Jonathan “JP” Pokluda says spiritual warfare aims at a pastor's faith, and that a gap between public ministry and private life gives it an opening. Ed Stetzer asks Pokluda a question many church leaders carry: when a community shows a pattern like consumerism or performance, a leader has to decide whether to call it idolatry and call for repentance, address it missiologically, or rebuke it as demonic, and each choice shapes how that leader prays. Pokluda draws no firm line between them. He says the enemy runs many strategies and that the main one is distraction from God, with comparison and discontent as its ordinary means. He adds a third error to the two C.S. Lewis named, ignoring the devil and obsessing over him: believing the enemy exists and letting that change nothing about how one lives. He points to the shield of faith and to Jesus's prayer that Peter's faith would not fail to argue that faith is what the enemy targets and what protects, and he says that teaching a congregation to perform faith, rather than live it, ends in disaster. Pokluda is Lead Pastor of Harris Creek Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, and the author of Your Story Has a Villain, Welcome to Adulting, and Outdated. He previously led The Porch in Dallas, a weekly young adult gathering.
Ed Stetzer asks JP Pokluda how a church leader tells a cultural problem from a spiritual one, and how the answer changes the way that leader prays. Pokluda says that the enemy goes after faith, and that authenticity is the best protection for a pastor and a congregation.
How can a pastor take spiritual warfare seriously without obsessing over it?
Stetzer raises C.S. Lewis’s two errors of ignoring the devil and obsessing over him. Pokluda adds a third: believing the enemy exists and letting that belief change nothing about how one lives. Stetzer asks whether a leader should call consumerism and performance idolatry and call for repentance, address them missiologically, or rebuke them as demonic. Pokluda says no one can know exactly where one ends and the other begins. He says the enemy runs many strategies and that the main one is distraction from God, with comparison and discontent as its ordinary means.
What protects a pastor and a congregation from spiritual attack?
Pokluda’s answer is straightforward: faith. He points to the shield of faith and to Jesus's prayer that Peter's faith would not fail, and he says that studying the subject left him less afraid and more faithful. The weight falls on what a pastor teaches, Pokluda argues. Leaders who train a congregation to look and sound like Christians while living differently in private, he says, are building toward disaster.
From the conversation
“As with all wars and all battles, there's lots of strategies, there's tributary fights, but the main current of what they're trying to do is distract us from the most high God, the creator of the heavens and the earth.” JP Pokluda
“They're really looking for that inauthenticity. They're looking for double lives. They're looking for the pretenders. They have a heyday with that.” JP Pokluda
“Be holy because he's holy, but not in an effort to appear holy, but to genuinely live a holy life.” JP Pokluda
About JP Pokluda
Jonathan “JP” Pokluda is Lead Pastor of Harris Creek Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, and the author of Your Story Has a Villain, Welcome to Adulting, and Outdated. He previously led The Porch in Dallas.
[00:00:00] JP Pokluda: They've got one core strategy. As with all wars and all battles, there's lots of strategies, there's tributary fights, but the main current of what they're trying to do is distract us from the most high God, the creator of the heavens and the earth.
[00:00:18] Ed Stetzer: What if your story really has a villain? Not like metaphorically, not simply the brokenness of the world or the consequences of bad choices. What if there really is a spiritual enemy who wants to distract you, discourage you, and undermine your faith, and if you're a Christian leader, derail your ministry? So most Christians, I mean, believe generically in spiritual warfare. I mean, it's in the Bible, but then there's these weird people who practice it weirdly, and so some people are like, "Well, I don't wanna do that." But I'm not sure most of us actually live like we believe it's real. Maybe we're responding to the strangeness that we've seen in others, and there are dangers on both sides. C.S. Lewis famously warned about disbelieving in demons or developing an unhealthy fascination with them, those two alternatives.
[00:01:01] So how do we take spiritual warfare seriously without getting weird about it? How do we distinguish temptation, ordinary suffering, cultural idolatry, and actual demonic activity, which is real. I've seen it up close. Are there really spiritual strongholds over cities and communities, and what should pastors actually do differently? What does it matter if the spiritual realm is every bit as real as the scripture seems to, imply it is? So my guest today is J.P. Pakluda. He's a pastor, author, someone who admits he started studying the subject because he realized how much he still had to learn. His new book is Your Story Has a Villain, and today we're gonna talk about demons and spiritual strongholds, prayer, temptation, the armor of God, and perhaps why the most important response to spiritual warfare is not becoming obsessed with the devil and weird, but becoming a more faithful follower of Jesus.
