A BIG Demonic Whoops

I am not a spiritual warfare guy. I am an abundance guy. I am a fullness of all that God has for me, and for you, guy. “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full” (John 15:11). That. And this, “…that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19).

I am that guy. And I strongly desire for you to be that guy or gal.

Unfortunately, in order to be that guy, I have to be a warfare guy. There is no fullness without warfare. There is no abundance without engaging the enemy. “Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

Today, I am perplexed. Flummoxed. Confounded. And whatever else. My perplexion stems from the lack of warfare training in Western Seminaries. Seminaries are the training ground for men and women who feel called to vocational ministry. Men and women who, I think, are going into ministry so that they can deliver the “fullness of God” to people. Yet, seminaries do not equip current and future leaders to engage in warfare.

Because I nerd out on this stuff, I did a document scan on the course catalogs of five seminaries in the United States. I scanned for the use of Satan, Devil, and/or warfare/spiritual warfare. The results are below:

Name	Satan	Devil	Warfare	Classes*
Gordon Conwell	1	0	1	1
DTS	9	1	6	2
HCU	0	0	0	0
Southern Baptist	2	0	10	2
Fuller Theological	1	0	2	2**

* No classes on warfare were required for a Master’s of Divinity which is the basic, and most common, degree for pastors

** One class at Fuller is offered occasionally, the other class is only offered in Korean

Gordon Conwell is one of the pre-eminent presbyterian seminaries. It is 27 miles outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Southern is one of the pre-eminent Baptist seminaries. It is in Louisville, Kentucky, and is led by Dr. Albert Mohler, one of the leading voices in Western Christianity. DTS is in Dallas. HCU is in Houston. Fuller is one of the pre-eminent non-denominational seminaries and is in Pasadena, California.

My seminary sample is cross-denominational and spans the United States.

The results are not surprising but still…depressing. And puzzling. Dallas Theological Seminary, according to their course catalog, offers the most robust training of any. However, their two classes are not required and are found in the Missions Department. Additionally, I received my Masters of Divinity with Biblical Languages from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. No training in warfare. Barely a mention of Satan. But plenty of Greek and Hebrew.

This seems like an enormously BIG whoops.

This seems like incredible evidence of the “slickery” of Satan to engineer all these POWER seminaries that have little to no training in warfare – as if he does not exist. I find seminaries lack of REQUIRED training to be a spectacular example of how smooth Satan is. He reaches up on the table of faith and takes himself OFF and no one notices.

Amazing.

Recently, Roger Wernette at the Gathering of Men asked me to speak to a group of 60ish business guys about the definition of disciple and disciple-making. I began by asking the men who was married and who had been married the longest. One man has been married 52 years! That’s staggering considering I just turned 53.

Then I asked, “Who has been happily married the longest.” The room was a mix of quiet and laughing. Brains were calculating. Hands were being thrown up in the air. Jokes were being told.

On one hand we can define marriage as one man and one woman for life. But that means that marriage can be reduced to being married and miserable. Did God give us marriage for monogamous misery?

Then I asked the men how many of them were in Christ. Hands raised. I followed that by asking for how many of their years in Christ have they experienced Jesus’s abundant life? Silent.

But, hey, at least a guy is saved?

Did God our Father send Jesus so that we could be saved and miserable? Saved and complacent? Saved and lazy? Saved and superficial? The 4^th soil life of Jesus’s parable of the sower in Mark 4:20 experiences 30, 60, 100-fold growth!

Does not Jesus say He came, according to the will of our Father and filled with the Holy Spirit, to give us abundant LIFE? Did He not warn us that Satan is a thief that wants to steal, kill, and destroy our abundance? He taught us in John 15:1-10 so that in verse 11 we would experience fullness of joy.

Every one of us is on a warfare spectrum. On the one hand are those who believe Satan is involved in everything. If you have a stomachache, that is the spirit of indigestion! On the other hand, are those of us who believe Satan is not involved in anything. We never consider demonic influence in our daily lives.

I argue and train and love and yell and spit and whisper for a healthy, biblical, robust engagement in demonic rulers and principalities. Jesus has given us TREMENDOUS authority through the Holy Spirit to continually thwart Satan’s schemes to manipulate our hearts and heads, to steal our promised LIFE.

Do not settle for anything less than fullness.