Introduction to Spiritual Warfare in Lutheran Perspective — Dr. John Kleinig

Machine-generated transcript; may contain errors.

Now, I'm to speak to you. The official topic is spiritual warfare in Lutheran perspective, and I'm particularly giving a slant on the Ministry of Deliverance. So not so much spiritual warfare from our point of view, but how do we help others who are under spiritual attack? Now, let me be honest with you right from the start. I'd rather not speak about this. For obvious reasons. And yet, you've called me to do it, and I'll do my best. It's a topic that I think needs to be investigated, and we need to share and pull what we know about this, because if there's any time in my lifetime where good teaching and practice of the ministry of deliverance, if I can use that term, is needed, it is right now, and not just in Australia, the USA, but right around the world.

Now, you're going to be frustrated, and I'm going to be frustrated, because this is such a big topic, and it's such a controversial topic, as you're probably all aware, that we can't possibly do justice to it in the 24 hours that we have at our disposal. But I'll do my best, and I crave for your indulgence. In that I won't be able to cover anything adequately. But if you like, it's opening the topic for you. I'd like to start with three pictures, by way of introduction. First of all, how do you get rid of the darkness? You turn on the light. That's fundamental. If you like, keep that in mind, and everything else falls in place. Secondly, just as vultures gather, where there's a dead animal, or human being, it could be too.

So the demons look where there's something unclean. They're not called unclean spirits for nothing. Thirdly, third picture. When we talk about spiritual warfare, or the ministry of deliverance, in which we're all involved, we are not thinking so much as Christians and as Lutherans, of going on a crusade against the powers of darkness. The New Testament metaphor for spiritual warfare is that we are doing century duty guarding holy ground. Now, I won't be able to do justice to that. If you want to follow it further, you'll have to get a hold of my book, Grace, upon Grace, but I've spoken about this at doxology and elsewhere. I can't cover everything. Oh, here goes. We are all of us, as pastors, lay people in the church involved in spiritual warfare.

We're involved in a battle. And we are as pastors right at the forefront of the battle, and that's not just some of us. Every single one of you here, whether you realize it or not, is in the battle, and you won't make sense of half of the stuff that happens in your family, in your congregation, in your community, unless you see that, and understand that. We are all of us involved in the battle. And particularly, as pastors, we are there right at the forefront of the battle. Now, the ministry of deliverance is not a ministry of ideas or explanations. That's a bit of a Lutheran problem. If we can theorize it about, if we can explain it, somehow we can explain it away, and that deals with it.

No, Ideas, explanations are basically useless when it comes to the battle. It's a question of authority, basically. Authority is the key most important thing that we have. If I can say, all of you have been authorized to work with Christ in the battle against the powers of darkness. If you like all officers in Christ's army you are under his authority. Now, only as you are under his authority can you exercise power? And now the two key things? Authority and power. But it's power with the difference because from a human point of view, the power seems to be weakness. We're in a position where we have no power in ourselves, the only power that we have in the battle comes from Christ. So, the Ministry of Deliverance is a ministry with authority.

Secondly, and I want to put this right up front. The danger that I face in speaking about this is that you assume, and I assume that I'm an expert. Let me tell you plainly I'm a dunce in this. Dance is that an American term, yes okay. If I speak in tongues, you just ask for interpretation. I'm a dunce. We're all dancers in this. And it's important that we remain dancers. The biggest danger that I've faced, in dealing with this, is, on certain occasions, presuming that I have had some experience, and some knowledge, and some expertise in this, and so, I reckon I can tackle this. And that's when I've fallen flat on my face and done great damage to people spiritually. The biggest danger that I've ever faced and still face is presuming that all I need is knowledge, that's a bit of a Western disease, and expertise.

And that will carry me through. Now, the picture that I have of dealing with the Evil One, and his attacks, is that I am working in the dark. I can't see anything. The only sense that I can use is my ears. So, I'm working in the dark. I have a clue what's going on. And I rely on somebody to queue me in at every step of the way. I don't know in advance what needs to be done. I can't presume on our past experience because every occasion is going to be different. And secondly, it's not only that I work in the dark, following the guidance that's given to me, and I'll explain that a bit further, but, the knowledge that I need in order to minister to people, and the power that I need to face the power of the evil one, because that's what I'm faced with, the power of evil which is, as we all know, are terrible.

The only knowledge and power that I have is given to me on a need to minister basis. You know, you get some documents and some government departments which are labeled on the need to no basis. Okay? In ministry, in this area, we are given knowledge and power only on the need to minister basis. We don't have it in advance, and no more is given to us than we need to have. I am very, very convinced about the importance of that. And that's not just my own experience, but that's the collective wisdom of the church. Lastly, for a guy like me, you know, I've done a bit of theology, I reckon, and I pride myself in the ability to think things through. The biggest danger is that I want to rationalize.

