TRANSCRIPT Episode 9: Spiritual Battles – sharing in Christ’s victory

Leah Sax:
Hello and welcome to episode nine of Delight Podcast, I’m Leah Sax and this is Adam Curtis.

Adam Curtis:
HeyOn today’s episode of Delight Podcast, we’re going to be talking about the topic of Spiritual battles, and our guest today is Tom Parsons, the vicar of Christ Church, Sidcup and his wonderful wife, Katie Parsons, who describes herself, in her words as a child of God married to Tom, mother of three boys, a member of Christ Churcg Sidcup and works for Samaritan’s Purse.

Leah Sax:
And Adam, also, you forgot to say that actually you’re doing your curacy under them. Tom is your vicar, right?

Adam Curtis:
You’ve got him on Tom’s my vicar. He’s my boss. As as his youngest son likes to tell his friends, my dad is his boss.

Adam Curtis:
Ladies and gentlemen, is a great honour of mine to introduce you to my lockdown bubble members Katie and Tom Parsons. Hello, Katie and Tom.

Tom Parsons:
Hello and Hello, Leah.

Katie Parsons:
Hello.

Leah Sax:
Thank you.

Adam Curtis:
Well, these guys wonderfully took me into their home day after day after day and stop me going totally insane. And now they’ve even more kindly agreed to come onto the Delight Podcast and share some wisdom on Spiritual battles. But before we delve into this fascinating topic, let’s hear a little bit more from them. Katie, why don’t we kick start with you? Do you want to give us a little bit about your story, who you are and how you came to know the Lord?

Katie Parsons:
I expect you can hear a little twang in my accent is that I’m a New Zealander and I grew up in New Zealand and I was studying there and I finished and I thought, I really want to travel. I’m feeling so dissatisfied with life is this really it. I went on a Christian camp before I left New Zealand and I was driving up there and thinking, I should just turn the car around. This is going to be really boring. I don’t want to spend a week with Christians, but when I arrived, I met a friend called Joe who said to me, What does God think of your travel plans? And it had never crossed my mind that God would have an opinion. So for the first time that week, it felt like I heard the gospel that Jesus had died for my sins and that God had raised him from the dead. And in the middle of the week, I prayed that God would forgive me, and I said, If you could just give me one more chance, you can have my life. And so that was in 1997, and I left New Zealand six weeks later, and it’s just been an amazing adventure ever since.

Adam Curtis:
Where did you go after New Zealand?

Katie Parsons:
I had six months of travel planned, so I travel through South East Asia and then my ticket ended in the UK. And during my travelling around, I’d been reading a book about how to live as an authentic Christian, and part of it had been about finding a good church. And I thought, Oh, I’m going to have to go to church now. What a drag. And it it talked about what to look for in a good church somewhere that would teach the Bible and trained believers and be somewhere you could bring your non-Christian friends to. So I had this idea in my mind and I had to call my sister and this was pretty mobile phone. So she was going to be standing by a payphone in Israel, and I needed to find a payphone and call her at a particular time of day. And I looked I was shopping an Oxford Street and I looked at Regent Street and there are some phone boxes. I had five minutes to spare, so I thought I would pop into that church looks interesting and it was called All Souls Church in Langham Place, and I picked up some of the leaflets they had. That was in April, in 1997, and I read them and thought, this look like the kind of church that that book was describing. So I went, I continue with my travels. I came back to the UK in September, and I really didn’t know whether to go home or to stay. I thought, I’ll try that church that I got the information from. And so I went and I just absolutely loved it. I was 23 and there were people there that were my age and really, I probably stayed for the church and then I met my husband.

Adam Curtis:
Well, let’s turn to that that husband of yours, Mr Tom Parsons, why don’t we go back to the beginning? Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became to came to know Jesus.

Tom Parsons:
I grew up in a home that was there was a strong Christian influence, particularly for my mum and went to church. Although it has to be said the church was not a sort of church. I’d recommend anyone to go to really in the sense that the message of the Bible just wasn’t very clear at all the message of Jesus. So I think it wasn’t really till I was on a summer camp like Katie. Actually, she became a Christian Scripture Union summer camp. So did I in Somerset when I was about 14 and I became a Christian. Then it made total sense that Jesus died on the cross. I should be under God’s judgement that he had gone there instead on the cross and it set me free. The idea that God love me that much completely gripped me. But what was interesting and really sad was that for the next few years, it was like my heart had been won, but my mind had not been won. I was not thinking like a Christian at all. And as a result didn’t live like one. And it wasn’t really till I got. I went to music school in Manchester for a couple of years.

