April 15 - Psychological Warfare

We are at war with our spiritual enemy, Satan and his angels. Through the reading of the Psalms, we are reminded time and again that the psalmists were facing their own enemies. Their pleadings to God were usually caused by their own spiritual warfare against the forces of darkness. Here in the 55th Psalm, the psalmist was restless and moaning because of the noise of the enemy and because of the oppression of the wicked. The devil was using human agents to instill fear and restlessness in him and he said, “My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen upon me, and horror overwhelms me.”

This is a psychological warfare, with fear our enemy is trying to overwhelm us, cause trouble in our soul and instill fear and terror of death. The only antidote for fear is faith in God to protect us. Many times in the bible that the words: “Do not fear” appear. Here the Lord was speaking to Joshua and told him not to fear for there was impending victory if only the Israelites trusted in Him. They were not going to compromise in the face of fear. Should they try the way of self-preservation, they would have compromised with the enemy, causing defeat. Compromise equals defeat and fear could make us compromise in the battle with our real enemy.

The way to overcome fear is to not fear anything or anyone except to fear God. When our trust level goes up, our fear level goes down. Just one moment away from the awareness of God, we might plunge into an abyss of despair. It is so easy to get into the state of fear and compromise. The Lord told Joshua not to compromise, not to make any treaty with the people there, not to adopt their cultures and their deities out of fear. Fear leads to compromise and compromise leads to defeat. We can see this pattern in the history of Israel.

Redefine your fear with the fear of God, i.e. you fear absolutely nothing but God. It is okay to lose your job, your wealth, your health, your life or your loved ones as long as you have God. That is fearlessness grounded in the fear of God. Fear is an attempt to preserve what you have, including your life. If you care less about your life and your possessions, you have already won a battle over the enemy. If you want to preserve what you have, you would lose your life. When you lose your life, you are just like a walking corpse, a dead body would attract vultures. If you are feeling the vultures picking on you, look again at your spiritual life and do something about it.

The Lord is coming soon, any time. That is the motivation for the fear of God. He comes to call us into account, we have to go before the throne of judgment. You just cannot go on life as usual, like in the days of Noah and in the days of Lot. God’s judgment will come with the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Are you ready?