Evil and the evil one. Now, can you even think, what's so stupid about trying to rationalize Satan demons the darkness? But simply, it is irrational. That's the very nature of it. You can't rationalize chaos, and on the face of it, it'll seem to be, and it'll tempt me, as a thinking kind of intellectualist, that's my pretension that I can work this out for myself. I can get the rationale for this. And then I fall flat on my face. So there's danger, if you try to rationalize it, and then going with rationalization comes speculation. Now, much of the stuff, and I've read far too much on this area, for my own good much of the stuff that you read on this area is sheer speculation. It goes beyond what is given us to know.

Luther says, again and again, the greatest danger in the church is a speculative theologians, who argue a lot whether things should be like this, or should be like that, or maybe like that like this, or perhaps they're like that you know the kind of act that follow. Speculative theology. He calls Satan the great speculative theologian. Big trap, big trap, big danger. And that's closely connected with trying to rationalize the work of evil. Now, for me, particularly in recent times. There's one key insight, one of many from Luther. And in this whole area, nobody is better in this than Luther. And I've read widely from right across the spectrum, early church. There's a lot of very good stuff in this in the early fathers.

Middle Ages, going right through. There's wonderful insights in our whole Lutheran tradition that we've forgotten about. Most of it in German, but it's there. But I keep coming back to Luth and saying now, if anybody's managed to get it right put his finger on it, Luth's got it right. A little while ago, I was reading, or rereading, are Luther's marvelous track type, which should be compulsory reading for any Lutheran theologian, and more than once a year, because it nails the biggest problem we have, is against the heavenly prophets. Is Luther's great tractate against the enthusiasts. That's the Pentecostals of the Reformation. Now, there's some wonderful, wonderful insights there that we need to reclaim.

But, one of the key insights that he develops in this track date is, he speaks about the devil, who is the enemy of God's order. Right up, the devil who is the enemy of God's order. Order, what's the opposite of order? Chaos. Now, that's what we're talking about when we're talking about spiritual warfare order, chaos. And I find, increasingly, when I'm speaking, not to the older generation, my generation and the baby boomers, and even the X generation, but particularly Y generation, as soon as I speak in those terms, you know what happens? Dong! There's the immediate registration of interest. Because for most people, these days, young people, most of them experience life as not orderly, I grew up in a very orderly world.

Looking back, a very secure, safe, orderly world, but for my children, particular grandchildren, for the 11 kids that I had in confirmation last year, it's different. They live in a chaotic world. And they fear chaos more than anything else. The devil, the enemy of not of order, he's very orderly, at least the appearances he's quite anal about order, and Germanic. But he's the enemy of God's order. No, it's God's order. He's the enemy of God's order. Now, that's something that is self evident to Christians in the Third World but is very, very threatening. To us Westerners, who fear order more than anything else, particularly those of us who were round about the baby boomer eries. Sorry, I've got to having a swipe at them.

But, yeah, that's my generation. Now, I'd like to remind you, basically that, the question of deliverance of spiritual warfare is not just a sort of an optional extra to, the work of the church, or the work of ministry, above all, the work of Jesus, it belongs to the core. So, St. John says in his letter, his first letter he said, the reason the Son of God appeared, what would I expect was to bring forgiveness to people. But he says the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's works or to undo or disempower the works of the devil. Notes he doesn't say to destroy the devil but to destroy his works. What's one of your basic tasks as a pastor is to destroy the devil's works.

That's the mission of Jesus. And what's our role in this? Well, we need to recognize who or what the enemy is. Now, there's a big problem, in my church as well as in your church, that is involved in theological controversy, that we misidentify the enemy, Who is the enemy? Okay. The LCA is involved in it for 20 years now in a controversy about the ordination of women. And it's very easy for me, in that controversy, to see that the people who oppose, I'm against it, if you wonder that the people who promote the ordination of women are my enemy. They're not my enemy, they're brothers in Christ. Or we think politically. Okay? If you're a Republican, then who is your enemy? The B, man, and vice versa, or the 2 B men, actually.

Barak and Baden. And if you're a Democrat, who's the enemy? It's Romnian company. Okay? We misidentify who the enemy is. Now, spiritually speaking, and this is terribly important, for me as a pastor. Terribly important for me as a leader in the church. Terribly important for my involvement in my local congregation, that we have only one enemy, who's the enemy? Satan, and no one else, no human being, no matter how evil, how corrupt, how heretical that person is, is my enemy. What Satan will always want me to do is to misidentify things. Call friends, enemies and enemies friends. He's a master of confusion. So what's the basic task of the church? St. Paul says we do not wrestle against flesh and blood.