Tom Parsons:
That was I was everywhere, looking around at different churches, just trying to make sense of what had happened to me when I was 14. It wasn’t actually until I came down to study music in London, aged 18, that I went to actually the same church Katie just mentioned a minute ago All Souls, and for the first time, heard the Bible preached in a way that I could understand, in a way that made sense to me. And suddenly it was like that grip of the good news that I had at 14. Suddenly it came into full colour and the life so that really I just started growing just like I would never have imagined. And I just think getting involved in serving him as well in the Christian Union at Music College, and that was a huge impact as well. I mean, I did five years at music college and then started working for the church. I was there at All Souls Church and That’s where Katie and I met. And here we are just about 20 years later with three children.

Leah Sax:
Tom, you say that you’re thinking just wasn’t really in the right place, but it kind of changed when you came to a church that was teaching the Bible. Was there something specific or a sermon or a certain passages that really spoke to you that suddenly kind of opened up your mind to change your thinking?

Tom Parsons:
Yeah, no. There was. It came down to the authority of the Bible and the church I had gone to as a child and teenager very much took a view of the Bible that it was, you know, it was certainly to be respected, but didn’t have authority because you didn’t take it like that. What really changed my mind? I can remember hearing a sermon. There’s a famous story in the Gospels when Jesus is engaging with a group of people called the Sadducees and the Sadducees, They respected the Scriptures, the Bible, but they didn’t really take its authority very seriously, and Jesus takes them to task and says to them, You’re wrong about all sorts of things because you don’t know the scriptures or the power of God. It was like, oh yeah, that’s right. That’s actually what I’ve been like. I haven’t actually really acknowledged that the Bible, the scriptures as the authority and I haven’t experienced the power of God there and seen it. And so once I recognised that suddenly I thought I’ve got to come under the Bible’s authority and accept it, and as I did suddenly, well, things just opened up.

Adam Curtis:
Ok, so it seems like for both of you became Christians and then both, you got heavily involved in All Souls and it’s wonderful church and your faith really came alive and really moved to the next level. Can we go back to those those early days? What helped you mature when you were still quite new to Christian things?

Tom Parsons:
So many things. I mean, one thing was actually knowing the Bible, and I realised that before I knew lots of snippets from it, but I didn’t actually know it. And actually seeing how it all fitted together and how it all pointed to Jesus was a massive thing. I mean, another thing was learning some of the evidence for Christianity. I just had a huge impact on me. Maybe that really helped to assure me, well, when I became a Christian, when I was 14, the man who helped me said to me back then, he’s a wonderful man. His name’s Dennis. He said, Basically, it’s Bible and prayer morning and night for you every day of your life. Ok. And did it. And so even as a teenager, actually, I was reading the Bible and praying every day. And I’m so glad because actually, when I finally really got to grips with my mind, suddenly all these things that I had read before, once I had once I could see how it all fitted together, suddenly it’s like, Oh, yes, that’s what that meant. That’s what that meant.

Leah Sax:
Yeah.

Tom Parsons:
And but that habit of reading the Bible and praying that that was just ingrained very, very early, and I’m so grateful that it was because I think that really helped me grow.

Katie Parsons:
Well, for me. So my background, I had just graduated in fashion design and I was working for a designer over here, but I was involved in church and having become a Christian, my priorities were just so different. And so I was leaving my job every day and going to something else at church. And that’s what I look forward to. And so I really wanted to leave my job and I didn’t know what to do next, and I was praying about it, and they advertised positions as a lay assistant also where you do lots of cleaning and caretaking and you get theological teaching and pastoral placement in the church. And I actually remember praying to the Lord and saying, I wish I was interested in that because that would really solve all my problems, but I’m not. And the more I prayed about what to do, the more this was just the front of my mind, and I thought, Oh, I look into it. And of course, I ended up being a lay assistant. I’d been a Christian for a year and a half by then. And I remember praying again that the Lord might give me some really good friends because I was on the other side of the world and I, you know, become friendly with people at church. But they weren’t good friends and he just answered that prayer amazingly in that year. So there were four of us who lay assistants, and Tom started working at the same time. And you know, the four of us just really became very good friends and obviously Tom as well. And through all the teaching and training that we had, I grew so much and both of us look back and think we’re so privileged about all the input we had as young Christians and the teaching we had, and we so took it for granted. We thought that that was normal,

Tom Parsons:
Totally for granted.

