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By Laura Dewing
Have you wondered why sometimes feelings of sadness, heaviness and hopelessness overtake you? What people in the Western world have termed “the blues” may well be a spiritual attack from the enemy of our souls.
“Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” The Psalmist asks himself this question twice, first in Psalm 42:9b and again in Psalm 43:2b.
The following dictionary definitions show the weapons the enemy uses to attack us in our minds. We, as God’s people, must not allow the enemy to exert his power and authority over us, nor let him make us downcast or rob us of our joy and effectiveness. Sad to say, we often allow him to do so.
MOURNING: feeling sad; difficulty in thinking or concentrating; feeling of dejection (low spirits) and hopelessness; sadness arising from loss, disappointment etc.; fruitless longing; distress of mind.
SAD: downcast, gloomy, melancholy—depression, mental dejection, irascibility (when you are easily angered), pensive meditation (continued sad thinking).
GLOOM: heaviness of mind, low spirits.
Looking at these definitions we can see that the enemy’s battlefield is basically our minds. That is why the Lord tells us in 2 Cor 10:3-5 to “bring every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ.” We must not allow our thoughts to just wander over into the enemy’s control.
The Lord told me, in the midst of a long serious trial, to saturate my mind with His Word. I knew the general meaning of saturate (such as a sponge absorbing water) but a look in the dictionary also brought forth the military definition:
SATURATE: to completely blanket an enemy target area with aerial bombs dropped down in rapid succession.
The spiritual lesson for us is: Cover our minds with the Word from God on high, saturating our minds by reading, memorizing and meditating on the Word of God—which is the sword of the Spirit.
Now let us look at two more weapons the enemy uses against our minds:
TO OPPRESS: burden spiritually as with a weight; treat with cruelty; a sense of heaviness in the mind; depression.
TO DEPRESS: press down, lessen activity of, make dull, sadden, load one so heavy that they sink under the weight; lower spirits through mental causes; trample by abuse of power or authority.
Notice that one of the definitions is “abusing one’s power or authority.” The enemy does have power and authority, BUT in Christ we have been given power and authority over his power. “Behold, I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over ALL the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you” (Luke 10:19).
Nothing shall by any means hurt us IF we exercise our God-given authority and power to put the devil under our feet, instead of letting him trample us down. Joshua 10:24,25 speaks of putting the soldiers’ feet on the necks of the enemy kings. “For thus shall the Lord do to all your enemies against whom you fight.” (Notice, He will only do it if you fight, and not when you give in to the enemy.)
Our strength lies in our dependance and trust in the Lord, leaning on Him, and occupying ourselves with His joy. In Nehemiah 8:10 we are told that the joy of the Lord is our strength (our power to resist destructive forces). The apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.” (I can resist the destructive forces and walk in victory through Christ who gives me the power to do so.)
In his efforts to defeat us, the enemy continually seeks to oppress, cast down our spirits, depress us, and rob our joy, thus robbing us of our source of strength.
In Ephesians 6:10-17 we are told that we wrestle against the forces of darkness, not against flesh and blood. There is a constant warfare, battle after battle coming against us.
Paul in writing to Timothy exhorts him to endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. (See 2 Timothy 2:3.) We must do as soldiers do, keep alert and be ever so watchful, not layed back and at ease in the midst of the warfare.
A war has many battles. Sometimes we find we are defeated, other times we gain ground. The goal is to win the war. In Judges 20 we read that the children of Israel inquired three times of the Lord whether to go to battle. The Lord said to go, but twice they returned in great defeat. Did they give up and give in to discouragement? No. They went before the Lord weeping and seeking His face, and went out again. The third time they returned home with the victory!
We can learn a good lesson from the children of Israel. When we are knocked down, we must pick ourselves up and go at it again, with our shield in one hand, our sword in the other, the praises of God on our lips, and our eyes on the Lord of hosts, our Captain.
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