[00:01:49] So I'm Ed Stetzer. This is The Exchange. I'm here with the Gloo team. This podcast is sponsored and made in partnership, with Gloo. Let's get into it.
[00:02:01] Okay, JP, let's talk some about this idea of a villain in the story. You have a book, it's called Your Story Has a Villain. Where did this, like, come from? This is something you wanted to write on. What, like, burdened you about this?
[00:02:01] JP Pokluda: Yeah. Thanks for having me on—
[00:02:01] Ed Stetzer: Oh, good.
[00:02:01] JP Pokluda: —first of all. Glad to. I was raised Catholic, didn't go to church in college, partied. They say drugs, sex, and rock and roll. Drugs, sex, and hip hop in my case. And I got saved in a church that was, very biblically sound. I mean, I learned the Bible. And now you fast-forward, I'm a pastor. I'm on staff at that church. I leave to go be a part of 150-year-old Baptist church in the country, outside of Waco, Texas. And I pull into Waco, and I'm like, "Man, there is a, there is something here."
[00:02:46] There's a stronghold. But I didn't have, I didn't even have a vocabulary for it. So I'm like, "There's something, there's a spirit of religion. There's something here." So I'm trying to figure out what that is, and people are walking me through the history, and, "Hey, did you know the last red-light district in Texas was here? And did you know the last public lynching was here? And did you know this?" And I was just, like, learning. And then there's, we have this large Baptist university right in the center of the city, and we punch way above our weight in national news in terms of, you know, mass shootings at Twin Peaks to a tornado to David Koresh in the '80s.
[00:03:22] You know, there's lots of things, to Chip and Jo. Good news also, you know, fixer-upper. And I'm just trying to f- get my bearings on that. And I'm like, "I think I need to study up on spiritual warfare." And it was like, I mean, I've been a pastor for 13 years, and I'm like, "Oh, man, there's an invisible army around us." I remember learning about this back in Catholic school. Now of course, I knew that. You know, I know Genesis 3 and I know how the story ends and some of the things in between. There was a demonized person. But I'm really getting my bearings on this, and I'm like, "I think this has a lot more, implications than I could have ever realized for my ministry, for my family, for my life."
[00:03:59] "For what I believe about God, for how I feel." Right now, you know, it's like I've got allergies. My throat's clawing. I'm like, "What is that? I'm about to speak. Is that spiritual warfare?" You know, there's a story of somebody going to church, and the car wouldn't start. Click, click, click. And they'd be like, you know, hashtag spiritual warfare. I'm like, "What did a... Did a demon pop your hood?" Did it wear out the bat- Like, did they leave the light on?" When you find out, you take your car in and you find out it was the alternator, did they do it months ago? Was this a plot? Like, how did that work? To answer all of those questions, I started researching it, and it became this book.
[00:04:27] Ed Stetzer: Okay. So is your... Are your allergies... We're both about to speak. Yeah. Are your allergies spiritual warfare?
[00:04:27] JP Pokluda: I- there... The implication, everything's spirit- I believe everything is spiritual.
[00:04:43] Ed Stetzer: Yeah. Right? So unpack that.
[00:04:43] JP Pokluda: And so, they can use everything, and there's... We're limited—
[00:04:43] Ed Stetzer: When we say they, we're talking about demonic forces.
[00:04:43] JP Pokluda: We're talking about demonic forces. Yeah, yeah. Evil spirits. Fallen angels I would say. And They are at work constantly against us. There is limits to where we can say definitively, "This right here was a demon actively attacking me." Job is a case study on what they can do. 'Cause a lot of times they're like, "Well, they can't do that. They can't do that." I'm like, man, they... If you read Job, it's like—
[00:05:06] Ed Stetzer: A lot going on there.