Katie Parsons:
Yeah. And now we just think, wow, we were so blessed by how much people taught us and fed us and those early years.

Adam Curtis:
Okay, so both of you guys now have been Christians for over 20 years. So as you look back over these years, what are the things you think the Lord has been teaching you? Has a lord been growing you and maturity?

Katie Parsons:
I think some of the times of real growth are when you reach a point where you really don’t know what to do and you don’t have a solution and you just lift it up to the Lord and say, I don’t know what to do and I have to pass it over to you because you know what to do and you can do something about it and then you see that he does. I think for me, those have been times that I’ve really grown and I’ve seen how incredibly faithful he is. What about you, Tom?

Tom Parsons:
You know what? I think I might say something similar that those actually that you think you’re in the slow land in those moments when things are really quite hard and you discover when you look back, you think, actually I was in the fast lane, I didn’t realise because you just learnt so much from that. I can’t do it. I kind of wish it wasn’t that way, really, because it can be quite difficult in those moments. But yeah, you do learn and you really do grow. And suddenly all the things that you’ve learnt in Fairweather suddenly come to life in a storm.

Leah Sax:
We’d love for you to check out our website at DelightPodcast.com. There you can find transcripts of each episode, more detailed show notes and Adam’s fabulous blogs, including the new one this week, looking more into Spiritual battles. We’d love for you to subscribe and share, and even if you wish, review Delight Podcast. It makes a big difference and helps others find us more easily. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter. Just search Delight Podcast now back to Tom and Katie as we chat through Spiritual battles.

Leah Sax:
So now we are moving to the part of our podcast where we talk about our topic today, which is Spiritual battles, and we live in a culture which is obsessed with the with a battle between good and evil, whether it’s Marvel films or good old Buffy the Vampire Slayer from my youth or just good vibes versus bad karma. But on our little Delight Podcast, we are really seeking biblical truth and we are Christians, and we really know that God exists and that he is real and that he has chosen us. But does the devil exist?Tom, what are your thoughts?

Tom Parsons:
Well, yes, he does. And the reason I say he does is because Jesus obviously thinks that he does. One of the first things Jesus does just after he was baptised in the stories in the Gospels is that he goes and he faces down the devil in the wilderness, which is really interesting because that takes you into the whole big story of the Bible. Because right at the beginning, the first human beings face down the devil in a garden, they had everything going for them in the beautiful garden and they mucked it up. Jesus, there in the wilderness, he won. And then there is life. He kept encountering manifestations of the devil and overcame them, and it was very clear to everyone that he had power to do that. And he engaged with that. Then, ultimately, by his cross, he knew that by his death, he was going finally to confront the devil and beat him. So Jesus totally took the devil very, very seriously. And so if someone says, why do you believe in the devil? I’d say, Well, Jesus did, so I do as well. And in fact, the whole Bible is very clear.

Leah Sax:
Who does the Bible say the devil is?

Tom Parsons:
To be honest, the Bible doesn’t kind of give a bit that says, right. Let’s talk about the devil now. Here are all the bits you need to know Bom bom bom bom bom because the Bible doesn’t want us to major on the devil, but just to be aware of the devil. So in a way, you have to pick up snippets of bits and pieces about the devil. So the devil seems very clearly to be an angel. There are passages in the prophets, like in Isaiah and Ezekiel, which talk about this glorious angel, this figure of an angel who full of pride decided that he wanted to be God. And so rather than submit to God and serve in heaven, he preferred to rule. In doing so, he dragged humanity with him and tried as best he could to muck up the very people in the creation who God have made in his image so that the devil, in other words, is a creature he’s created. God created him good as an angel. But in his pride, he turned against God. That’s really important to know, because when we’re talking about the battle of good and evil, it’s not that good and evil are equal forces. Not at all. God alone is the one who was there before the world began. He alone is God. The devil is just an angel. So the opposite number of the devil is not Jesus, the son of God, the opposite number of the devil. If anybody, if you had going to talk about how that would be another angel. Like, I don’t know, a power like Gabriel or whatever one of the, you know, the big, powerful angels. We’re talking about an angel who has fallen and we’re not talking about someone who is divine or eternal. And that’s good news, because if he’s a creature, that means he’s never, ever able to overpower God, It cannot be done.

