Christians can achieve victory in spiritual warfare when they are aware of God’s purpose for it, according to a co-author of a new Bible study.
“The No. 1 point is that spiritual warfare is about God and not the devil,” said John Franklin, pastoral specialist at LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville.
Franklin, co-author of “Spiritual Warfare: Biblical Truth for Victory” with Chuck Lawless, a professor of evangelism/church growth at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., will introduce the Bible study at the Discipleship Winter Workshop Jan. 25–26 at Shocco Springs Conference Center in Talladega.
A native of Birmingham, Franklin lived in several Alabama cities while he was growing up. He holds an undergraduate degree from Samford University in Birmingham and earned a doctorate from Samford in December.
“The whole issue is whether or not you stay focused on the purposes of God and don’t get sidetracked,” he said. “If somebody can walk with God and always see it from the perspective of God, that’s what creates the victory — Satan cannot defeat that person.”
Franklin said most people never get the picture when it comes to spiritual warfare. He argued that individuals struggling with sin fail to see God’s will for their life.
“They’ve never connected that there’s a greater purpose with what’s going on spiritually,” he said. “What I’m trying to get them to see is that God is always up to something. If you focus on Satan, you’re going to miss it. You’ve got to see instead what God wants to accomplish.”
There are three “great things” Franklin said that God does in any spiritual warfare encounter that a Christian navigates successfully:
He reveals His will.
He advances His Kingdom.
He conforms us to the image of Christ.
“The basic problem is that we aren’t familiar enough with Scripture and we aren’t using our brains enough,” Franklin said.
As a result, he said Christians make two “great errors” in spiritual warfare.
“One is to act like Satan doesn’t even exist and the other is to get so preoccupied with him that he becomes your focus,” he said.
“Most Christians are not God-centered,” Franklin said. “Jesus was God-centered and because He knew God, knew His assignments and knew His purposes, He went out and did the will of God.
“That’s the basic problem with the human race, we focus on self — how we’re doing, what we think, what makes us feel good and it’s hard for us to see from God’s perspective,” Franklin said.
He penned the study following the enthusiastic response he received after teaching on the subject at a conference. The author said he believes Southern Baptists are eager for insight on spiritual warfare. “There’s been this growing hunger,” he said.
“Southern Baptists haven’t talked about spiritual warfare,” he said. “It can be sensationalistic, it can lend itself toward problems when it’s misapplied and the response has been to ignore it.”
The tendency to exploit spiritual warfare is a trend Franklin believes can also make the subject controversial.
“It’s hot and it’s sensationalistic,” he said. “You get all that mixed together and Christians are going to make some kind of application in their lives. You want to make sure we draw the right applications.”
Franklin said God’s triumph over Satan is already assured.
“Satan is already defeated; we have the victory,” he said. “We read in the back of the Bible that we win. The sense I’m using ‘victory’ in is more whether or not God accomplishes His will and purpose in our life. It is a personal victory of God being able to use us to make a Kingdom impact.”
The writer concedes winning that victory is an ongoing process.
“If you’re walking with God as a Christian, He’ll forever be using you,” he said.
To register for the workshop, call Shocco Springs at 1-800-280-1105. For information, contact the office of discipleship and family ministries at 1-800-264-1225 or e-mail either Sonya Tucker at stucker@alsbom.org or Julie Lowery at jlowery@alsbom.org.
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