[00:05:06] JP Pokluda: —he can do a lot. Like, they're, and in 2 Corinthians 4:4 says, "He's the god of this world," the lowercase G god of this world. So it seems like there's a lot of authority here. And you say, well, is a demon behind that? Ultimately, everything fallen. Because anything that wouldn't be there prior to Genesis 3, you know, is the cause, the result of spiritual warfare. Because then Genesis 3 happens, and the world breaks, and there's allergies. My personal theological conviction is that allergies wouldn't have existed in the Garden of Eden pre-Genesis 3.
[00:05:42] Ed Stetzer: I'm 100% with you. Yeah, so. I want... I, you know... So the f- state of the fallen world is something that we would speak as a spiritual warfare and the term that you're kind of phrasing it in. We tend to think of that, I don't know, more like a Frank Peretti. A lot of people influenced by Frank Peretti, that the kind of the individual volitional engagement of demonic forces in specific things. You know, C.S. Lewis talks about, you know, the unhealthy obsession versus—
[00:05:58] JP Pokluda: Right, the healthy.
[00:06:12] Ed Stetzer: —Yeah, the ignoring of those things. So you're kind of calling us to be more aware. So what are some things that we would want to be more aware of, particularly for pastors and leaders?
[00:06:12] JP Pokluda: Yeah. Well, C.S. Lewis says, you know, there's, two great errors we make about the devils, and, one is ignoring their existence, not even thinking about them at all, and then one is being over-obsessed with them. And I think there's a third great mistake.
[00:06:33] Ed Stetzer: Oh, tell me.
[00:06:33] JP Pokluda: And it is believing that they exist, like having this, you know, "Oh, yeah, I read the Bible. There's lots of..." and then that having no implications for how we live our life. Writing that book did change some things for me, namely how I pray. And I would say, the quantity of prayers midday, and I was on a airplane recently w- and I looked around, I was like, there's a lot of influential people on this plane. I'm like, I, they, the enemy would love to bring this plane down, and I'm like, I need to double down on prayer." I went to contract on this book, to get somewhat vulnerable on camera. I don't know if I can say this, but—
[00:07:09] Ed Stetzer: You're about to—
[00:07:09] JP Pokluda: —I can because it's true.
[00:07:09] Ed Stetzer: There you go.
[00:07:09] JP Pokluda: I mean, I signed a contract, in 14 days got sued twice. I mean, unrelated left field kind of th- and I was just like, "What in the world?" And sure, I mean, there are days where I'm like, "Okay, our family is under attack right now." We need to pray." And I'm not as far as some of my friends are, and I would say I'm a student of them. You know, I'm still learning. In a lot of ways, the book was turned in, it was on the shelf at Barnes & Noble, and I still felt like a toddler. Which in some ways feels irresponsible, or I might even say it is irresponsible. But it's like, but that's the thing about theology is you feel like an expert, and then you turn the page—
[00:07:42] Ed Stetzer: More to learn. There's always more to learn.
[00:07:58] JP Pokluda: —and you're like, "Man, there's so much more to know."
[00:07:58] Ed Stetzer: And the book is, your story has a villain. And I wanna talk some about that. But you kinda started with the story of Waco and talked about maybe a religious spirit. Things of that sort. Let's talk some about where we live and how that impacts spiritual warfare. Like, I lived in Buffalo, New York. Planted a church there. Really just had a spirit of oppression. It was a kind of a dying religious spirit, a dying Catholicism, but also just a sense of dread. Buffalo was a very sad struggling place when we were there. We felt that as a spiritual reality that we didn't feel when we were, say, in Pittsburgh. So are there, like, territorial spirits at work? Are they... Or, and how might we think about those things in JP's view?
[00:08:25] JP Pokluda: Yeah, like Michael Heiser has written a lot about this, and this is where I still feel a bit like a toddler. Like there could be... There's angels and archangels, and then when you have fallen spirits, there are demons which are like gang members. They're just causing trouble about. And then there are territorial spirits that it would be like the fallen equivalent of archangels.
[00:08:58] And I can't say definitively anything that the scripture does not say. I can draw conclusions. I can make assumptions based on what I see there. And then I have to figure out, hey, how does my experience fit in what the scripture says? Putting the scripture first. And not... Not letting my experience drive, you know, have me searching for scriptures that match up with my experience necessarily. And so- I can get to that conclusion with there being clearly rankings of angels in the scripture. Revelation 12 says that, you know, one-third, or we infer from that text that one-third of the angelic realm fell with Satan.
