A few weeks ago my team and I listened to a podcast sermon from The Porch called “The Unseen Realm.” This blog post is what we took away from the sermon, and how we applied the knowledge gained during our last week of our first month.
In this podcast the speaker begins by talking about germs. For the longest time, people thought sickness came from spontaneous generation, which was essentially disease just cropping up out of nowhere. After three of his five children died from Typhoid Fever, Louis Pasteur became passionate about scientific medicine and eventually proposed the idea of bacteria and germs. Many people thought Pasteur was crazy for thinking there was this invisible world impacting the visible world we live in.
After setting up this wonderful comparison, the speaker transitioned into talking about how the Bible informs us of the unseen spiritual realm. As more people bought into Pasteur’s germ theory, the more things began to make sense as individuals changed their behaviors. In the same way, when we believe what the Bible says about this unseen realm, so much of our experience in life will come into focus and make more sense. Even though Pasteur didn’t cure germs, he shed light on the truth just like Paul sheds light on and exposes the spiritual domain in scripture. It is imperative that we explore what it’s like to live inside of the seen world in light of the unseen world.
The primary text used was Ephesians 6:12 when Paul shares about the church’s enemy and battleground.
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
It was so helpful for us to listen to this podcast as a team and discuss it. We were reminded that there is always a spiritual dimension and component to the problems in our lives. We know that John 10:10 tells us, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.”
We hadn’t experienced a ton of obvious spiritual warfare during our first month, but the final week it was very clear that the enemy was not happy with what we were doing.
Early on in that week, my teammate had a wonderful idea to invite our three translators to come have an evening of worship and prayer with us. Many times it fell through, and we could have all just said, “forget it.” However, two of our three translators could make it Thursday night… so it was a go.
That night it stormed more than it had the entire month. Thunder and lightning were booming and cracking everywhere, and if I am being honest I was annoyed. We were getting pretty wet, the noise was so loud, and it was slightly terrifying with the roofing all made of metal.
Nonetheless, the Holy Spirit was powerfully moving in our corporate worship and intentional prayers for each other. Tears were shed and heaven was coming down.
Just then, as I was praying over my teammate, we heard a tremendous crash. To the left of where we were sitting, about 30 feet away, a tree had been struck by lightning and had crashed through part of our church’s sanctuary. Immediately, debris began falling and water started spilling into the floor where the roof was damaged. After all of us screamed and grabbed onto each other in unison, most of us stopped praying and walked over to get a closer look. Quickly, I finished praying over my teammate and we joined the others.
Maybe you had to be there, but it was crystal clear that the enemy used that tree strategically to draw us away from worship, prayer, and God. BUT – having all just listened to the podcast about our real enemy, we quickly identified the event as an intentional interruption by the spiritual forces of evil. Looking back, I know the whole storm was a ploy to negatively affect our hearts. The enemy may have succeeded in drawing our attention away for an instant, but he was surely screeching as we gathered to pray for the church building, finances, and all of its members.
I am sure we aren’t done seeing these types of things, but perfect love casts out fear. I’m looking forward to seeing how the heavenly forces around us and inside of us run in to combat.
Over and out,
Julia
