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Spiritual attack and demonic forces are contentious topics in the church. Some maintain that such things are very distant from the mundane considerations of modern believers, while others see spiritual evil in everyday hardships. In this episode, Gary Wilkerson and Joshua West discuss spiritual evil and the goodness of God as well as how those two aspects of the supernatural intersect with believers’ ordinary lives. Scripture is frank about the existence of spiritual forces, but how should we interact with them?
Key Points from the Podcast
• We’ve become a pragmatic culture that believes that the end justifies the means. So people will compromise their so-called beliefs in order to achieve an end that they believe matches up with their convictions, which is a form of insanity and produces so much of the dissonant behavior we see in corporations and other major organizations.
• The conviction of sin in a person’s life is a necessary first step to living as a person of positive and holy conviction.
• Repentance isn’t just stopping sin and bad behavior; it’s that and turning to God and right living. Repentance is ultimately positive movement toward a life that’s in step with holy truth.
• If a person wavers between two opinions on what is true, they will never be able to take a strong stance on certain courses of action. Meditating on scripture and taking it as the reality of our lives will give us a powerful conviction for God.
• Spiritual forces in popular media are often seen as much more powerful than people, and yet we’re also left alone to resolve the dark spiritual forces that come against us, and the very opposite is true; God is far more powerful than anything that’s demonic, and while we have some work to do in spiritual battles, God is the one who resolves it.
• Many believers are not going to willfully compromise God’s Word; they may misunderstand scripture or misapply certain verses, but most don’t deliberately go out of their way to distort God’s commands. However, compromise can creep into our lives through areas where we don’t naturally have strong convictions.
• Within the body of the church, the natural convictions we hold can build up one another in areas where someone else has less natural conviction.
Bible Verses Referenced in the Podcast
Romans 14:22-23, Matthew 3:2
Episodes in this Podcast Series
About Joshua West
Joshua West serves as the Pastors Network Director at World Challenge helping equip and empower pastors all over the world. Joshua’s desire is to raise up ministers who will correctly and boldly preach the word with passion and integrity. The point of all his work and writings is to preach the gospel, glorify God and to teach sound doctrine.