[00:09:33] And so that's what I believe. They're outnumbered here two to one. And then I do think if you go to Buffalo, there seems to be like there was a religious happening here, a Christian spiritual happening here that was ran out. It probably became very performative, and then it was ran out by, you know, an evil happening here. And you're left with the shell. You're left with the stained glass windows. You're left with the peaks and the steeples and the crucifixes. And when you go to Colorado, there seems to be a murderous spirit there. A couple months go by, there's another school shooting.
[00:10:11] There is another theater shooting. There seems to be some sort of murderous spirit that's running about in Colorado that I see. Here in Dallas, there is a... Where we're recording right now, there's a, it seems to be a material, like something that focuses on materialism. Dallas has no reason to exist as a city. There's no mountains. There's no ocean. It is completely ran on entrepreneurialism. I think there's a real material, materialistic stronghold here. You go to Waco where I am now, and it's, it also is very performative, very, "Hey, manage the outside. Get the ichthus on the car. Get the Hebrew tattoo on your ankle."
[00:10:51] "Make sure you look like a believer. Let's go to the country club Sunday morning, you know, show up, let everybody see us as a Christian." And so everywhere you go, there seems to be some sort of, specific spiritual battle there. There's other things. Like, all the other things can creep into a place, but some specific stronghold. And yeah, I think that is a strategic... These guys are smart. I mean, they're... I say guys, again, the demonic. They're way smarter than us. Like somebody said, you know, "Can they read your mind?" It's like they don't have to. Your phone can read your mind. You know, the algorithms on your phone, I mean, TikTok can read your mind.
[00:11:24] They're feeding you more of what you want. They know you wanna buy a new rug. If that's what we can do with technology, these ancient spirits that have been there for a long, long, long, long time and seen generations upon generations, they've studied us, they've studied our heritage, our legacies. You know, certainly they don't need to read our minds. They're very strategic.
[00:11:39] Ed Stetzer: You know, I live in Southern California now, so you'd recently spoke at our church—
[00:11:39] JP Pokluda: Sounds like a flex, but okay.
[00:11:39] Ed Stetzer: It does.
[00:11:39] JP Pokluda: It's, well, you live in Southern California it's kinda nice.
[00:11:51] Ed Stetzer: Yeah. So, when I'm there, the things you describe, there's performative culture. I mean, there's just a, there's almost an enslavement to success and wealth. I mean, we see that. So the question is, like, how do I describe the vibe of a community? I might say that's idolatry, so I wanna call it idolatry and call people to repent of their idolatry. That's maybe not as much a spiritual warfare issue. It might be cultural, and so I want to engage it missiologically. How do I address consumerism? How do I know, or how does this all relate ultimately to it being demonic influence? And, like, how do I know and how do I respond?
[00:12:23] JP Pokluda: Yeah. They've got one core strategy. As with all wars and all battles, there's lots of strategies, there's tributary fights, but the main current of what they're trying to do is distract us from the most high God, the creator of the heavens and the earth. One significant way they do that is comparison.
[00:12:42] We can call it i- an idol, we can call it, you know worship of material things. We can call it a stronghold, we can call it all this, but maybe the most practical, tangible thing we could call it is, "Hey, it's a distraction." You comparing yourself to your neighbors, you envying their car, you wanting a new car now, you feeding discontentment, this driving force of your life is all that cons- You know, you sit down in the morning and you open this book, and then these thoughts consume you, and you're distracted from going deeper into the single most important relationship. That's what they're trying to do. And then for people in ministry, I mean, they love to take us out because with one person, they can wound the faith of many.
[00:13:16] Ed Stetzer: Oh, for sure. Thousands at times. You know?
[00:13:16] JP Pokluda: Yeah. Thousands and in some case, hundreds of thousands or more. And so it's like, you know, they say you have a bigger target on your back. There's something to that. There's facts to that, for sure. There is legitimately something to that. Now, how do we know exactly where that starts and exactly where it ends? I would just say we don't.
