Seeing the Unseen

Joe Beam

• Publisher: Howard Books
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781439122723
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Spiritual warfare is real, and your faith is at stake. Based on Biblical principles, Seeing the Unseen helps you fight back against the enemy. In today's world, Satan seems to be everywhere, and he seems to have the advantage. But the enemy is not of this world, and the war is in the spiritual world. Satan is trying to attack you and destroy your faith, and the only way to defeat him is to fight back.In this newly revised and updated bestseller, Joe Beam reveal Satan's powerful weaponry—his lies, deceptions, and manipulations—and unmasks his strategy to destroy your life and those you care for. This book will show you his plans and tactics, and teach you where he is likely to strike next and how to fight him.Based on a dedicated study of God's word, this book is filled with stories of tragedy and triumph and will give you the tools you need to defeat the enemy.

SECTION 1

LEARNING TO SEE THE UNSEEN

CHAPTER ONE

What Is Spiritual Vision?

Slapping some sense into her wasn’t an option, so I just sat there, drenched in frustration. No matter how hard I tried to help her see it, she couldn’t believe she was sinning.

“How can you say I shouldn’t see him again?” she asked incredulously. “God sent him to me.”

“Then why are you here? If there isn’t an awareness deep within you that you are doing wrong, why did you come to me about this?” I struggled to pierce her barricade.

“I don’t know why I’m here, but I know God sent him to me, and I know that God wants me to be with him.”

He was married, an alcoholic, and habitually unemployed. She was lonely and longing. Those filters distorted her clear-sightedness, and all she could see was his handsomeness, his charm, and that he wanted her more than anything or anyone. He appeared at just the right time, saying just the right words, and filling just the right needs. Since she had been praying for precisely those things, she was convinced, without doubt, that God had sent him. When he divorced his wife, they would live happily ever after, praising God for the introduction.

As I Listened, I felt it again, that same desire I’ve felt so many other times. “God, if You ever offer me one gift like You did to Solomon, I know what I want. Give me the ability to lay hands on people to give them supernatural vision. God, I want to be able to make people see the unseen.”

If I’d had that gift that day, I would have walked around my desk, placed my hands on Charlotte, and prayed, “God, for the next week open her eyes to the unseen spirit world. Make visible to her every angel, demon, or spirit who comes into her presence. Don’t let them hide from her or disguise themselves. Make them plain.” Then I would have sent her out to see the “shining knight” who had come to rescue her from her loneliness.

She would have come back.

Terrified.

She would have seen the spirits escorting this man, and she would have fled, screaming for deliverance. Because she was not yet completely corrupt, she would have been repulsed by the sight and nearness of the evil ones leading her into this trap.

But as it was, she did not see. They offered her a lie; she bought it altogether. The lie was leading to a disaster in her life and the lives of everyone who would be touched by their sin.

SPIRITUAL VISION = DISCERNMENT + BIBLE KNOWLEDGE

I didn’t have the gift of imparting spiritual vision that day, and God hasn’t given it to me since. In fact, no one has it. But He has given His people the ability to discern good and evil and the ability to understand His Word. And well used, these two abilities can accomplish the same things as the gift I begged for. God has not left us defenseless against the attack of the evil ones, nor has He allowed them any advantage. He has made sure the vantage is ours. But, tragically, it is an advantage seldom used.

Charlotte didn’t use it. She refused to discern good from evil, and she refused to listen to those who did. She refused to see the truth. Her knight kept his sheen until she married him. It lasted less than a year. Now Charlotte is lonely and longing again, but this time, she has an added bitterness that makes it likely she will be lonely forever. Spiritual men are repelled by her malignant aura. Deplorably, the hunters who stalk carnal pleasure aren’t repulsed by it at all; they read it well and are drawn to her. Her angry isolation identifies her as an easy prey for seduction.

The evil ones do their job well.

CHOOSE TO SEE

Charlotte could have seen what was happening if she had chosen to. All of us can. God has warned us of every trick, every deception, and every power that stands against us, and He has given us the knowledge to see through the deceptions and to overcome. These spiritual weapons are revealed in the Scriptures, but they are so often neglected that, for many Christians, the weapons are rusty or misused or laid aside where they can’t be found.