Leah Sax:
And that is so exciting and very important to remember, especially when I’m going to be honest, like fairly nervous about delving in today’s topic because I feel that frequently as Christians, perhaps we just don’t talk about this very much. And the idea of there being a spiritual realm is sometimes something we objectively know because we know and believe God and we know of the angels, but we don’t talk about that. Katie, what are your thoughts? We see demons in the Bible. Do you think we still have demons today? Is that part of the spiritual realm still present in our 21st century life?

Katie Parsons:
Yeah, it’s interesting that you said that, you know, that’s something that isn’t really talked about or we’re aware of so much. And I think that’s quite cultural that in our society, we sort of are too rational to think that there could be the spiritual realm. But in a lot of other cultures, that’s just known and accepted and understood. And there’s something that’s always stuck in my mind about this. I don’t know if you’ve ever read a book called The Screw Tape Letters by C.S. Lewis. It’s a fiction book about a senior devil instructing a junior devil, and he just talks about, you know, one of our great victories was persuading everyone that we’re just a joke and that we have red horns and a tail. And so people in our society think if they do think of the devil, he’s just a joke to be worn as a costume or whatever. But in the Bible, he’s very much real and has a purpose to prevent people from trusting in Jesus and to keep the world enslaved. I think that’s what he’s doing at the moment, and one way that he can keep us enslaved is to have us not believe in him,

Tom Parsons:
You know, are there demons today. There’s no reason to think there aren’t. And again, to a western rational mindset, this is all very weird. But like Katie was just Saying many parts of the world, they’re perfectly well aware of Spiritual forces that interact with real life and the Bible, I think would see those as demons and demons in the Bible are simply other angels who Satan, This particularly powerful angel has taken with him into rebellion against the living God and those demons the way they operate is not known. If you come across anybody claiming to know in detail how demons operate, then they’re speaking well beyond what the Bible allows them to say. But we can, I think, say confidently Yes, there is demonic activity, but very often the the Bible talks about the devil in terms of two animals, talks about the devil in terms of a lion like roaring and being totally like aggressive and everything. And that’s what we would associate demons with. But the other animal is the snake, the insinuating hissing snake that just lies and but then bites. And I think that in terms of the way in which our culture works is much more what we have. We have much more of the snake than the lion. The snake just sort of whispers and says, Yeah, it’s not really true. Is it is that demonic? Yeah. Is that like demon possession in terms of like the Omen or whatever? no, it’s probably not helpful to think in those categories.

Leah Sax:
I must say I’m quite fascinated that we live in this very rational society that is simultaneously obsessed with films and books about, you know, angels and vampires and demons. And it’s. And yet we as people can frequently just not accept this existence. But as believers, we know that there is a spiritual battle going on. And actually, I’m fascinated that we’re doing this. And it was Katie who suggested we do the topic. Adam then roped her in to be the guest along with Tom today. But Katie? Can you tell us what? What do we kind of mean by Spiritual battles? Why do you think it’s important that we’re talking about this topic?

Katie Parsons:
Well, Spiritual battle is mentioned a lot in the Bible, so Ephesians Chapter six finishes with this passage about pulling up, putting on the armour of God, which is you need armour when you’re going into a battle and it’s putting on the armour of God against the devil. So the Bible is very real that there is an enemy who’s trying to draw Christians away. And I think the devil probably has three goals. One is to keep people enslaved to him because it definitely says in the Bible that people are either enslaved to the devil or slaves to Christ. Like we don’t live as free agents who choose our own destinies. So the devil wants to keep people away from being forgiven and saved. And then if people do become Christians, the devil wants to make them fruitless and to prevent them from having the joy and freedom that Jesus has died to give us. And so what Tom and I have often seen as we’ve been in ministry, is people who become Christians, and we’re absolutely amazed and so delighted and can’t quite believe it. But then we don’t see them grow because something happens that makes their faith, either. They doubt that it could be real or they just get too busy or whatever it is, it stops them from going on to fulfil all the promise that it seemed they had when they became Christians.

Katie Parsons:
And I think that the devil sometimes steps in and and stops. All that could happen, and people don’t even realise that this is a danger. And so when Adam said that the podcast was particularly aimed at helping new Christians to grow, I just thought it was really important to make people aware that there is an enemy who wants to stop Christians from growing. And so the devil is not someone that we are something that we should be afraid of or even worry about or dwell on, particularly. But Jesus has told us that we can resist all his schemes if we stay with Jesus. We’ve seen many young Christians make a start and then not really grow as Christians, and I think that the devil has all kinds of schemes that he employs to try and stop Christians from growing. And so just to even raise awareness of it in a podcast like this is great because the devil is not someone that we should be frightened of or fear, but to just acknowledge that that is another thing that could draw us away from all that Jesus has for us.