[00:13:43] Ed Stetzer: We don't. But again—
[00:13:43] JP Pokluda: And you don't have to because the weapons don't change
[00:13:43] Ed Stetzer: —but we sort of have to know how to pray, right?
[00:13:43] JP Pokluda: Right.
[00:13:43] Ed Stetzer: So if this is demonic oppression- well, let me say, if it's idolatry, I wanna repent of it and address it, but if it's demonic oppression, I wanna rebuke it. I feel like I'm not quite sure, and I want you to help us to understand, how do we pray? Like, in Southern California, I wanna pray against consumerism, and performance, and the idolatry, and the demonic influence. So how ... 'Cause pastors and leaders are gonna pray. One of the question I wanna ask you in just a minute is, like, how as a church do we to apply some of these principles your story has available. And so how does that lead you to pray differently if you decide what that oppression is in Waco?
[00:14:14] JP Pokluda: The different prayer is, God, that ... When Waco specifically, God, would you purify our faith? Would you protect us from the enemy? Here's what I believe he's doing, and I, you know, I'll say it in my prayer to God. I think he's attacking us in this way. God, would you strengthen us in this way? Would you give us something that's pure? Would you help, me lead out in authenticity, and vulnerability, and transparency so that others would follow?
[00:14:46] Help me not to further his mission by teaching others how to look like Christ. And then, you know, I, when I was three chapters in, and I'm in a country club. I'm in one of the nicest country clubs in America, and I- This guy comes off the golf course, and, you know, I go to share the gospel with him. "Hey, man, I, you know, do you have a faith?" He says, "Yeah, you know, I'm a Christian." I said, "Great. Hey, between one and 10, 10 being certain, one being not so sure, if you died today, how certain are you that you'd go to heaven?" You could tell he was a little squishy. He's like, "Oh, you know, probably seven, you know, because of what I've done."
[00:15:17] He goes, "Here's the deal, man. It's weird that we're talking about this, but whenever I go to pray, like something stops me." He goes, "I can't pray. I have this like physical barrier to prayer." And, I go, "Man, that sounds demonic." He responds real belligerent like, "Demonic? Like what are you talking about? You're sounding like my mom, demo-" I'm like, I don't even know this guy. He was mad that I... And I go—
[00:15:32] Ed Stetzer: It might escalate pretty quickly to say something's demonic, but yeah, okay.
[00:15:32] JP Pokluda: Yeah, yeah. I was like, okay. And I go, "Well, has anybody ever prayed for you?" And he's like, "Sh, yeah, people have prayed. You know, yes, you want to pray, go ahead. You can pray." And I put my hand on... We're in a country club, man. I mean, you know, we're... I was there for a fundraiser for a men's ministry. And put my hand on his back said, "You know, Lord, and just would you help this, you know, help him and strengthen him, and if there's anything demonic present," and he just...
[00:16:00] I mean, just... And I'm like, "I don't even have tools for this." I'm three chapters in. You know? And I'm, I don't know. And I'm like, and I would love to tell you I was like cape blowing in the wind, like, okay, I know, you know. But I was like, I was terrified. Like, I was like, "Please don't jump on me.
[00:16:12] Please don't jump on me. Please don't jump on me." And I'm praying over this guy, and he, it just gets bigger and louder, and I'm there, and I can just tell you, I'm pretty discerning. I'm like, "This guy's not acting. This is not- This is not an act. There's something evil present."
[00:16:28] And so now I'm just doing what I've seen on TikTok. You know, I'm like, I don't know what to do. I'm like, "In the name of Je- and Lord, would you bind whatever..." And I'm... And so how has it caused me to pray different? I'm still learning. I'm still learning how to pray different, but I'm like, "God, would you bind whatever this is in the name of Jesus, by the blood of Jesus?
[00:16:45] Would you take it to the feet of the cross? Lord, we know that you have defeated the grave." And I'm saying these things, and they're coming out of my mouth, and he gets bigger and louder, and his arms go above his head, and he starts twisting and still coughing and all of this. And then he kind of calms down, and he settles, and I'm like, "In Jesus' name, amen." And he just goes, " Well, I didn't expect that to happen." I was like, "Well, that makes two of us." "That makes two of us." But I want to say this because I know you want something practical that will help people. What are they after? When I say they're after the most important relationship, they're after your faith.
