Spiritual Warfare

For the past 100 years, the 90,000 residents of Santa Fe, New Mexico, have participated in a unique annual ritual: the burning of Zozobra. With a budget of just over one million dollars, the city constructs a towering 50-foot papier-mâché effigy, which is set ablaze as the crowd chants, “Burn him!” The purpose is to symbolically purge the community of its collective anxieties.

As described by the New York Times, Zozobra is imagined as a beast from the nearby mountains, lured into town under the guise of a celebration. Dressed in formal attire, Zozobra “thrusts the town into darkness and takes away ‘the hopes and dreams of Santa Fe’s children.’” The townspeople attempt to subdue him, but it’s only when the Fire Spirit-summoned by the unity of the citizens-arrives that Zozobra is ultimately defeated by fire.

The ritual’s goal is to literally incinerate the worries and troubles of Santa Fe’s residents. Before the burning, people stuff the effigy with written notes of their anxieties, medical bills, report cards, parking tickets, and even loved ones’ ashes. The act of burning these items serves as a powerful symbol of letting go.

Fire, both historically and in this ritual, represents destruction and renewal. It “eliminates dead vegetation and enriches soil, promoting new growth; it rejuvenates via destruction.” By channeling fire through ritual, people hope to gain control over the cycle of death and rebirth, using flames as a metaphorical reset button. The burning of Zozobra unites the community in optimism, offering a chance to vanquish the undesirable and begin anew each year.

A family visiting Yellowstone National Park learned a valuable lesson: bears are smart. While driving in the park, they spotted a black bear on the side of the road and decided to take a few pictures from inside their car. Something they didn't think about? Locking their car doors.

The bear approached the vehicle and "managed to grab ahold of the door handle." Amidst the screaming of the kids in the backseat, the father managed to shut the door, "but not without effort."

Thankfully, no one was hurt—but stories like these are helpful reminders that sometimes, even when we feel safe, the dangers surrounding us are more complex than we can understand. Peter tells us that we should "be alert and of sober mind," because our "enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour" (1 Pet. 5:8).

Do you occasionally find yourself waking up at 3am, going over embarrassing memories, or having a cringe attack, and begin picking on yourself?

According to a psychology researcher specializing in sleep, the 3am wake-up call often coincides with a surge of negative self-talk. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as "barbed-wire thinking." It’s not just you, but is shared by many people and can be particularly distressing due to the vulnerable state we find ourselves in during the early morning hours.

Research suggests that around 3 or 4am, our bodies experience a natural shift in sleep patterns. Core body temperature begins to rise, sleep drive diminishes, melatonin secretion peaks, and cortisol levels increase in preparation for the day ahead. While we may awaken multiple times throughout the night, the combination of stress and the unique physiological factors present during this specific sleep phase can often lead to increased awareness of these awakenings.

At this point in the sleep cycle, we are both physically and mentally at our lowest ebb. Our internal resources are depleted, making it challenging to cope with negative emotions or thoughts. Additionally, the lack of social connections, cultural support, and problem-solving skills typically available during the day exacerbates our vulnerability.

Furthermore, the solitude and quiet of the early morning can contribute to a heightened sense of self-focus. Without external distractions, it's easy to become engrossed in negative thoughts and emotions, such as guilt, regret, or fear.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Besides the natural circadian rhythm that explains early morning “barbed-wire thinking” early morning can be a time of heightened spiritual awareness, both positive and negative. 1) Experiencing God - God can more easily speak to us at night when we are not distracted by busyness; 2) Spiritual Warfare - Satan can take advantage of our vulnerable state and use this time to attack us to cause us shame and guilt involving past actions and memories.

Pornography consumption has skyrocketed in recent years, especially among young people. Despite this, many Americans, including Christians, remain unconcerned about its societal effects.

A new report by Barna and Pure Desire reveals that 61% of Americans now view porn at least occasionally, up from 55% in 2015. Even within the church, pastors are more likely to report personal histories of porn use, with nearly 1 in 5 currently struggling.

The report underscores pornography's widespread accessibility, noting that it "touches all segments of society" regardless of age, gender, or religious beliefs. The increased availability of online porn, coupled with factors like social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, has contributed to this surge. One recent study suggested 2.5 million people view online pornography every minute, and online porn consumption has increased by 91 percent since 2000.