Leah Sax:
And I think it’s important. I know that Tom acknowledged at the beginning that Jesus is King. So we acknowledge that throughout this podcast, but we want to recognise the reality of what living life as a believer is like. Tom, what can Spiritual battles look like? Very practically? Or perhaps what have you seen other believers walk through?

Tom Parsons:
I think of two major things. I mean, there are lots of different… I just I stumbled across a book actually today that I had on my shelf for years. It’s called Precious Remedies against Satan’s devices. It’s back from the 17th century. What is a great name, isn’t it? Thomas Brooks, one of the great Puritan writers, and I look through the index of all these different, all these Satan’s devices, these schemes that he has. I, well, look at all these. There’s pages after pages of these devices and remedies to it. It’s a wonderful book, actually. But I think if you boil it down, two things stand out about what how the devil launches Spiritual attacks. And one is the clue is in his name. The name Satan means accuser. And so Satan’s way is to say to people and to say, particularly to Christians,He says, You are a Christian. Look at the state of your rubbish. You’re hopeless.

Tom Parsons:
There’s no hope for you whatsoever. You might as well give up. Look at you. What a pathetic excuse for a Christian you are. And that is. Of course, we call that being condemned. And in a way, the devil’s got a point in that, you know, we are we, you know, we don’t. None of us deserve to be in the Kingdom of God. In a sense, that’s quite true. But Jesus has made it possible, and the Bible says there is now no condemnation For those who are in Christ, that’s Romans 8:1, they say the devil. He’s an accuser, he’s a condemner, and that is one of his big tactics that he uses. The other one is to do with the fact that he lies. So Jesus says that in John Chapter 8, where there’s a lot about this that the devil is a liar and the father of lies. And so what the devil does is he just twists the truth constantly. He did it right back in the Garden of Eden at the beginning when he lied to the woman to Eve about what the consequences would be. That’s a classic one. The consequences? There’ll be no consequences. He says to us, those lies come to us. You know, he dangles the bait but hides the hook constantly.

Tom Parsons:
That kind of will lie to us about all sorts of things. ‘God won’t mind. It won’t do anything. It won’t harm your Christian life at all.’ No, you can do that. You can have the world and you can have Jesus. Of course you can. Even though Jesus has said, you can’t. And so constantly he’s lying. So I think those two things in terms of Spiritual attacks, just quite a good thing to have in the mind from the beginning. He condemns, he accuses, and he lies. So it’s true that there are circumstances that he can influence. The Bible talks about that. Not, not a lot, but it does. It mentions it. He can muck up our circumstances and lobbing a hand grenade. But when that hand grenade lands in life in our circumstances, then the issue then becomes, What am I going to do about it? Am I going to trust in Jesus and his truth? Am I going to trust in Jesus and the fact that he has forgiven me? Or am I going to give way to the devil’s condemnation? That tells me that because this has happened, I can’t be a Christian, really? Or am I going to give way to his lies?

Leah Sax:
I’m going to question up to both of you. See who answers first?

Katie Parsons:
Hands on buzzer!

Leah Sax:
Could you imagine, I guess, going with your two points, Tom, of certainly being accuser and the father of lies. How can we recognise what is a Spiritual battle and what is just us having a hard time and feeling like for want of a better word? It’s just a time of trial.How can we kind of differentiate? Is it easy to differentiate between the two?

Katie Parsons:
I don’t mind starting. I think that we sometimes don’t even need to know which it is because it’s probably a combination that we still have our sinful natures in us. And so the devil loves to make those voice versus speak loudly in our head. And I think that something that I’ve recognised as a spiritual battle since I was a young Christian is that the devil is always trying to keep you away from things that will help you grow as a Christian. So I used to really not want to go to the prayer gathering every Tuesday. I just think I’m too tired. Oh no, I’ve got to go and I’d go and I’d love it every time. And then the next week, I think I’m too tired. I don’t want to go. And I think that happens in all kinds of ways. There’s always a reason not to go to church, not to read your Bible, not to pray, not to meet with other Christians. I don’t know if it’s the devil actively doing that or our sinful nature that we’re allowing to come to the front or a combination of the two. But I think things that prevent us from growing as Christian becoming like Jesus are definitely things that the devil is keen to promote.