[00:17:19] Particularly important for people in ministry. Because you can go through the motions. I mean, sometimes the repetition and routine is what robs us of actually sincerely trusting the Creator. And so often what we pray for, i- are things that would cause us not to have to trust God. I remember when I went into... I was in corporate America, and I went into ministry. It was a major financial shift for us. I look back on those days with really fond memories of dependence and faith. And today, from a financial perspective, we, Monica and I, our family, we need to depend on God less than we did then.
[00:17:55] And I look back on that, and so today I'm like, "Man, do I still believe?" You know? Every now and then we have to look at the empty tomb and really say, "Do I still believe?" Because think about this, Ephesians 6, you know, he... Belt, breastplate of rouch- righteousness, belt of truth. He's g- feet fitted with the readiness of the gospel.
[00:18:12] The shield of faith which extinguishes the fiery darts of the enemy. Okay? The shield of faith. So there's something, if I'm to read into this, and I believe Paul's probably chained to a Roman soldier, at least he sees him walking by, and he's using this illustratively to describe an authentic Christian. But he says, "The shield of faith which extinguishes the fiery darts of the enemy."
[00:18:27] Ed Stetzer: Interesting.
[00:18:27] JP Pokluda: Okay, but then Jesus to Peter. Peter says, they're talking, they're in a conversation, and Jesus says to Peter, "The enemy has asked me to sift you like wheat."
[00:18:27] Ed Stetzer: Oh.
[00:18:27] JP Pokluda: To which if I'm Peter, I'm like, "Just say no." Like, just make like an '80s drug campaign and just say no. Like, just tell him no, Jesus. But he doesn't. He says, "So I will pray for you that your faith will not fail." Okay? And then in 1 Peter 5, "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
[00:19:01] Resist him, standing firm in the faith." So there's something to this idea that our belief in God is our protection, and what I want to say to anybody who's listening to this, because like you just got sued twice. Well, I don't want that. Your family gets attacked. I don't want that. I would tell you in studying this fairly intensely for three years, getting to this place, which I understand is a, is still, you're hearing me say, is a drop in the bucket. But getting to this place- Where it's like ultimately, greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world. I actually got, the more I knew, I became less afraid. Because as my understanding of what Satan could do to me increased, I'm like, "Wow, he can do a lot," my understanding of how God protects me increased.
[00:19:48] It's like, wow, he is infinitely stronger than the one who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. And so I didn't grow more fearful. I think through the project, I actually grew more faithful, full of faith, I would say. And I think that's necessary to overcoming the enemy.
[00:19:48] Ed Stetzer: So, you mentioned sifting Peter. Early on you mentioned Job and all the things the devil could do to Job and his family. I think there's a hope, maybe sometimes an expectation that for pastors and church leaders, that the Lord will protect our family. Job's situation seemed to be a little different. So what is our, to use a term in, spiritual warfare, what is our hedge of protection or not about the kind of sifting we might go through as pastors and church leaders?
[00:20:27] JP Pokluda: Yeah, I, prayer is the strategy. Angelic realm, I mean, again, these, the demonic angels are outnumbered two to one to, holy, you know, angels, God's army. And the Holy Spirit that is producing through us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
[00:20:48] The body of Christ, and so we wanna be surrounded by God's people in the same way that in the jungle or the safari area, the isolated animal is going to be attacked. So often, again, their strategy, there's tributaries of these strategies. They wanna isolate us. And so I think staying connected to the body, staying, not hiding sin. Anything you hide becomes a fence for them to play in. Anything that's hidden in your life, anything you say, "Man, I'm gonna take this to my grave," they're just like, "Okay, this is where we're gonna play right here." Like, "This is where we're—"
[00:20:48] Ed Stetzer: That's a stronghold usually.
[00:20:48] JP Pokluda: "This is where we can mess with them." Yeah, yeah. It's a foothold, at least.
[00:21:23] Ed Stetzer: Yeah. That can become a stronghold.