And that leaves those Christians exposed to terrible spiritual assault.

Without the awareness of which urgings are from evil beings and which nudges are from good beings, you may find yourself in situations without the wisdom you need to make right decisions.

You are the only barrier that cannot be overcome in opening your eyes to the unseen. If you refuse to see it, nothing I write will make any difference. You must open yourself to the truth of God, and you must allow His truth to become part of who you are and how you live. Just knowing about spiritual matters doesn’t make you a powerful soldier in the spiritual war, and just being aware of Satan’s attacks won’t prevent their success. But victory is possible when you use the weapons God makes available to you. Spiritual war is an active, not passive, process.

WHAT WOULD YOU SEE?

If God opened your eyes to see all the spiritual beings around you for the next week, what would you see?

For example, are you going someplace where God’s angels would be out of place, but where Satan’s angels feel right at home? Look around when you get there, and think about who’s present—both seen and unseen.

Are you planning to do something that neither God nor His angels will benevolently watch? Whatever you do, you will be seen. The question is, what kind of beings will be smiling as they watch your actions? If God’s angels aren’t happily smiling on you, Satan’s angels are malevolently grinning as you carry out your plan.

Be open with yourself. Are you involved in a relationship you know isn’t right? Do you have feelings of hatred, jealousy, or resentment toward a fellow human being? Are you an agent of gossip? Is your life guided by greed? Have you been lulled into complacency and inaction?

The next time you sense one of these or any other sin rearing its head in your heart and life, look around you and ask yourself, “What kinds of beings could I see here right now if God opened my eyes? Who’s helping me in this?”

Whatever you are doing or planning to do, continually ask yourself, “What would I see if God gave me the gift of seeing the unseen?”

The truth may terrify you.

Or it may give you great peace.

It’s time you learn to discern the invisible power of good and evil and to release the greatest power of all—the power of God—to work in you.

Read on if you are ready to see the unseen.

CHAPTER TWO

What Is Satan’s Master Strategy for Destruction?

She might have been described as pretty, except that the word is seldom used to portray the dead. I find it unpleasant to be in the presence of the dead, even pretty ones, and all the more so when the dead person is speaking to me.

We were sitting in a restaurant, sipping coffee politely, being ignored by the other patrons who were enjoying living. Though still breathing, her heart beating within her, Jane was as dead as if she were wearing a shroud. She spoke of the child in her womb—the first to have been there in her forty year—without warmth or love, just detachment. Smiling vacantly, looking past me, she told her story in a voice I could have vanquished with a whisper.

“My husband’s happy. All these years her’s wanted a child, and now I’m pregnant. I don’t want to destroy him…. I’ve decided not to tell him the child isn’t his.”

Because of the timing of the conception, she was positive the child was her lover’s. He wasn’t her first lover, but she was as in love with him as she could ever be with anyone, at least as much as with the lovers who had preceded him. Parts of the story were routine. Any counselor could have told it for her, missing few of the details. She had married young, escaping an unhappy childhood home. Not really in love with the man who proposed, but craving deliverance, she convinced herself he was God’s blessing and the answer to her prayers, so she said yes.

The first lover had come within a year.

Other lovers followed, but no one, especially her husband, had ever known. The single exception was her closest friend at the time of each affair. Since each liaison had happened while she lived somewhere new, she always had a new best friend with whom to share. Sometimes it was someone from church, sometimes someone from work, depending on where she lived and whom she felt she could trust at the time. Her current best friend was from her church, and it was she who insisted that Jane see me.

I asked Jane about her view of God, Jesus, the church, and many other things we Christians hold dear. Then I asked her about her commitment to her Christianity. How could Jesus be the Lord of her life if she continued to go from one sinful relationship to another? And how could she possibly justify the decision she was unemotionally revealing? She planned to leave her husband and marry her lover, just as soon as he divorced his wife. Finally, in exasperation because she felt no guilt or shame for any of her sins, I asked, “What do you think would happen if this building split open right now and Jesus stood in the sky, ready to pronounce judgment? What do you believe He’d say to you?” In the same lifeless, quiet voice, she replied, “He’d say, ‘I understand. It’s okay. I just want you to be happy.’”