While some faith-based efforts advocate for legal restrictions on the porn industry, others focus on helping individuals overcome pornography habits. However, the report highlights a significant hurdle: many people, including Christians, simply don't see a problem with it.

Research suggests that frequent porn use can lead to negative mental, emotional, and relational health outcomes. Despite this, many Christians remain comfortable with their own porn consumption. The reports states, “Over three in five Christians (62%) tell Barna they agree a person can regularly view pornography and live a sexually healthy life.” That’s only four percentage points behind the share of all US adults (66%) who don’t consider viewing pornography harmful.

The report also explores the impact of pornography on relationships, particularly between men and women. Women are more likely to report negative effects, including feeling less attractive to their partners. Additionally, the study reveals that young people are increasingly exposed to pornography at younger ages, with the average age of first exposure now 12.

Possible Preaching Angle:

While there are efforts to address the issue, the report emphasizes the need for churches to offer support and resources for those struggling with pornography. By fostering a community where people can find help and healing, churches can play a crucial role in combating the pervasive influence of pornography.

Internal documents from Tik Tok executives and employees reveal that the social media platform is driven to capture the attention of users. Here were some of their own internal statements:

• An internal presentation on the 2021 strategy for TikTok describes the company as being in an “arms race for attention.”
• “It’s better to have young people as an early adopter, especially the teenagers in the U.S. Why? They’ve got a lot of time.”
• “Teenagers in the U.S. are a golden audience.
• “The product in itself has baked into it compulsive use.”
• “The reason kids watch TikTok is because the algorithm is really good... But I think we need to be cognizant of what it might mean for other opportunities. And when I say other opportunities, I literally mean sleep, and eating, and moving around the room, and looking at somebody in the eyes.”
• As an internal guide on push notifications explained, a key goal of TikTok’s push notifications is to “Activate & Engage users with the right content at the right time, to encourage users to open the App more and stay longer.”
• In a chat message a TikTok employee confirmed that the company’s “goal is not to reduce the time spent” on the TikTok app, but rather to ultimately “contribute to DAU [daily active users] and retention” of users.

A black bear broke into the Knoxville Zoo in Tennessee. NBC News reported the following story: "A neighbor called the Knoxville Zoo late Monday night and alerted a ranger, saying there was a bear in a nearby park, according to a zoo official. A short while later, the ranger saw what he presumed to be the same bear climbing over a fence and into the zoo.

It was unclear where, exactly, the ursine interloper wound up. The ranger had to wake up the zoo's four resident bears on Monday to conduct a 'nose count.' “They weren't too happy with us." It's fairly common for zoos to encounter smaller animals like dogs, cats, or squirrels trying to break over or around or through the zoo's walls.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Apparently, the bear in this story couldn't handle all that freedom and wanted to return to comfort of captivity. Sound like a familiar story? How often do people attempt to turn away from the sin that has them in spiritual bondage, only to return to it again? (Prov. 26:11; 2 Pet. 2:22).

At first glance, Rolf Klasson, a gray-haired Swede who hobbles around on his walker, looked like an easy target. At least that's what two would-be robbers thought as they accosted him at a cash machine.

One of the thugs waved a knife while the other thug told Klasson to turn over his wallet. They didn't know that their victim was also the former European light-middleweight boxing champ.

Klasson warned them, "This isn't going to go well." When the men scoffed at his warning, he knocked one of them to the floor with a sharp right hook before laying the other out with a left jab. A police officer later said, "They came after the wrong guy."

Possible Preaching Angle:

This is a great little story to open up a sermon on the victory of the cross or spiritual warfare.

Astrology is a meme, and it’s spreading in that blooming way that memes do. On social media, astrologers and astrology-meme machines amass tens or hundreds of thousands of followers. People joke about Mercury retrograde, and categorize “the signs as ...” literally anything: cat breeds, Oscar Wilde quotes, and Stranger Things characters. In online publications daily, weekly, and monthly horoscopes and zodiac-themed listicles flourish.

This isn’t the first moment astrology has had and it won’t be the last. The practice has been around in various forms for thousands of years. In the decades between the New Age boom and now, while astrology certainly didn’t go away—you could still regularly find horoscopes in the back pages of magazines. Chani Nicholas, an astrologer based in Los Angeles said:

(For a time) it went back to being a little bit more in the background. Then something happened in the last five years that’s given it an edginess, a relevance for this time and place, that it hasn’t had for a good 35 years. Millennials have taken it and run with it.

