Every dark and evil character created to evoke fear in readers and moviegoers is only the devil’s shadow.  Even the dreaded Borg, of Star Trek infamy, is assimilated by the devil and his army of demons. The masses slaughtered by Hitler and Stalin represent only a fraction of the lives destroyed by Satan. 

Throughout the Bible men are urged to fight the enemy, do battle, and wage war. We’ve not been placed in a spiritual Disneyland and told to “have fun.” By birth we’ve entered a battlefield. By rebirth in Christ we’ve enlisted in God’s army as warriors of light.

Abraham’s nephew Lot learned this lesson on the evening the two angels appeared in his presence and told him to gather his family and get out of town because God intended to destroy the city of Sodom. High on a mountain Moses realized he was involved in a spiritual battle when the angel of the Lord appeared to him in the flames of a burning bush and informed him he had just been recruited to take on Pharaoh and release the Hebrew slaves. Gideon lacked spiritual vision until the day the angel of the Lord interrupted his life and sent him to battle the Midianites, idolatrous people who were oppressing the Israelites. The stories could go on and on. Each of these men, and others, fought in the power of their God against forces empowered by Satan and his demons.

Today the conflict is spiritual and the war is for your heart–the core of your being that serves as the center of your intellect, emotion, and will. The enemy wants to capture your affection and direct your plans. He seeks to destroy you and your family. If you lose this war, not only is strategic ground lost, but even worse, you align yourself with the enemy.

No weapon of the enemy has worked better than the barrage of propaganda that hammers away at our thinking and convinces us we’re not warriors. It urges us to kick back and watch the world pass by like a parade. Such passivity reeks of danger. It’s a vampire that sinks its fangs into our neck and redirects our loyalty to the dark side. It sucks out our spiritual lifeblood so we’re drained of God’s power.

We must wake up. We can no longer deny the reality of the angelic conflict in which we’re combatants. We have an enemy who hates us and seeks our destruction. As God’s warriors we must live as though nothing else matters compared with knowing him and fighting at his side. We must discover the secret of masculine strength that’s rooted in Christ.

Let’s lock arms with our band of brothers and stand our ground. But let’s go further . . . let’s recruit others to our ranks. Together we’re a powerful force in the battle for men’s souls.