Tom Parsons:
The way that we often talk of Christians often talk about the enemies are the world, the flesh and the devil. That’s the sort of a quite a common trio that you talk about in terms of our enemies, the world that is like the kind of the whole network of relationships and everything that this world values this world apart from God in its rebellion, the world, the flesh that’s like basically me and what I want deep in my heart, the flesh and the devil. I imagine it. This is my sort of mental picture in a way that you’ve got a cauldron, and in that cauldron, you’ve got the flesh not being just my physical body necessarily including that, but more my desires and everything. You’ve got the flesh, you’ve got the world and all its attraction. Throw in there the difficult circumstances, the distracting, positive things that can happen, all the circumstances and the devil’s like there. With this wooden spoon stirring it all up and intensifying everything. We look at the world who think, Oh, that’s really nice, I’d like that. And the devil goes, Yeah, you really want it, don’t you? And the flesh thinks, Oh, I want this, and the devil goes, Yeah, you really want that, don’t you? He, like, increases the strength of all these temptations and stirs. And so I agree with totally agree with Katie that in a sense, it doesn’t matter when a particular thing happens, which aspect of it is world, which is flesh and which is death, or inevitably, all three are wound up in it. The key thing is to come to Christ and to repent of sin and move forward, and then you experience his power.

Leah Sax:
If we repent, we come to Jesus and we know that Jesus has dealt with everything at the cross. Why do we still then have Spiritual battles if J esus says it is finished?

Tom Parsons:
So yeah, why do we still have Spiritual battles if Jesus has dealt with it at the cross? Ok. Yes, he has by his blood. It’s very clear the book of Revelation like it’s almost the central verse in the whole book of Revelation. Revelation Chapter 12 is about how Satan was overcome by the blood of Jesus. So yes, he is defeated at the cross, but he is not removed until Jesus comes again to establish the new creation. And at that point, he is banished into the well, The Bible talks about it as a lake of fire, basically into into destruction forever. Yes. In the meantime, we live in this. This time I think of it as like swatting a wasp. You know, when you swat a wasp, maybe you don’t know you are like a wasp lover. But when I swat a wasp, you hit, you swipe them and it’s the terminal blow that wasp is not coming back. But be careful with that wasp because that wasp can still sting you. There’s a moment between the terminal blow and then when you finally squash it with whatever you’re going to squash it with. And that’s the end of the Wasp. And so we’re living in that time when the devil has been dealt the terminal blow by Jesus bloodshed on the cross and by his resurrection, Jesus has sealed the victory and he’s ascended into heaven. Bible talks about that in terms of going higher than all the authority and power in the universe. So that is absolutely and completely true, which means that in this Spiritual battle, it’s not like we’re fighting wondering what the outcome is going to be. We are standing on victory and fighting from victory that Christ has already won. We are pressing home the victory that Jesus has already won. Looking forward to the day when he will come and the devil the wasp will finally be ‘thsurssppp’. So does that new? Does that? Does that sound come out alright on the podcast? He will be squished!

Leah Sax:
I mean, I will never squash a wasp in the same way without thinking of the victory of the cross. I mean, every single time. Right?

Tom Parsons:
And I think that’s why we experience this in this age. And as Katie emphasised earlier on The Devil’s his aim is to disrupt the work of God, ultimately in the Church of God. That’s where the work of Christ is focussed at the centre of it. That’s where he’s focussed on wrecking it. So he is a beaten foe, but he is not yet a removed foe.

Leah Sax:
So you’ve talked about spiritual battles and it has been, frankly, Tom and Katie, very eye-opening and very helpful. And there’s going to make me think a lot about things a bit differently. Katie, how can we fight an enemy we cannot see?

Katie Parsons:
Oh, now that’s a great question, because we can’t, and I definitely don’t think we should ever try to fight the devil. So the wonderful thing is, like Tom was saying, Jesus has beaten him. He is destroyed. And so all we need to do is cling on to Jesus. If ever you feel frightened of evil or Spiritual forces or anything like that, you just run to Jesus. And actually, I say sometimes, you know, Jesus, please come in your protection. Cover me with the blood of the Lord Jesus. The devil is afraid of Jesus, and so he’s not afraid of me, and there’s nothing I can do to fight him. But I just say, Jesus, I’m yours and you have beaten the devil, and I have nothing to fear. So holding tight onto Jesus is the number one important thing. But then the Bible has a lot of advice about how to make him leave us. One of the things is Resist the devil flee, run away. So if you’re tempted by something, just get out of there. Don’t think I’m strong enough and I can resist this on my own. Just leave. I think that’s a really good piece of advice. But no, never think you can fight the devil. Just know that Jesus has done it all for you.

