25 Key Quotes on Spiritual Warfare

What we must know about the war we are in:

The French poet and essayist Charles Baudelaire once said this: “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” Today most folks seem oblivious to the reality of spiritual evil, of the demonic, and so on. Sadly that includes some believers as well.

There are many thousands of books penned by Christians on the matters of Satan, spiritual warfare, the forces of darkness that we wrestle against, and so on. Two years ago I wrote a piece called “Top 50 Books on Angels, Demons, Satan and Spiritual Warfare”. https://billmuehlenberg.com/2024/02/21/top-50-books-on-angels-demons-satan-and-spiritual-warfare/

Here I just want to present a very brief selection of quotes on these topics. For every quote I feature here, another hundred could be proffered. But these give you a taste for the sorts of authors you might want to further pursue on these topics. All up I offer 25 quotes from 17 authors:

Catherine Booth

“Many do not recognize the fact as they ought, that Satan has got men fast asleep in sin and that it is his great device to keep them so. He does not care what we do if he can do that. We may sing songs about the sweet by and by, preach sermons and say prayers until doomsday, and he will never concern himself about us, if we don’t wake anybody up. But if we awake the sleeping sinner he will gnash on us with his teeth. This is our work – to wake people up.”

Thomas Brooks

“A humble soul being once in a great conflict with Satan said thus to him: ‘Satan, reason not with me—I am but weak. If thou hast anything to say, say it to Christ; He is my advocate, my strength, and my Redeemer, and He shall plead for me.’ A humble soul is good at turning Satan over to the Lord Jesus, and this increases Satan’s hell.”

Stephen Charnock

“Frequently renew settled and holy resolutions. A soldier unresolved to fight may be easily defeated…The weakness of our graces, the strength of our temptations, and the diligence of our spiritual enemies, require strong resolutions.”

William Gurnall

“The Christian’s armor will rust, except it be furbished with the oil of prayer. What the key is to the watch, prayer is to our graces; it winds them up and sets them going.”

“Christian, take special care not to trust in the armour of God, but in the God of the armour.”

Abraham Kuyper

“If once the curtain were pulled back, and the spiritual world behind it came to view, it would expose to our spiritual vision a struggle so intense, so convulsive, sweeping everything within its range, that the fiercest battle fought on earth would seem, by comparison, a mere game. Not here, but up there – that is where the real conflict is engaged. Our earthly struggle drones in its backlash.”

C. S. Lewis

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

“One of the things that surprised me when I first read the New Testament seriously was that it talked so much about a Dark Power in the universe—a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the Power behind death and disease, and sin. The difference is that Christianity thinks this Dark Power was created by God, and was good when he was created, and went wrong. Christianity agrees with Dualism that this universe is at war. But it does not think this is a war between independent powers. It thinks it is a civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living as part of the universe occupied by the rebel.”

“The devil loves ‘curing’ a small fault by giving you a great one.”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The Christian is not only interested in his own soul, he is also concerned about the whole state of the world. It is a libel on us to say that we are not interested in the state of the world. But we are not interested as the non-Christian man is interested. He is interested only politically, socially, and so on. We are interested as we see the world in the grip of the devil. We alone, as Christians, understand what is wrong with the world. We see `powers’ and `principalities’, `the rulers of the darkness of this world’, behind the visible and seen phenomena, and we see perplexed politicians trying to deal with the problems, and failing. We know they must fail because they do not see what is at the back of it all. We see it as the conflict between heaven and hell. So we have a concern about these things, we have a `mind’ for these things, a spiritual concern.”

Martin Luther

“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not professing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ.”

J. I. Packer

“From the start you knew that you were saved to serve, and that indeed is what you spontaneously wanted to do. Soon you learned, however, that you were going to be opposed all the way. By becoming Christians you walked into a war, Satan’s war, against the triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

David Powlison

“Spiritual warfare is what happens when he enlists us in his cause and equips us to join his battle. It’s about light invading darkness. Often when people envision spiritual warfare, they think ‘I’m under attack’ and that is true. Satan does have his wily ways and he is out to get us. But we are also God’s invading army, and we are on the attack. We are bringing light into a dark world. The children of light, the army of light, the servants of light are on the offensive.”