The stigma has receded as the practice has grabbed a foothold in online culture, especially for young people. One researcher said, “Over the past two years, we’ve really seen a reframing of New Age practices, very much geared toward a Millennial and young Gen X quotient.”

Callie Beusman, a senior editor at Broadly, says traffic for the site’s horoscopes “has grown really exponentially.” SimilarWeb reported in December 2024 that the top 10 astrology sites received a total of 38 million visits in one month.

Editor’s Note: You can check the most up-to-date astrology stats on SimilarWeb here

The Internet can be a dangerous place, and a new global survey is revealing that billions of people have likely been the target of cybercriminals at some point in time. The survey found that nearly half of all respondents have fallen victim to a cyberattack or scam.

In a poll of 20,000 adults from around the world, 45% reported that their personal data, such as banking or email account information, has been compromised by a hacking attempt or scam.

According to respondents, online scams and phishing attempts have become more sophisticated and successful due to artificial intelligence. Half of respondents (50%) disclosed that they’ve been exposed to a cyberattack at work in the last year. Of those whose personal data has been hacked, 20% reported that a cyberattacker successfully hacked one or more of their personal accounts, including bank or email accounts.

Delving into the layered side-effects of successful hacks and scams, 22% lost money as a result and 30% said they have doubts that their personal information will ever be safe again.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Cross; Easter; Satan; Spiritual Warfare - Cyberattacks can inflict significant financial harm. However, there exists a less visible but even more critical vulnerability that affects every human being. The Bible speaks of Satan as "a roaring lion seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8), who orchestrates spiritual attacks against all of humanity. These attacks target not our bank accounts or personal data, but our very souls, seeking to separate us from God's love and purpose for our lives. On the cross, Christ won our victory over Satan (1 Cor. 15:57; Col. 2:13-15). Only through faith in Christ can we find protection and true spiritual security.

The group Open Doors USA figures that in 2023, 360 million Christians lived in countries where persecution was “significant.” Roughly 5,600 Christians were murdered, more than 6,000 were detained or imprisoned, and another 4,000-plus were kidnapped. In addition, more than 5,000 churches and other religious facilities were destroyed.

American Christians talk of persecution, but that is what real persecution looks like. Every year Open Doors USA releases its World Watch report of the 50 states most likely to punish Christians for their faith. Last year 11 nations were guilty of “extreme persecution.”

Afghanistan took over the top spot from North Korea in 2024. Open Doors explains that it long was “impossible to live openly as a Christian in Afghanistan. Leaving Islam is considered shameful, and Christian converts face dire consequences if their new faith is discovered. Either they have to flee the country or they will be killed.”

Unfortunately, the August 14, 2023 collapse of the U.S.-backed Kabul government made the situation immeasurably worse. According to Open Doors: “Christian persecution is extreme in all spheres of public and private life. The risk of discovery has only increased, since the Taliban controls every aspect of government—including paperwork from international troops that may help identify Christians.”

No. 2 on the list of the worst persecutors was North Korea, usually in the news for its nuclear weapons program and missile launches. Christianity was strong in Korea before the Soviet occupation after World War II of what became the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The Kim dynasty—Kim Jong-un represents the third generation—then created a personality cult that treats its members as semi-divine. Consequently, the North views Christianity, which claims a higher loyalty, as particularly threatening.

According to Open Doors, another 48 countries are guilty of “very high persecution.” Christianity is the most persecuted faith, but most religions face persecution somewhere, and some religious adherents, such as Jews, Baha’is, and Ahmadis, are targeted with special virulence.

A study of YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook revealed that American Teens—by a large margin—use YouTube (71%) more than TikTok (58%). But they're more likely to scroll through the TikTok app "almost constantly," according to Pew Research Center polling.

The stat points to how addictive and unhealthy TikTok's endless feed of videos can be for teens.

A study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that new TikTok accounts were shown self-harm and eating disorder content within minutes of scrolling.

• Suicide-related videos popped up within 2.6 minutes.
• Eating disorder content popped up in 8 minutes.

Because of this, there's suddenly a roaring national debate over fears about teens' privacy, their data security—and all the misinformation going straight to their phones. Citing national security concerns, Congress is pushing to force the platform's Chinese parent company to sell TikTok or face a ban.

Psychologist Jean Twenge says. "It's of course possible that people will replace TikTok time with YouTube time or Instagram time. However, TikTok's algorithm is particularly effective at getting you to spend more time on it."

