Page 41 - The Importance of Prayer Student Textbook

The Implications of an Unsovereign God

There would be no purpose in spiritual warfare, only random attacks.
The focus would have to be on Satan’s plots and schemes, instead of God’s purposes.
The confidence for victory would depend on me and my performance.
The standard of evaluating success would depend on whether we were able to remove Satan.

By trusting God’s sovereignty, a person is set free. Instead of suddenly reacting to Satan’s machinations,
you immediately focus on God to seek His perspective. You don’t get rattled and respond hysterically.
Instead, you ask God in prayer what He is up to and respond accordingly. Satan is not dictating the
tempo of your life. God has predestined those whom He foreknew to experience the purpose He has for
them. (Romans 8:29) God knows His own purposes for allowing the enemy access to your life, and His
purposes can only be good. Although on occasion God chooses not to reveal His purpose in warfare,
most of the time He does. His main desire is that we increasingly know and cooperate with Him so that
He can mold us into the image of His blessed Son.

We must always realize that God uses warfare to accomplish His will and reveal His Glory. Here is one
example that involves His blessed Son.
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1 Satan orchestrated the arrest of Jesus. (Luke 22:2-4)
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2 Satan was even present at the Last Supper. (John 13:27)
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3 Satan was present after the supper and was going to sift the disciples. (Luke 22:31)
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4 Satan was present even after the crucifixion and therefore, the cross and the events around it were
unmistakably warfare. (John 14:30)

What then would motivate a holy, sovereign, loving God to grant Satan access to His Son’s life, even to
the point that Satan succeeded in his plan of influencing extreme torture and cruel death? Why would
God do that? Precisely because God was in the process of working out His plan for world redemption.
God used Satan to accomplish His will. We must be careful about calling every single bad event in our
lives spiritual warfare and view it as something evil and sinister. The enemy may mean it for evil, but
God may allow it for our good. Therefore, it is vital we pray and allow God to open our eyes and reveal
His intentions for the warfare. Otherwise we may be found as Jacob did in Genesis 42:36 and cry out all
these things are against me. When every troubling thing that was happening to Jacob was for his good
and God’s glory. Again, God allows warfare in our lives so that we can know Him in a deeper way. If all
we pray about is an escape from the warfare, then we may never learn to develop the deeper
relationship that He longs to have with us, so that He can advance His kingdom priorities. Don’t miss
this!

Where is God when the conflict begins? He is the one who lead us into the battle in the first place. He
doesn’t need to suddenly be called into the situation. He’s not shocked and scrambling for a plan. No,
He leads us there because He knows how He will advance the kingdom through us. Our Job is to focus
on Him and seek His perspectives. It is obvious that Paul and Silas encountered spiritual warfare in Acts
16:16-34. Rather than looking for an escape it is evident from Acts 16:25 that Paul and Silas must have
cried out in prayer as Job did in Job 35:10, where is God my maker, who gives songs in the night. And
yes, He gave them songs in the night and advanced His kingdom by bringing an entire family to faith. Oh,
how I long for all of us to learn these truths about spiritual warfare as found in the scriptures. God
allows us to go through spiritual warfare for our good and His glory. He longs to develop a dependence
in our lives so that the first thing we look for is His glory to be manifest and His kingdom advanced. If our

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