Erwin Lutzer has led the historic Moody Church in downtown Chicago for more than 30 years, authored more than 30 books, and is featured regularly on three national radio programs. We visited Dr. Lutzer in his church study to get his perspective on spiritual warfare. He shared his thoughts on deliverance, temptation, the role of the community, and why he believes Satan needs God's permission "even to wiggle."
How would you describe to an unchurched person what spiritual warfare is?
I would explain it by saying we have to understand that the material world is not the only reality. There's a spirit world, and all the spirits are not good ones. Many people even outside the church accept that nowadays; just witness the many shows on television that deal with paranormal activity. If you help people understand that there are spirits, and some are evil and we must stand against them, I think most people could connect with that.
So this is a contested universe. How do evil spirits do their work?
Yes, there are spirits at work in opposition to one another. Some are obedient to God; others oppose him. Their primary method is to put ideas (lies) into our minds that we think are our own (that way we don't fear those thoughts). The best example is Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5). They decided to lie about the price they were given for their piece of land. And Peter says, "Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?" Now if when Ananias and Sapphira were discussing this over a bagel some morning, Satan had shown up in a dramatic way and told them to lie, they would have been terrified. But they didn't see him. They were unaware of the fact that he had put this idea in their minds. So they weren't afraid, and did not know that they were being duped by a satanic deception. Satan puts lies in our mind about God, about ourselves, and he uses lies to make sin look good.
Isn't temptation sometimes just our selfish desires? How do you make people aware of the enemy's schemes while avoiding a devil-made-me-do-it mentality?
There has to be a balance. The Bible never teaches that we can say to somebody, "Well, the devil made you do it. Therefore you're not responsible." One way or another we do bear responsibility, even if our actions are generated by certain circumstances or because of the devil's lies. Satan can never force us as Christians to act against our will. At the end of the day, we don't overcome the devil by saying "it wasn't my fault." We acknowledge our fault, but we also recognize the devil's role in seeking our destruction.
We don't always know whether something is of the world, of the flesh, or of the devil (often all three may be involved). And I tell people we don't need to know because whether we're talking about pressure to conform to the world, about satanic influence, or about our own lust, the answer is the same. We need the victory of Christ, the Word of God, the armor of God, which I take to be something that we not only put on in prayer but that involves a lifestyle of integrity, of obedience, of using the Word. Most of the time we don't know whether temptation is demonic. The good news is that Christ's authority and victory extends above all evil no matter where it is found.
Have you encountered something in ministry that you would say was clearly demonic?
There are many examples, but let me select two. One evening I spoke on demonism, and then invited everybody who's ever been in involved in the occult to come to a special room. I wanted to give them group counsel, along with our elders and pastoral staff who were on hand to help. We had about 20 or 30 people that stayed afterwards. I began the session by saying, "Do not leave this room, no matter how much pressure you feel to leave." I knew that some people have demons that agitate them, and they often want to flee the room. They want nothing to do with confrontation or deliverance.
Almost immediately a young woman gets up to leave. I'd never seen her before. She started grabbing at her husband's coat and saying, "Let's get out of here." I turned to her and said, "I want you to come back. I want you to sit in the front seat right here." And she did. She sat down and stayed. You have to take authority like that, because some people are bound and feel too weak to overcome the evil spirit they are battling with.
Afterward, another pastor and I counseled her. As we questioned her, she told us how she had been brutally date-raped, and we wondered if during that horrific event there had been a transfer of evil spirits. So we began to pray, and we encouraged her to renounce any sins and the devil. She was filled with self-hatred, and when we asked if she thought she was responsible for the rape, she began to weep uncontrollably, nodding her head in agreement as she was unable to speak. It was then we were sure we had uncovered the lie she was believing. When we assured her that God did not hold her responsible for what happened and that her self-hatred was demonic, she immediately felt the darkness lift, and when she prayerfully embraced the truth, the demon was forced to leave. Thankfully, she cooperated with us throughout these prayers of renunciation and confession. It's very difficult to help anyone if they don't cooperate. But finally, to the glory of God, she left a free woman.
