unkind to my family? Of course. By the way, I don’t need the devil to tempt me in order for me to do that. My flesh is capable of accomplishing that all on its own. For those who are not clear on this, all you have to do is look at Galatians 5. Paul lists a lot of things that are characteristic of the flesh.
Sometimes, we look at our own sinfulness and we try to externalize it. This happens in relationships when people push the blame for problems onto someone else when, in fact, we may be very guilty. But this is also just characteristic of the Christian life.
Here is Paul in Galatians 5:19: “Now the deeds of the flesh”—okay, he’s identifying what the flesh produces—”are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.” It’s a long list, then the last thing he says is, “Things like these.” He’s saying, “I haven’t really gotten going yet.” These are all what Paul calls deeds of the flesh. They originate with us, and we are responsible for them. We are to overcome them, which is the point of the passage.
In verse 16, Paul writes, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” So, that’s the antidote. So, we want to be aware that there are spiritual powers out there that can fan the flames, but the fire is already there in our flesh. The antidote that Paul gives is not to blame the devil—”the devil made me do it”—and start binding demons or whatever. We must attend to our own fleshly behavior, in the power of the Spirit. Frankly, I ask God to take care of the bad guys. That’s in the Lord’s Prayer, as far as I can tell. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil” is the literal translation. Many translate it “the evil one.” So, that’s my prayer for me and for my family. But the deeds of the flesh are what we are supposed to take care of and take responsibility for, in the power of the Spirit.
Amy: I don’t even think we need to figure out exactly who or what is causing certain things in our lives to go wrong. The reason I say that is because our purpose is to respond in the way that God has called us to respond. I mean, look at Jesus when he was tempted in the wilderness. What did the devil do? He tempted him in his weakness—not the weakness of his sin, but just his physical weakness of being hungry. The devil tempted him to do something that God wouldn’t have him do. So, Satan does use those weaknesses. But, where those weaknesses come from, or where the sickness or whatever comes from in this fallen world, there’s one thing we know for sure, and that is that God said all things are being worked together for our good to make us like Christ.
We never need to despair when we’re going through any of these things and say, “Oh, the devil’s doing this to me. My life is ruined.” Because the fact remains that God is working through that very thing to make you like Christ, and he will use it for a good purpose. So, you don’t have to despair. All you need to do is respond the way he would have you respond. “While being reviled, he did not revile in return.” There’s something right there. If someone is persecuting you, you respond as Jesus would respond. If you’re sick, you respond in faith to God, and you don’t run after other gods or seek the help of another god.
I just heard the story of somebody who asked a friend of mine a question. The person asking is suffering from cancer. He’s going to die eventually. He asked my friend if it was okay if he saw a shaman, because he was getting desperate for healing. So, there’s an example. If you are suffering, you respond in faith toward God. You get the help you need medically, but you don’t seek other spiritual things. There are a lot of different ways that we can respond. We don’t respond in evil, we don’t respond with bitterness, we don’t respond in kind to people who revile us, and on and on.
Greg: It also means we don’t need to take it fatalistically—like, we do nothing and, kind of, in an abstract sense, trust in Jesus. There are a lot of ways we can express that trust. We can take comfort from other brothers and sisters, for example. We can receive counsel from them—not from shamans, obviously. But there are avenues that God has offered us—largely, the body of Christ—that help us to deal with those difficult circumstances. We are not isolated—just me and God and that’s it.
Amy: Our response is active. It’s active in all sorts of ways, but it’s active in a way that’s faithful to God, if that make sense.