Melissa Kearney, author of The Two-Parent Privilege offered the following observation on X:

I gave another talk about the Two Parent Privilege to college students today. And again, during the Q&A, a college student asked me why I don’t talk about porn/TikTok/OnlyFans, and how addiction to those sites is affecting young people’s ability to form healthy relationships.

I answered honestly that it wasn’t part of the lens I brought to the topic of family structure when I wrote the book. But it keeps coming up, over and over, in all the conversations I am having outside my usual policy/academic circles about marriage & family formation.

I have been quite struck by how often young people have brought this issue up to me over the past 7 months, and I don’t quite know what to make of it.

An article on Vice starts with an intriguing question:

You know the feeling. A sort of internal itch … Wouldn't it be nice to see what my friends are up to? But, no, you're working. You need to finish your article or file a report or get to your appointment on time. But you can just check Facebook quickly, can't you? And then you're five minutes late to your appointment, again.

Is Facebook really addictive? Well, that all depends, but based on this study from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, it's sure hard to resist that urge to go and look at Facebook. "Surprisingly" the article concluded, "the data suggests that the checking of social media accounts ranks higher than having a smoke or a drink as a 'self-controlled failure.'"

While this conclusion may seem surprising, it really isn't. Part of why people give in to compulsions is because they determine that the consequences aren't great enough for them to resist. Behaviors like smoking and drinking have a much higher "cost" than quickly checking a social media account.

Yet, spending excessive time on Facebook does cost something. It costs time, and when people check Facebook twenty times per day, that time adds up. Maybe it’s time to start studying the real costs associated with social media addiction.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Since Facebook use is beginning to decline among young people, for this illustration you could include or substitute other popular social media sites such as: Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, WeChat, Messenger, or Telegram. You can find a list of the top 35 social media platforms for 2024 here.

On a June afternoon in 2018, a man named Mickey Barreto checked into the New Yorker Hotel. He was assigned Room 2565, a double-bed accommodation with a view of Midtown Manhattan almost entirely obscured by an exterior wall. For a one-night stay, he paid $200.57.

But he did not check out the next morning. Instead, he made the once-grand hotel his full-time residence for the next five years, without ever paying another cent.

In a city where every inch of real estate is picked over and priced out, and where affordable apartments are among the rarest of commodities, Mr. Barreto had perhaps the best housing deal in New York City history. Now, that deal could land him in prison.

The story of how Mr. Barreto, a California transplant with a taste for wild conspiracy theories and a sometimes tenuous grip on reality, gained and then lost the rights to Room 2565 might sound implausible. Just another tale from a man who claims without evidence to be the first cousin, 11 times removed, of Christopher Columbus’ oldest son. But it’s true.

In jail before he was released on his own recognizance, Mr. Barreto said he used his one phone call to dial the White House, leaving a message about his whereabouts. There was no reason to believe the White House had any interest in the case or any idea who Mickey Barreto was. But you could never quite tell with Mickey — he’d been right once before.

Whatever his far-fetched beliefs, Mr. Barreto, now 49, was right about one thing: an obscure New York City rent law that provided him with many a New Yorker’s dream.

Possible Preaching Angles:

(1) Satan; Temptation - Like a bad tenant who won’t leave an apartment, we allow sin to overstay it’s welcome in our lives; (2) Resentment or Anger—People in recovery often say, “Don’t let that person live rent free inside your head”—which means don’t hold on to your resentments over people who have hurt you. Let the hurt go.

For some governments, persecuting Christians is the default mode. Matthew Luxmoore reports that Evangelical churches are being targeted by Moscow in Russian-held cities in Ukraine. In occupied Ukraine, some evangelical churches continue to operate after pledging fealty to the Russian authorities.

Others, such as Melitopol’s Church of God’s Grace and parishes in the villages surrounding Melitopol, continue to meet in secret at followers’ houses, scrambling to hide their Bibles and their instruments as soon as they hear a dog bark or a gate creak open. One evangelical minister who now leads clandestine prayer services at his home said: “We have gone underground.”

Underground services have become a necessity because of incidents like this in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. Moments after the band struck up a song of praise at a Christian church in a Russian-held city, Russian soldiers stormed in wearing full tactical gear. One of them mounted the stage and told the congregation to prepare their documents for inspection.