[00:21:23] JP Pokluda: Stronghold, fair. And so it enters in as a foothold. You've given them, you've opened the gate. You say, "Hey, come on in," the foothold, and then it becomes a stronghold. And so I think praying, vulnerability, understanding the Word and what it says, understanding in here how what it says is your protection, cr- increasing our faith.
[00:21:43] So often when we have a crisis of faith, it's like, okay, what are you not believing? How can we just feed that, just like a good doctor would? It's like, where are you weak in your body? Well, how can we strengthen that? If you're in a crisis of faith because of... It could be any number of things. It could be a marriage trouble, it could be a ch- trouble with a child, it could be, you know, financial issues. It could be a hidden sin, right? We're gonna try to find out where is, what's the source of the crisis of faith, and then how do we feed your faith in that area to strengthen your shield so that the enemy, when he's firing these darts, you're protected.
[00:22:17] Ed Stetzer: It is interesting how just casually you kind of went around and you mentioned, you know, the shield of faith. You mentioned, you know, the armor of God the fiery darts. I think that if we read the Bible at its own and take it for what it says, we're gonna be much more interested and engaged in spiritual warfare than the typical evangelical Christian who's watching our conversation today.
[00:22:38] I think for some people, they're a little nervous that they don't wanna go too far. You know, we have a, I have a wonderful professor, Clint Arnold is his name. He's the probably leading scholar of Colossians in the world, also an well-known author in spiritual warfare. And he's always encouraging, I think you're encouraging, let's take this far more seriously, but w- have you been around enough? I don't wanna be out mapping territorial spirits. I don't wanna, like, I don't wanna go so far that, the unhealthy obsession. So what would be some things you would say? And let's start as a church. Pastors and church leaders. Here's ways you need to lead your congregation to be more aware of what the Bible teaches about these things.
[00:23:10] JP Pokluda: Let me back up—
[00:23:10] Ed Stetzer: Please
[00:23:10] JP Pokluda: —to your previous question and say, 'cause it, it's a weird answer and feel free to disagree with me. I think what Paul is doing in Ephesians 6 is he... It's like if I was to hold up $100 bill and say, "How do we know it's authentic?" And you start, "Well, it says in, you know, In God We Trust," or this marker, and it has this, hologram or what is it called?
[00:23:26] Ed Stetzer: Watermark in it.
[00:23:26] JP Pokluda: That's authentic.
[00:23:26] Ed Stetzer: I was gonna say, your dollars have holograms.
[00:23:26] JP Pokluda: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They'll be pretty cool. Yeah, well, watermark. So the, I think Paul is describing the authentic Christian. Someone who believes in the truth, someone who is reflecting upon their salvation, someone who is walking in righteousness. They have a heart of righteousness. He's describing, like, these are the authentic marks of a Christian. And so there's, like, a broad statement, and I'll try to make it as nuanced—
[00:23:41] Ed Stetzer: Yeah, please
[00:23:57] JP Pokluda: —as I can. It's like we have to teach people to live as authentic Christians. Just so all the things, like to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. And to read this not just sheerly out of discipline, discipline yourself for godliness for sure, but read it out of a greater obsession for anything the world has to offer. So that it's, so that we seek to know God and understand him, and know how he loves us. And again, that's the faith. Like, anything that w- those inputs, they have to grow and strengthen our faith. And so as pastors, the worst thing we can do, it's like PKs, the phenomenon, like pastor's kids.
[00:24:36] It's like if you teach your kids how to perform as a Christian, if you teach them how to look like a Christian, how to dress like a Christian and talk like a Christian, but in your home there's a gap, and they see Dad as someone different on the stage versus off the stage, it's gonna be a disaster. Case study after case study. The same is true for your congregation. If you begin to teach them to be performative, to appear as though they're Christians while they're duplicitous or they have a separate life- You know, on Friday night and Saturday night, they have a hidden sin.
[00:25:12] You know, they learn to play the game and speak the jargon or the lingo. It's gonna be a disaster, and it is for so many churches. But if you go up and you're honest, and, okay, this is often misunderstood, too, as a passion of mine. When I say honest and transparent, I don't mean worldly. I think some pastors hear that and they're like, "Oh, I gotta slip in a curse word here and there." And it's like, no, no, no. Be holy because he's holy, but not in an effort to appear holy, but to genuinely live a holy life. And if you do that, and you teach them to do that, then you're good. Like, the enemy is going to give up.