THE ESSENCE OF SPIRITUAL WAR

Jane’s story illustrates what spiritual warfare is all about: It’s a battle of the mind and heart. God gives light and truth; Satan tries his best to cloud light and truth with darkness and lies. His primary tool is deception, convincing human beings that the lies they believe are the truth—even the truth of God Himself. Some momentarily buy the lies, but in their hearts they want truth. Others live in lies permanently because they can no longer face the truth. The consequences are terrifying. To those in Bible times who desperately wanted to believe the lies glittering with false promises, God gave this terrifying counsel: “They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness” (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12).

Paul uses this verse to apply to a specific lie, but the truthfulness of the principle is universal. If you really want to buy the lies that Satan sells. God will not stop you: He will even speed you on your way.

Before you panic, note that Paul isn’t saying that God despairs of and rids Himself of one who still cares about the difference between truth and lies. He’s not writing about those who struggle. Destruction only comes to those who don’t love truth. There is difference between those who love truth but are temporarily deluded and those who refuse to love truth at all.

The every essence of spiritual warfare is lies versus truth. Satan and his angels go all out to get you to love their lies more than you love the truth of God. Since they can’t make you do that, or make you do anything else for that matter, they try to find some way to delude you. They wage war to confuse your mind and capture your heart.

SATAN’S MASTER STRATEGY

Ephesians 4:18-19 reveal Satan’s strategy for destruction. Describing the Gentiles who were captured by satanic forces, Paul writes, “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.”

Follow the logical progression: Darkened understanding leads to a hardened heart; a hardened heart leads to lost sensitivity in immersion in sensuality. (This is not a “good sensuality” but one that indulges itself in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more.) Reaching this point, the lie is believed. Having no communion with God, spiritual destruction results.

See the strategy? The steps usually come in the following order:

It’s a simple strategy, and it’s just as effective now as it has been throughout the history of the world. On this master template, Satan overlays varying substrategies to mislead, confuse, deter, manipulate, and deceive, as I will show you throughout this book.

Let’s take a closer look at this terrifying master strategy.

1. Darkening of the Understanding

It’s easy for us to see that darkness is dangerous. We wouldn’t willingly walk down a lonely, dark city street, hugging the alleys and walking in the shadows. We want to be in the brightest available light, where there is safety and protection. If someone calls to us from the shadows, we are not easily persuaded to investigate. Things seen in the darkness are murky, fuzzy, and, on close inspection, quite different than when seen in the bright light of day. We don’t trust the darkness; we want the light.

Paul uses the word darkened to describe what happens to the understanding. Understanding refers to intellectual reasoning. Satan’s goal is to confuse the understanding and fog the reasoning. He uses darkness to distort the truth.

Jane is a perfect example of how this strategy works.

Did you discern the lie Jane bought? It’s a prevalent lie in the world today—the one that assures us that love (as defined by the lies of Satan) is the texture of life.

Believing the lie was easy for Jane. No one wants to live without love, and it well may be that no one can live without love. But what Jane sought as “love” wasn’t love at all. Passion, romance, and all the intensity accompanying those emotions are ecstasy. We savor the experience, but passion and love aren’t equal. Passion is one facet of love, but love isn’t always a part of passion.

Real love, even in the terms of modern psychology, is comprised of trust, concern, honesty, friendship, and respect. These qualities were the things that Jane really wanted, but she confused sparkle with substance and found it impossible to grasp the glitter. You see, sparkle wasn’t the object of Jane’s continuing search for the meaning of life. She was searching for the things she didn’t get growing up. The tragedy is that those were the very things her husband wanted to give her, but Jane couldn’t see. The lie she believed blinded her. She had somehow learned to equate passion with love and was now on a never-ending quest, for no passionate relationship remains intensely passionate forever. Even the added thrill of clandestine meetings with stolen, furtive moments can’t keep the emotion at a peak indefinitely. Eventually, every relationship has either to wither and die or to grow into real love, complete with the intangibles of trust, honesty, concern, friendship, and respect.

For Jane, love is passion; she is fruitlessly s...