Columnist Peggy Noonan wrote a sobering article based on the work of researcher Jonathan Haidt’s new book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing An Epidemic of Mental Illness. Noonan mentions a dark irony raised by Haidt: (Noonan’s words here) “Parents are often physically overprotective of their children out of fear of sexual predators. But those predators have moved online, where it’s easy to find and contact children.”

Then she quotes a section in the book where Haidt includes an essay from a 14-year-old girl:

I was ten years old when I watched porn for the first time. I found myself on Pornhub, which I stumbled across by accident and returned to out of curiosity. The website has no age verification, no ID requirement, not even a prompt asking me if I was over 18. The site is easy to find, impossible to avoid, and has become a frequent rite of passage for kids my age. Where was my mother? In the next room, making sure I was eating nine differently colored fruits and vegetables on the daily.

“It’s hijacking my brain.” Say young people addicted to social media and who are desperate for help. Many people have compared the addictive nature of social media to cigarettes. Checking your likes, they say, is the new smoke break. More than 75% of teens check their phone hourly, and half say they feel like they’re addicted to their devices.

Here are some of the things they’ve said:

“TikTok has me in a chokehold.”

“I would 1,000% say I am addicted.”

“I feel completely aware that it is hijacking my brain, but I can’t put it down. This leaves me feeling ashamed.”

Maybe you’ve had similar feelings yourself, no matter your age. Although it’s true social technologies offer some benefits, many people feel uncomfortable with how much time they spend online and often wonder if they’re addicted.

One approach is to view your media consumption as a diet. Just as there are many ways to have a healthy diet, there are also a variety of ways to develop healthy and personalized social media habits.

The researchers offered practical steps that you can take right now to reduce your dependence on social media. This includes turning off notifications, removing apps that you find harmful, curating your social media feed by unfollowing certain accounts, setting your phone to grayscale to reduce the appeal, and reserving phone-free time.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In addition to the practical steps listed above, the believer should add prayer (Heb. 4:14-16; Jam. 1:5), time in the Word (especially memorizing God’s promises for overcoming destructive habits, Ps. 119:11), and finding an accountability partner (Prov. 27:17).

A shocking video captured the moment a fisherman was bitten by a shark that pulled him overboard into the murky waters of Florida’s Everglades—seconds after he shrugged off his friend’s warning.

The frightening ordeal unfolded after the man leaned over the boat to rinse his hands in the water as his pal cautioned him of the dangers. “I wouldn’t put your hands in there,” a person off-camera says.

“Ah, two seconds won’t do anything,” the man replies as he bends over the side of the boat and dips his right hand into the water. Almost instantly, a shark chomps onto the fisherman’s right hand and drags him head-first into the water as he screamed. The shark releases its grip and the man tried to grab onto the boat with his injured hand, leaving a bloody handprint behind.

“Get him! Get him!” the friend screams in a panic. The man was able to get himself back onto the boat with the help of his friends.

His friend, Michael Russo who caught the attack on camera, said the group sped back to the dock and park rangers came to the victim’s aid. “He was airlifted to the hospital and is in the best care possible.”

Russo shared the video as a warning to others. He said, “Today was one of the scariest days on the water I have ever had. After releasing a fish, Nick washed his hands in the water and was immediately bit by a large shark. The sharks are no joke in the Everglades and the warnings about keeping your hands out of the water are not an exaggeration. Please take this as a lesson and keep your hands out of the water because this could have been prevented.”

You can view the terrifying video here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Many people also ignore the Bible’s warnings about Satan, who “prowls around seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:7). “Ah, just a moment of yielding to temptation won’t do anything! I’ll be fine.” Sadly, some never escape his clutches.

In Iran, Anooshavan Avedian, an Iranian Armenian pastor, started the 10-year prison sentence he received last year for “propaganda contrary to and disturbing to the holy religion of Islam.”

Avedian was arrested while leading a worship service in a Tehran home in 2020. The Assemblies of God meeting place was shut down 10 years ago for holding services in Farsi. Iranian security forces have arrested thousands of Christians in the past few years.

Editor’s Note: Worldwide persecution of Christians is rising. In a 2024 listing of the top countries which persecute Christians, Iran is #9. The complete 2024 top 10 list is: North Korea (No. 1), Somalia (No. 2), Libya (No. 3), Eritrea (No. 4), Yemen (No. 5), Nigeria (No. 6), Pakistan (No. 7), Sudan (No. 8), Iran (No. 9), and Afghanistan (No. 10).

You can view the full report here.