The next Sunday she came to me, and I hardly recognized her because she was so joyful. I gave her a hug and weeks later she wrote me one of the loveliest letters that I ever received in the ministry. It's one of those things that you treasure. She thanked us that she was free of this evil presence that had dogged her all this time, and you can only think about what a difference it made in her marriage. It brought tears to my eyes.
And the second situation?
A woman named Laura was creating real problems in our college ministry. She was creating conflict, dividing people, slandering people. She had a pattern of trying to break up friends, accusing people of things. Eventually another pastor and I started to counsel her, and soon it became clear that a spirit beyond Laura herself was involved.
Although opinion is divided as to whether it was wise for us to do it this way, we decided to speak to the evil spirit and asked, "What is your name?" And through Laura's mouth the spirit snarled, "Try Ephesians 6 on me." The voice was so sarcastic that we just couldn't get anywhere. One day, in the midst of all this, Laura calls me at about 11 o'clock at night and said, "I have been battling Satan all evening and I believe that I am now free. I'm just calling to tell you that." I said, "Well great, Laura. Let me pray with you over the telephone so that you can get a good night of sleep." As I began to pray, a spirit took over her vocal cords again and hassled me for about 20 minutes. Among other things he said, "I caused Laura to hate you so that she wouldn't hear a thing you said at Moody Church."
"Even when we are in the hands of the devil, we are still in the hands of god. satan is always subject to god."
We're certainly are not experts in this, and sometimes we don't know why people remain bound. Despite our prayers and counseling, she didn't find freedom. She left Moody Church but years later she wrote me a fantastic letter. She thanked me for the work that I did with her, even though she wasn't delivered. She said that she went to another church and discovered that because of abuse in her background and because she refused to give up the hatred in her heart, she could not be freed. But once she decided to finally deal with the sin of hate, then all of this demonic activity stopped.
I believe this story is instructive. Neil Anderson says, "If you want to get rid of flies you have to throw the garbage away." If Satan has a claim to some ground in a person's life, and says "This is my territory here because of all this sin that you're unwilling to repent of," it's almost impossible to find freedom from a spirit that claims the right to maintain control. Dealing with sin helps undercut the evil spirit's claims.
What power does the evil one have on earth right here, right now?
He has as much power as God allows him to have—and not one whit more. This is where I differ from some others in the spiritual warfare movement. The subtitle of my book, The Serpent of Paradise, is "The incredible story of how Satan's rebellion serves God's purposes." We should never give the impression that because Satan is the god of this world, God kind of says, "Well, what am I going to do? He is the god of this world. I just have to let him do whatever he wants." I believe, that yes, Satan is the god of this world but he cannot so much as wiggle unless God gives him permission.
Look at the statement of Jesus to Peter, "Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you." Satan has to come to Jesus and say I'd like to sift Peter, and Jesus has to sign off on it. Or think of the story of Job. Satan couldn't act against Job until God said, yeah, you can do this but not that. I don't know the exact extent to which Satan can do his thing, but if we see his activity as always under the controlling hand of God, this births faith in our hearts. Why doesn't God banish the devil and put him on a faraway planet? It is because the Lord hath need of him; yes, God uses the devil to further his (God's) purposes. All of Satan's power is delegated.
In Revelation, Jesus says to the church in Smyrna, "Satan is going to throw you into prison for 10 days." I maintain that if Jesus says 10 days it can't be 11. And then he says, "Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life." Does Jesus allow the devil to kill us? Yes. But he says, "Fear not him who is able to destroy the body. There's nothing more he can do. Rather, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." So yes, God will even allow Satan to take our lives. But even when we are in the hands of the devil, we are still in the hands of God. Satan is always subject to God.
If a person is still subject to Satan's snares, temptation, what does deliverance accomplish?
I think the only way you can answer that question is to speak to people who have been delivered. Those of us who have never had a demon attached to us probably can't fully appreciate the freedom. But people who have been delivered will tell you that there was an evil presence that was with them and no matter what they did, that presence went with them and it was always there. Sometimes it can be ignored. Sometimes it can be suppressed, especially if you take drugs and so forth, (I'm not opposed to taking meds under certain conditions) but there's something within them that lets them know that there is another personality present that constantly causes a sense of guilt and self-hatred. Fred Dickason is absolutely right when he says one of the things the devil wants to do is to destroy our self image, our sense of self-worth. He wants us to get so down on ourselves and tell us we're evil, we're hopeless, we're doomed to be a failure, and convince us that God could never love us.
