In my time of communion with the Lord my spirit was pressed on this issue of the enemy and the many ways he taunts the saints of God. Spiritual warfare is real and it rarely comes in the fantastical ways that we sometime imagine it. It is in the small ways that the enemy taunts us. In reading Psalm 115 this morning I saw a way in which warfare happens. In verse 2 it says: "Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”
At the heart of this verse is what I believe is a signature way in which the enemy attempts to capture our hearts, imaginations and, ultimately, our faith. He causes us to question the Lord's place and presence in our lives due to our circumstances, trials, challenges and battles with sin in our lives. We are tempted to wonder about this and even may begin to think or believe that God is, indeed, silent towards us and has turned His face away from us. This kind of thinking sets the stage for the practice of idolatry because it causes us to examine our lives from our human perspective and resources rather than from the truth about God.
The devil, in collaboration with our flesh, taunts us by making us believe that we are going through these battles of life because of who we are or who we must be and or what we have done, as the reason(s) why God seems distant and our lives feel disastrous. If you add to the fact that some struggles and seasons of difficulties can take place over long periods of time the flesh and the devil (through others) will ask: Where is your God now? This question (and the feeling and thinking of doubt it seeks to promote) is spiritual warfare since those feelings and or thoughts are actually temptations to walk away from God by walking by what you can see and on your own understanding and or assessment. That, again, is the root of idolatry: acting in anxiety and trusting what God has physically created (our minds and this world's resources) to solve our spiritual problems. This is making what God has created an idol.
But the truth about idols is this: all idols are empty. They are all,
created by man (Psalm 115:4
mute (Psalm 115:5)
blind (Psalm 115:5)
deaf (Psalm 115:6)
without life (Psalm 115:7)
The reason we turn away from the speaking, seeing, listening and living Creator is because we give too much space in our minds to the taunts of the devil and our flesh. When our minds are captured, the weakness of idols, seems stronger than the power of God to deal with the taunts of the enemy. This is why the Psalmist says: "Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them (Psalm 115:8).
In other words, to make and or to trust idols leads to us becoming foolish and weaker just like them. As a result, we are not freed from the battle. Instead, we remain in our seasons of woundedness: despair, doubt, and defeat. The Psalmist, however, tells us the way to battle in these seasons and to see the victory (deliverance).
1. Give Glory to God Not Ourselves
We are to always give all the glory to God (verse 1). In all of our seasons of warfare we will have to fight (see Ephesians 6:10ff). We cannot be passive and sit back and wait for the Lord to engage in warfare for us. Yet, in all that we do to work, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to contend against the devil, our victory is from the Lord and, therefore, give all glory to Him. Like David, who knew that the Lord would deliver Goliath into his hands but he still picked up rocks and a sling shot. He did not pocket them, bow his knee and pray for God to unleash power and wipe out the enemy who constantly taunted the people of God. Instead he used the weapons God provided in those days and killed Goliath. But gave the glory to the Lord.
2. Trust In the Active Care and Vindication of God
Verses 9-11 call us to trust the Lord. Our trust is not a blind trust nor are we called to make up reasons for trusting the Lord. The Psalmist tells us that the Lord is our help and shield. There it is! The taunts of the enemy cause us to want to act on our own accord and to trust in the resources around us, but the Psalmist says trust the Lord. He is our help. This means that the Lord will fight our battles as we trust him). He is also our shield. This means that He will guard us against being destroyed by the taunting (fiery) darts of the enemy and flesh.
Trusting the Lord does not mean inactivity. Trusting Him means using His resources to battle and not the worlds or our own (Proverbs 3:5). Paul tells us that the weapons of our warfare are spiritual (2 Corinthians 3:5). They are not of this material world. As we trust in the Lord we should wield His weapons - the weapons of prayer, praise, Word and community. When we are trusting Him in this way two things will happen:
God will remember us. One man described remembering "as more than merely an act of recalling something that happened in the past; it is not just a fleeting recollection but a positive activity. It is ... God to taking action on behalf of his people. So the translation can be: 'The Lord will not forget our needs.'"
God will bless us. To be blessed in to be happy or to be spoken well of. The Psalmist is teaching us that in our difficult times, in those seasons of the enemy's taunting, the Lord will make happy and attend to those whose trust in Him is shown by their battling with His weapons and not the idolatrous weapons of the world. We cannot beat the devil with his own tactics, schemes or weapons.
3. Rest In His Sovereignty
In response to the taunt Where is your God now (v2: my interpretation) the Psalmist says, in effect, that God is where He has always been doing what He has always been doing. He is in heaven and He is doing as He pleases (v3). The power of this is obvious. The taunts of the enemy and the flesh question God's activity in our lives. They taunt us by trying to make us believe that He is not for us but the truth is this: He works as He pleases which means, in His own time. That should be our faith response to spiritual warfare: God has a plan to deliver me out of this season and He will execute that plan when the time is right and He determines that time.
4. Mind Your Mind With the Love and Faithfulness of God
Spiritual warfare is a battle for the soul and, therefore, spiritual warfare is within the mind. It involves our physical realities (suffering, sicknesses, relational chaos, etc) but do not ever get this twisted: all of those physical challenges are designed to make you believe that serving the Lord is not worth it. It is the battle to cause you to live according to your truth, which is actually the enemy's deception, as opposed to trusting in the God who is truth. The taunts of the enemy and the flesh are designed to cause you to doubt the steadfast (the unmerited and unbreakable) love of your faithful Lord (verse 1).
These four points are all realities of what the end of the Psalm calls us to do: "But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord (Psalm 115:18)!
Instead of giving into the taunts of the enemy and our flesh let us battle our enemy by blessing our Lord!