(31) You Are in a Spiritual War

The first half of Acts 19 is a spiritually-charged passage. Luke tells us how, in the city of Ephesus, which had become "a collecting place for superstition and the dark arts," disciples received the Spirit and lived in the Spirit. He also tells of an attack by an evil spirit against people who failed to respect spiritual powers.

These verses remind us of what we cannot see and what we sometimes ignore—we are in a spiritual war. To the Ephesians Paul wrote that we "wrestle … against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Eph. 6:12). There is no neutrality in this war. God has ordained hostility between the spiritual offspring of the believing Eve and those who follow the old serpent (Gen. 3:15). Whoever is not for Jesus are against him (Matt. 12:30). So how can we man our battle-stations in the ongoing spiritual war?