Spiritual Warfare Resources

I don’t think I have ever experienced a longer season of intense spiritual warfare than I have over the past six months.  To say I feel like I have had a target on my life would be an understatement.  While that may sound like I want pity, I must say I have been the beneficiary of the warfare.  I have been forced out of apathy and complacency to an alertness and assertiveness in my own spiritual formation.  I had lost the edge a period of time.  My prayers were inconsistent.  Scripture memory was all but gone.  My sense of vision and direction for the wonderful church I pastor was foggy at best.  In late April, the assaults on my spirit started and haven’t stopped yet.  God allowed the assaults to happen to awaken my spirit to the war that was going on but that I was asleep to.

Beyond reading the Scriptures, becoming far more intentional in my prayer life, renewing my commitment to Scripture memory, I began to poor over some books on Spiritual Warfare.  God began to show me that Grace Point needed to hear what He was teaching me, thus The Adversary series was born.  I took a few months to sort through the materials as God taught me in my own battles how to live in victory.  I want to spend the rest of this blog highlighting some of the extra-biblical books I studied in preparation for the series.  If you find yourself in the heat of the battle and need to go further in your own study, consider some of these books great points of reference as you study the Scriptures.   I will list them in the order of impact to my life and study.

1st The Adversary, would be the best book I read on the topic.  The book is a practical guide with an exhaustive summary of most, if not all, the Scriptures that deal with Satan and his work.  It is not a book of sensational stories, but one of Biblical references.  The greatest contribution was being able to add to my arsenal a vast array of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.

2nd Spirit Warriors,  is written by Stu Weber, a former Green Beret of the Vietnam war (turn pastor).  He visually compares and contrast the spiritual battles of life with the real life battles of an enlisted soldier.  Weber does an outstanding job of painting a mental image in your mind of what it means to battle withthe Devil.  The greatest contribution to me was Weber’s military background.  I felt I had a commander preparing me for battle.

3rd Spiritual Warfare, one of Jerry Rankin’s latest books.  Jerry is the President of the International Mission Board and infuses many stories from his own personal missionary journey and many stories from the over 5,000 missionaries he helped to provide strategy for world wide.   Sensationalism is not what Rankin went for with his stories, but he gave clear visuals to real life spiritual battle on the edges of darkness.  It is definitely a book worth reading to stir you to the reality of war and to cause you to bend your knees in supportive prayer for the untold thousands of Great Commission Christians serving in the heat of war.  This book caused me to see the battle as a global one.  There is a clear and present danger for many fellow believers that are seeking to push back the darkness.

4th The Invisible War, was a well organized book with great unit summaries that enabled me to get a good grasp of what I was going to read before I read it.  I think I retained more from Chip Ingram’s work than maybe the others simply due to that.  I think I would recommend this book to a novice on the topic to lay a very solid and basic foundation for moving forward in a study on Spiritual Warfare.

5th Essential of Spiritual Warfare,to say that it was fifth is not to say it was the worst, but I just didn’t get much from it after having read the others.  It seemed the most basic, but saying the same thing the other books said.  Researchers tell you when you start “hearing the echo” then you have done a thorough research.  Scott Moreau’s experience in East Africa as a missionary, and his teaching position at Wheaton college, along with the fact that I have read other works of his, I would feel very comfortable recommending his book to any follower of Christ.

You will find helpful instruction, principles and stories without a lot of sensationalism in all four of these books.  Obviously, it goes without saying, but important to say nonetheless, the Bible is your greatest weapon against the enemy.  It is your “sword of the Spirit” (Eph 6).  To read and meditate on these great writings listed above, but not saturating your spirit in the Word of God is a deceptive work of Satan.  Be ready for war: “Consider mine enemies, for they are many; and they hate me.”¹

1. Psalm 25:19, KJV [↩]

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