Of course none of us is worthy. That's true. But God loves us totally independently of our worth. But Satan does not want us to know such truths or act upon them. And so there are many people who are stuck in an emotional and spiritual rut, constantly aware of an evil presence. And when deliverance comes, they have a whole new freedom. They have hope. People can't live without hope. If you feel that you are locked into this evil presence that is always going to be there, it can get very discouraging, and life can be incredibly difficult. You hate yourself so you think God hates you too. Deliverance changes all that.
In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus instructed the disciples to pray "Deliver us from the evil one." Is this what he was talking about?
Yes, and in John 17 Jesus says, "I pray that you will keep them from the evil one." Of course we wish that this keeping from the evil one were absolute, that the evil one might be totally walled in, unable to touch us. There are those who would take this passage and other similar ones and say that's why a Christian can never have a demonic problem. Maybe someone can be tempted, we are told, but that's all. They ask, "How can the Holy Spirit occupy the same territory as a demon?" Well, that's a difficult question, but I don't know if we can think spatially about this issue. I don't know if we can say the Holy Spirit occupies the same coordinates in a person as a demon. We're talking about the soul, which is immaterial. Another question I'd ask is this: How can the Holy Spirit put up with our flesh? Our flesh really isn't much better than Satan, often. And somehow the Holy Spirit manages to coexist with our flesh. So I can imagine that maybe somehow the Holy Spirit manages to exist in the proximity of unclean spirits. I believe that a Christian can be demonized but not helplessly controlled by an evil spirit; and most assuredly any claim of ownership Satan makes about a believer is bogus. He does not own us, God does.
Ananias and Sapphira were probably believers. Well, Satan filled their heart to lie to the Holy Spirit. I don't think that we should say therefore they were unbelievers, because after all, they were part of the church. They were not kept from evil influence. So the "keeping from the evil" may not mean that we are exempt from real serious spiritual warfare. What it might mean is that in the end we are kept by the power of God unto salvation. In the end Satan does lose. But between now and then we're in for a hassle.
Is that struggle something each of us has to do for himself or herself?
No. Satan is best fought within the community of the church. When I've preached on the shield of faith I was told shields in those days were beveled. They were linked together, so that one warrior was next to the other. It was like a wall going into battle. In the same way, I believe that it is in community where there is deliverance. It's in the context of community that we can find help, and where there is intercessory prayer, we fight together. So it isn't just you and the devil. It's you and other believers against the devil.
The other day I was watching the Animal Channel, and I saw something that really struck me. There was a huge herd of buffalo and about six or seven lions. And the lions were plotting to have a buffalo for dinner. Well, they found one buffalo that had strayed from the herd, maybe a couple hundred yards, and they went after that buffalo. So how do a few lions stop a buffalo? Well, as it happened, one lion grabbed the heel of one back leg of the buffalo, the other on the other back leg. And they just hung on until that buffalo slowed to a stop. Then one lion hopped on his back, another went after his stomach. And from there on you can just visualize what happened. It was gruesome.
But here's what shocked me. There were perhaps 100 buffalo, if not more, all standing and staring and watching this go down. I don't know if buffalo can think. But if buffalo could think, you know what they're thinking? Boy, am I ever glad that's not happening to me! Imagine if this herd had decided we're not going to let those lions get away with anything, and together they ran thundering in that direction with their horns down. Those lions would have scurried away immediately. The lions would never have a buffalo for lunch, if the buffalo stuck together.
There's a lesson for us there. First of all, Satan separates somebody from the herd. He makes them mad at the church and Christians, or angry because of some other reason. Once they're away from the herd, he intensifies his attack. And then when we hear of the spiritual/demonic struggles that a person faces we say to ourselves, Boy, am I ever glad that's not me! What we have to do as a congregation is to hang together. We have to close in and say we will not allow the devil to do this to our people.
I think God wants us to humble ourselves, not just before him, but before others. Many people have been delivered from strongholds when they begin to share and other people intercede for them. It's in community that God grants victory. The spiritual resources are ours; we just have to use them.
To go deeper, see our recommended resources on spiritual warfare.
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