That means against any physical human being. But against the rulers, the authorities against the cosmic powers, over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil, in the heavenly places. So we have no human beings. Notice we're against evil forces, and they are not evil forces on a psychological or personal level, or on a political level, but they are on a cosmic scale. We are involved in a cosmic battle within the church. All of us, as Christians are called to spiritual warfare. Just listen to what St. Paul says to young Pastor Timothy. When he sends him to clean up a rather conflicted congregation in Ephesus, which sounds a lot like some of the problem congregations that we have the Lutheran Church of Australia.

You know, you're an interim pastor, and you've got to clean things up. What does he advise, Timothy, before he gives him his charge, gives him his, you know, the task of what he's called to do in that conflicted, messed up congregation. He says, Fight the good fight. Okay, stop there. What would I expect? Fight the good fight. OK? Sort things out, get them reorganized, be involved in conflict resolution, teach them, write doctrine. You know, that's a good Lutheran thing. But what does he say, fight the good fight, hell? Holding on to faith. And not just faith, it should be the faith actually in Greek. The faith, it's objective, not subjective. It's what is believed rather than believing, holding on to the faith, and what?

A good conscience. Where is the basic battleground? It's not out there? In Washington? Or in Libya, North Africa, or in the Middle East, or in Afghanistan, or in some parts of our society, in the slums and troubled places in our big cities it's not just even there in society. Young people who are victims of sex sexual abuse, drug trafficking, et cetera. I can make a list as long as my arm. Now, the basic battleground is not out there, but it's in the conscience of every single Christian person. So, as soon as you have received the gift of faith, as soon as you have been given a good conscience, through faith in Jesus through your baptism, Through the washing of regeneration, what happens, the battle begins.

And it's the battle in the conscience for the conscience. Now, that's something that the Pentecostals out there with all their emphasis on spiritual warfare just don't get. And to some extent, it's our big great Lutheran contribution to the issue of spiritual warfare. That it's primarily a question of conscience. Now, I'm going to come back to that again and again over the next 24 hours. All Christians are involved in spiritual warfare, all Christians in baptism are enrolled in Christ's militia. This was very strong if you read the Fathers in the early church. And they saw baptism, basically, as enrollment for military service. You join the military forces, Christ military forces, when you're baptized.

And the point of attack always is, what Satan wants to do has a twofold tactic. He wants to either undermine or destroy your faith in Christ. And his purpose for doing that is, he does that by giving you a bad conscience. So he gives you a bad conscience. He destroys your good conscience and by giving you a bad conscience, he undermines your faith, and he destroys your faith. And not just yours, but the faith of every single one of your members. Now, and that makes it very difficult because, the battle is hidden, it's secret. How can you, as a pastor, look into the hearts, the conscience of your members? And yet, in some way, you need to know what's going on? You need to deal with this inner battle if you're going to be effective in your ministry.

Can you see, it's a bit of a difficult ask. And we need all the help we can get. If we are going to make any fist of it. Lastly, by way of introduction. One of the great problems, as soon as you start talking about spiritual warfare, is that people get carried away with enthusiasm. There's a kind of naive enthusiasm, okay? The battle's going on. Let's enlist, let's go and, yeah, there's nothing like the call of battle to stir our spirits invigorate us. Every good politician knows it, so we get war against drugs, war against poverty, we get war against… Well, what else do we have? War against this, that, and everything. That's a good way of rallying people to any course. And there's always been an immense danger in the church, and the history of the church is full of the realization, this danger, that we go into the battle with naive enthusiasts.

Now, Eve enthusiasm, rather than sober vigilance. Remember what Peter says in that wonderful passage about spiritual warfare. He says, be sober. Be vigilant. Why? Because the devil, like a roaring loud Ryan, prowls around, seeking someone to devour. And which people will he most likely is most apt to devour, those who are not sober, those who are not vigilant. So, in my whole presentation here I'm going to call you for just soberness, clear-mindedness, vigilance because things are never what they seem in this domain. And it's so easy to be fooled, and to be taken for a ride, be sober, be vigilant. Okay? That's written on my forehead, if you like, written in my mind. Be sober, be vigilant.

Watch out. Now, we're not involved. The danger is that we see a little skirmish as the rule battle. The rule battle won't be decided until well, already the big battle has been won. It's been decided. And we're involved in mopping up operations. And the problem is that we always want the battle to be over. And we're impatient for the battle to be over, and so patience is part of sober vigilance. You won't get a perfect congregation. You won't get the devil out of your congregation, even if you do a perfect humanly speaking, a perfect ministry for 40 or 50 years, the devil will be just as active at the end of your ministry as at the beginning of the ministry. Patient, sober, vigilance. Yes, that's very important.