Tom Parsons:
It’s really Interesting. I think people and this this comes up in the Bible as well, is that people think and talk as though we can engage the devil directly and actually speak to the devil to rebuke or whatever it may be that some Christians think differently to me on this, but I think the Bible is pretty clear that that’s actually not what we do, but rather we go to the Lord, to Jesus and we say, Jesus, you deal with this. Insofar as whatever this issue is, is to do with the devil. Jesus, you deal with it by your spirit. Will you deal with it? If you want a hair raising story, go and read Act Chapter 19 later on. And if you read it, you’ll know what I mean that it’s not very wise to go engaging directly with the devil. No, stay safe in Jesus.

Adam Curtis:
I’ve often had conversations with believers and they’ve spoken about, they’ve gone into into a room in their house and they feel a really strong, like dark sort of force and presence there. And they’re overwhelmed by it and they’re terrified by it. What would advice would you give to someone who finds themselves in that situation?

Katie Parsons:
I think it depends if they are a believer or if they’re not, I think if they’re not a believer, the only thing they can do is turn to Jesus and he is stronger than anything, but they cannot do anything on their own. There’s a wonderful verse for believers to hold on to, and 1 John 4 says you dear children such as talking to children of God. You dear children are from God and have overcome them, which is evil in the world because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. And that’s the thing. Jesus is so much greater that we don’t need to be afraid of any of the Spiritual things. I mean, we also shouldn’t mess with any of those kind of things. Christians are told to stay away from anything that is outside of Jesus in the spiritual realm, but we’re not to be afraid of it because Jesus is so much greater.

Tom Parsons:
When we were 13 at school, our RE teacher decided to show us the Omen, which is a film all about demons, basically. I don’t know what he was thinking and we watched this and I was absolutely scared witless, went home and sensing that the power of evil in a way I hadn’t before. And I remember my mum just sitting by my bed reading to me from the Bible, the 23rd Psalm. That’s it. Yes, it’s the Lord. I need to trust in the Lord. When these things happen and you do get this, people will say, you know, I feel a presence in the room or whatever. Or there’s there’s there’s, you know, there’s a. Things are moving or whatever, you know, that does seem to be able to happen sometimes. And again, exactly what’s going on. If anyone claims exactly to know what’s going on, they’re talking beyond what they can possibly actually know. What I say to people when they tell me about things like that is I say, well, maybe whatever is happening and I can’t exactly tell you what this is, how I think you should interpret it, interpret it as the living God, tapping you on the shoulder, saying you need to seek me. It’s time to seek me. There’s more to reality than you usually realise, and it’s time for you to seek me to seek Jesus. Because if you seek me in Jesus, you’ll find me and then you will be safe from whatever it may be.

Adam Curtis:
Yeah, as you’re speaking there, like Colossians 2:15 is sort of coming to mind.

Tom Parsons:
It’s a good one. It’s one of the best ones go on.

Adam Curtis:
Well, I haven’t got it precisely

Leah Sax:
Oh, I do have it.

Adam Curtis:
Oh, do you, then Leah you say that

Leah Sax:
At the cross, these powers have been beaten and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them by the cross

Tom Parsons:
Yeah that’s exactly it, he’s won.

Katie Parsons:
Ephesians 6 is just fantastic for a Christian to, you know, how do you take your stand against the devil as you put on God’s armour of truth and faith and righteousness and you’re prepared and things like that? So, you know, not that we would ever go looking, but but the Bible does tell us how we can stand against the devil schemes by trusting in Jesus and believing what he tells us and his word.

Tom Parsons:
It’s really interesting. Ephesians 6 talks about the armour of God, and it’s really clear that the armour is God’s, but he lends it to us, and so I remember going to talking to somebody. She was helping me Pastor because I was in a bit of a pickle. She basically said, Well, I mean, obviously you pray the armour of God on each morning, don’t you? And I was like, No, she’s like, she’s like what? You don’t pray the armour of God on every morning.Like, I was kind of from a different planet. And so from that moment, that’s what I’ve done.