Leonard Ravenhill

“To me it is a shocking commentary on present Christian feebleness that while, in the first century, 120 men could move from an upper-room closet and shake Jerusalem, nowadays 120 churches claiming a like experience of the Holy Spirit can be in one of our cities and yet that city at large hardly know they are there. In our spiritual warfare the churches must be shooting with dummy bullets. To change the figure, we must spiritually be running with empty freight cars.”

 J. C. Ryle

“Be prepared for the enmity of the gates of hell. Put on the whole armour of God. The tower of David contains a thousand bucklers, all ready for the use of God’s people. The weapons of our warfare have been tried by millions of poor sinners like ourselves, and have never been found to fail.”

“This warfare, I am aware, is a thing of which many know nothing. Talk to them about it, and they are ready to set you down as a madman, an enthusiast, or a fool. And yet it is as real and true as any war the world has ever seen.”

“The saddest symptom about many so-called Christians is the utter absence of anything like conflict and fight against spiritual apathy in their Christianity. They eat, they drink, they dress, they work, they amuse themselves, they get money, they spend money, they go through a brief round of formal religious services once or twice every week. But of the great spiritual warfare – its watchings and strugglings, its agonies and anxieties, its battles and contests – of all things they appear to know nothing at all. Let us take care that this case is not our own.”

Francis Schaeffer

“The primary battle is a spiritual battle in the heavenlies. But this does not mean, therefore, that the battle we are in is otherworldly or outside of human history. It is a real spiritual battle, but it is equally a battle here on earth in our own country, our own communities, our places of work and our schools, and even our own homes. The spiritual battle has its counterpart in the visible world, in the minds of men and women, and in every area of human culture. In the realm of space and time the heavenly battle is fought on the stage of human history.”

Fulton J. Sheen

“The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers. He will not wear red tights, nor vomit sulphur, nor carry a trident nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the Devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himself as ‘I am Who am,’ and the Devil as ‘I am who am not.’ Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for the popular myth of the Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first ‘red.’ Rather is he described as an angel fallen from heaven, as ‘the Prince of this world,’ whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world.”

Richard Sibbes

“It is not merely knowledge that will bring to Heaven, for the devil has that; but it is knowledge sanctified, seizing upon the affections.”

“It is not so easy a matter to pray as men think. In regard of the unspiritualness of our nature compared with the duty itself in which we draw near to a holy God, we cannot endure to be separated from our lusts; and there is great rebellion in our hearts against everything that is good; and Satan also is our special enemy…. When we go to God by prayer, the devil knows we go to fetch strength against him, and therefore he opposes us all he can. But though some may mumble over a few prayers, yet (indeed) no man can pray as he ought, or in faith, that is not within the covenant of grace, nor without the Holy Ghost.”

Charles Spurgeon

“Where are you? You are in enemy country, a stranger and an alien. The world is not your friend. If it is, then you are not God’s friend, for whoever is the friend of the world is the enemy of God. Be certain that you will find enemies everywhere. When you sleep, remember that you are resting on the battlefield; when you travel, suspect an ambush in every hedge.”

“The trumpet still plays the notes of war. You cannot sit down and put the victory wreath on your head. You do not have a crown. You still must wear the helmet and carry the sword. You must watch, pray, and fight. Expect your last battle to be the most difficult, for the enemy’s fiercest charge is reserved for the end of the day.”

“The devil is not afraid of a dust-covered Bible!”

A.W. Tozer

“Show me an individual or a congregation committed to spiritual progress with the Lord, interested in what the Bible teaches about spiritual perfection and victory, and I will show you where there is strong and immediate defiance by the devil!”

[1887 words]