This excerpt is from chapter seven of the book Disarming the Powers of Darkness by Eric Barger with David Benoit.

What You Do and What You Use—Silence Means Defeat!

For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

—Matthew 12:37

Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

—Proverbs 18:21

The only way that Satan and his minions can tell if YOU know your authority as a believer in Christ is by what you speak or what you do. Your actions and your words are paramount to your victory in the spiritual struggle with the powers of darkness. Since Satan and his forces cannot read our minds, it is a most critical agenda of Spiritual Warfare to recognize the importance of our words and deeds and how they play into our victory or defeat. The powers of hell can only gain information about our beliefs in this way.

More importantly, the single manner in which demonic forces are aware of our authority and in particular our personal knowledge of this authority over them, is by the words we speak in declaration of Christ Jesus and His extended ambassadorship through us. Yes, as awkward, as foreign, and to some of us, as "radical" as it may seem, there is but one way for a Christian to insure the complete disarming of demonic powers. So, let’s phrase that again another way. It is your responsibility to let the powers of darkness in your vicinity know that they had better do as the song says, "Pick up their weapons and flee"! Do you just automatically expect every demon in every setting to know who you are in Christ? An interesting question is: When a demon encounters a Christian, does it automatically know the person is a Christian? The answer is no. Demons are not omniscient or omnipotent to immediately know your past history or automatically see your heart condition. Not even Satan can do that, for he is a mere finite being as well. Only God Himself has that ability, and though Lucifer loves to try to deceive people into thinking he’s on par with God, he falls far short. To use terminology from the golf course, the Devil’s abilities are much like a "triple bogey" when compared to God’s being like a "hole-in-one" in knowledge and understanding! For better or for worse, the enemy’s only route to gain information about individuals is through the actions and conversation of the person—not through reading thoughts. Your words and deeds are the only means for him to really understand how to best trip you up and take advantage of you. His legal right to carry on many activities in your life and home ends when he realizes that you are not ignorant of his devices (II Corinthians 2:11). Thus, he silently concedes that his limited power is no match for the One who controls your life (1 John 4:4b)!

It should be noted that we don’t want the importance we have placed on vocalizing during spiritual battles to be misunderstood or to reinforce any extreme or negative views. By referring to the use of our voices, it is important to see that we are not encouraging the error that some have fallen into, producing utter paranoia concerning our everyday conversations. While we certainly believe one’s words should be tempered in purity and reflect the principles of Scripture, there are those who seem to spend each waking moment afraid for their lives should they accidentally utter a negative statement. It’s like trying to avoid a snare of the enemy on one hand and falling into a different trap on the other. Others have misunderstood the confessions of their lips to be a sort of mantra, which supposedly guarantees them God’s favor. While we are adamant about using our voices as tools of Spiritual Warfare, we are in no way encouraging vain confession—just a set of words strung together that allegedly assure health, wealth, and prosperity merely because we say them. Truly, negative words can cause emotional harm, allow the Devil a foothold to operate from, and often reflect an attitude of someone living well below the "joy of the Lord." Conversely, ignoring outright facts in order to say only positive things, is often plain lying.

On another far extreme related to this, there are some who are afraid to pray aloud for fear that they’ll give away some secret to the Devil. It is as if our petitions to God, the cares and concerns we express for others, or even our very Christianity, are to be kept only within us in an effort to trip up the enemy. While we agree that too often we Christians repeat negative thoughts and perhaps need to rein in our tongue, this idea is counter to the principles Paul lays out and again, it is certainly a bondage to walk in such paranoia.

Some teach that we just need to ride along, take no firm position, and just let Jesus do the "heavy hitting." While there is an element of truth in this, it is only part of the picture. Does Ephesians 6:12 say, "For Jesus wrestles not against flesh and blood for us . . ."? No, it tells us that we are not to wrestle against flesh and blood, but we ARE to stand against the armies of evil in the spirit realm. And while it is true that the battle is indeed the Lord’s (II Chronicles 20:15), He has given us very specific directions as to what part we play in His army and in the arena of Spiritual Warfare. Our success in Spiritual Warfare won’t be through ignorance. It won’t be through self-reliance or good wishes either. Our motivation for concentrating on this in these pages is simple. It is to encourage every reader to see that we are powerless in spiritual struggles unless we unleash the tongue. A place of silence is where most Christians seem to be today, and we’d sure love to move them out of there and on into victory! It is through careful, bold declaration of God’s truth and the time-tested biblical principle of testifying to these precepts that Satan is bound, cast out and handed defeat after defeat.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2002, 2016, Eric Barger and David Benoit

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