Warfare isn’t a pleasant thought. Enemy factions, weapons, violence, death—most of us prefer not to think of such things. And for those of us here in Canada, unless we’ve served in the military or have immigrated from a war-torn country, war seems like a distant reality: one separated by time in our own country and by geography in today’s world. Such distance makes it easy to forget that war even exists.
Yet when we as Christians engage in apologetics—the reasoned defense of our faith (1 Pet. 3:15)—we are, in fact, engaging in our own warfare, one that is fundamentally a war for truth. And the battlefronts are on all sides, whether on college and university campuses, in high schools, on the streets, or in line at the grocery store. Increasingly, we even find it in some of our own local churches.
Unlike most wars with which we’re familiar, however, this war isn’t of a physical or material nature but, rather, a spiritual one. As such, it’s a war against the spiritual forces of evil—the devil himself and his demonic forces (Eph. 6:12)—and their favorite weapons of choice are lies and deceptions.
Satanic Falsehood
The devil or Satan is the master con artist, readily able to make his lies and deceptions appear “more truthful than truth itself,” to borrow a quote from the early church father Irenaeus. Scripture warns that the devil even “disguises himself as an angel of light” in order to deceive his victims (2 Cor. 11:14).
Since the beginning of creation, through countless lies and deceptions, the devil has repeatedly convinced mankind to reject Jesus Christ and to put ourselves into bondage to sin and death. From the first lie he ever told (see Gen. 3:4-5) to the countless others since, the devil has essentially murdered the human race (John 8:44).
We must not underestimate the damage the devil has done and is still doing through his lies and deceptions, for even now, “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). The devil maintains his power over this world by “blind[ing] the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4).
And the devil’s lies and deceptions are many: “There is no God.” “You are your own moral authority.” “There is no life beyond the grave.” “Jesus of Nazareth isn’t even a real person, let alone God.” “The Bible can’t be trusted.” “All religions are basically the same.” The list goes on, and the majority of the world has accepted one or more of these alternatives over the Christian message.
How, then, are we to overcome the power of the evil one? How are we to help unbelievers see the light of the gospel and be saved? The answer: We must counter satanic falsehoods with divine truth.
Divine Truth
After telling his readers that the devil blinds the minds of unbelievers to the saving truth of the gospel, the apostle Paul later explains how we as Christians must play our part in destroying the devil’s work: “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:3-5).
According to Scripture, there are strongholds in the forms of intellectual barriers to faith in Christ that are put in place around the minds of unbelievers. These intellectual strongholds are what the devil uses to blind their minds to the light of the gospel. And this, as Paul points out, is precisely where apologetics comes in: pointing people to God by removing these intellectual strongholds and letting the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ shine through!
When we as Christians fulfill our God-given duty to answer satanic falsehoods with divine truth, we will see more and more of these intellectual barriers to faith removed and, in turn, more and more people coming to a saving knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Tim. 2:25). When that happens, the cross of Christ will no longer be foolishness to them. Instead, they will see it as the truth that sets them free from the lies and deceptions of the devil (John 8:32; 2 Tim. 2:25). They will see the gospel for what it truly is: “the power of God for salvation” (Rom. 1:16).
And this is precisely what we at Ratio Christi Canada are doing with our students: We’re raising up a generation of young people who will not only themselves have no barriers to faith but who will also be able to remove those barriers for others. But to do so, we must equip them with the weapons they need to engage in the spiritual warfare at hand.
The Weapons of Our Warfare
The most important weapon in our warfare with the spiritual forces of evil is the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The best thing we can do for our young people (and ourselves!), then, is to teach them how to speak this truth to others in love (Eph. 4:15) and answer any questions or objections to that truth with gentleness and respect (1 Pet. 3:15).
All of this, of course, involves teaching them the answers to those questions and objections, and these answers are the various weapons we have to demonstrate and support the ultimate weapon of the truth of the gospel. We need to train our young people in how to argue for God’s existence. We need to explain to them why we can trust the Bible. We need to teach them all the many reasons to believe that Jesus walked this earth, is the divine Messiah, and both died and rose again. Basically, they need to be taught anything and everything pointing either directly or indirectly to the truth of the gospel.
If we don’t equip our young people with these answers to the questions and objections raised against Christianity, we’re essentially sending them out into open warfare with no weapon in hand to defend themselves or to fight back against the enemy. It’s no wonder, then, young people are so often the primary casualties in our spiritual warfare.
But we can change all that. If we put in the effort to equip our young people with the weapons they need for the warfare at hand, then we’ll have done our part in making them battle-ready. And a good place to start doing so is right here.