Leah Sax:
So we’ve talked a lot about spiritual battles, and I love at the beginning. We started by going, Jesus has finished everything at the cross. If you’re like, you’ve just listened to this podcast and you’re and you believe you, you’re like, Oh no, I’m going to have all these spiritual battles. Waaa! I love it, Like one piece of encouraging wisdom and experience from both of you to kind of finish off our time together. Tom, would you mind going first?

Tom Parsons:
The devil is is a tempter. It’s really interesting. The devil actually can’t make us sin. He can suggest it. You can put ideas in our heads. You can create circumstances that might particularly sort of tilt us over into sinning against God. But he can’t make us do it. Actually, we have that choice to make. Temptation can become utterly, utterly crippling. And but there’s that promise in 1 Corinthians 10, which is so wonderful that says God will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear. And do you remember the Lord’s Prayer, which I pray daily because we’re supposed to pray the Lord’s Prayer? Although long those themes every day lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one or deliver us from evil. We need to pray that when temptation does come, the Lord will deliver us in it. And he has promised there in 1 Corinthians that he will. Don’t think I’m going to be dropped in at the deep end. Jesus has got you. No one will snatch you out of his hand. He won’t let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.

Leah Sax:
Wonderful, Katie?

Katie Parsons:
There are two things that I would like to say is if you’re like me and you feel this little voice all the time going, Oh, don’t go, you’ve got other things to do rather than go to church or you’re too busy to read the Bible, just do it anyway. Go to that meeting, read the Bible, pray because you’ll find that it’s actually something that you are fed by and leads to wonderful things. And the devil wants to stop that. Like, he only has bad things in mind for you. And so don’t listen to those things that are trying to keep you away from what God wants you to do. There’s a verse from James 4 about that says, Submit yourselves then to God, resist the devil and he’ll flee from you. I would definitely say that’s a way to to grow in your Christian life and to not be tempted is just to do it anyway. What you what you know you should do as a Christian and want to do deep down. And the second thing is that we don’t need to fear. There’s a wonderful verse at the end of Romans 8 that says, for I am convinced that neither death nor life nor the angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future nor any powers nor hide nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ, Jesus, our Lord. And that’s the thing to hold on to. Most of all, like it feels like such a waste of our time to have spent so much time now talking about the devil because he has been overcome and Jesus is so much greater. And why couldn’t we have just spent that time talking about him? It’s just a caution so that we don’t get drawn away from all the good things that God has for us and Christ Jesus.

Adam Curtis:
That was just so helpful. I was just saying I came into this episode, and even as we’re starting to talk about it, I’m like, Oh, we’re talking about the devil. This is just actually a little bit scary as we’re talking about something which is terrifying and we should rightly be on guard against I’m encouraged

Leah Sax:
I know. And I came in because this is we we plan like, who doesn’t into you, who does like the biography part of things. And I was really genuinely quite nervous about interviewing Tom and Katie because I just felt so ill equipped on the topic. And I know Adam, you and I chatted through it before, which was so helpful, but it was just amazing to learn that. But also at the end go eyes to Jesus. We’re talking about this. We’re acknowledging this is the spiritual realm is real, that battles are real, that stuff goes on. That is of the work of the devil. But no, we come back to Jesus and to have that eyes up and to acknowledge the truth of Spiritual battles. Yeah, brought a great sense of peace.

Adam Curtis:
Oh yes, definitely. The fact that one Jesus has the victory, he’s won. He’s dealt with the devil, his blood, his has defeated him, but also two God has also now equipped us. That line I think Tom threw in there from Ephesians like six. This is the this is the armour of God, and he’s lent it to us. Jesus defeats the devil and God then equips us to fight him or the love it.

Leah Sax:
Thank you, Tom and Katie, so much for today. It’s been so helpful. We’d like to ask our guests a bonus question for our season two. The question is who is the person who has encouraged you most in your faith?

Tom Parsons:
Oh, there’ve been so many people. I think honestly, it’s going to sound very hackneyed. It’s actually Katie.

Katie Parsons:
We’re very sickening because I was going to say, Tom,

Leah Sax:
That’s so Wonderful.

Tom Parsons:
I think that’s that is that is that is honestly the truth.

Adam Curtis:
Your children are listening to this vomiting.

Katie Parsons:
I’m sure they are!

Leah Sax:
Thank you so much to Tom and Katie for being our guests on episode nine of Delight Podcast. If you want to get in touch with us, don’t forget you can find us at hello@DelightPodcast.com. This is Leah and Adam delightfully signing off. Bye!

Adam Curtis:
goodbye.