[00:25:51] He is aggressive like a lion, but he's impatient. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, and he leaves because he's impatient. And there's lots of areas to attack on the fallen earth, you know, the world as we know it. And so if we stand firm, I mean, he leaves, and where the Spirit of God is at work, I mean, where you're experiencing the fullness of the Spirit of God at work, the enemy's n- I mean, i- they're hiding outside. You know? They don't want no part in that. It's ... They're really looking for that inauthenticity. They're looking for the double lives. They're looking for the pretenders. That, they have a heyday with that. And then the footholds into the stronghold.
[00:26:32] Ed Stetzer: Yeah, that's right. You work with young adults at events and conferences. Like I said, when you spoke at our church, we have a young adult service. You know, there are people just... We had to turn people away. So you obviously have an audience of young adults. Are young adults resonating more...
[00:26:46] 'Cause I think I'm a Gen X-er, and I would think that most Gen X pastors are kind of a little cautious about some of these topics. And I would encourage them, you gotta wrestle with these scripture attacks. You just, you keep dropping scriptural attacks if, you know, how are you gonna wrestle with those? But what does that look like generationally? Around, again, the book is, of course, your story has a villain. But what does it look like around spiritual warfare?
[00:26:58] JP Pokluda: So Gen Z, Gen Alpha, Gen Z specifically, took a giant step in the wrong direction, and you saw this term manifesting becoming really, like, popular among them. There were like crystal stores started to pop up, and it was this the thing that bridged the old and the new. And you would hear this term, and this was really with Gen Y, spiritual but not religious. I'm spiritual but not religious. And I think that crept into Gen Z where they're like, "Okay, yeah, I'm spiritual.
[00:27:32] I'm- they- I'm spiritual. I'm a spiritual person." And so I'm trying to figure out how I can manipulate the powers of the universe. There's only two sources of power, you know? There's God, the creator of the heavens and the earth, and then there's the enemy who has been, you know, entrusted with this, with some power in this temporary experiment. People don't like that word, but that we exist in this test, I'll say is probably a better theological word. This test that we're in. Today we're in a test. Who are we gonna follow? God, the creator of the heavens and the earth, or the lowercase G god of this world? And so I think when you dumb it down, you make it that simple for the up-and-coming generation, they're like, "That makes sense.
[00:28:11] Now my... I understand that my crystals are demonic. Manifesting is demonic." Anything that I'm seeking power in other than the creator, just going to God in prayer and seeking him in spiritual disciplines, then I'm invoking the demonic. And I think there are a large number of the next generation that are understanding that, growing in their understanding. They say, "Oh man, that's dangerous. Don't mess with that. We need to follow the one true God." Candidly, they tried it, and it disappointed them. It failed, as does everything in the world other than God. I think they're finding something more confident and consistent in Christ.
[00:28:31] Ed Stetzer: Last word from you to pastors and church leaders. Again, the book's Your Story Has a Villain. How would you encourage them to take more seriously the spiritual realm and spiritual warfare?
[00:28:50] JP Pokluda: Read the Bible. I mean, if you... That, that's what happened is I was reading this and I was like, oh, you know, this person was demon-possessed. And, you know, they're like, "Hey, why couldn't we do anything there?" And he's like, "This one only comes out with prayer and fasting." And then they're going across the Sea of Galilee, and there's this storm, which I believe was satanic in hindsight. There's this storm that shows up. Jesus is sleeping. He gets up and he says, "Hush." And they're like, "Who is this man that the winds and waves obey him?"
[00:29:23] Well, then what happens is he gets to the Gerasene demoniac, or these two guys who are possessed by presumably thousands of demons, and he casts them out into the pigs. The pigs go into the sea, and the people want him to leave because he's cost them their economic system, their economic livelihood. But then every time before then, he's like, "Don't tell anybody. Don't tell anybody. Don't tell anybody." And now this guy, i- or these two men are the first evangelists to the Gentile nations. This is what he's trying to do. He wants to hinder your ministry. He wants to make it ineffective.
[00:30:00] And so what does it look like for us to be faithful in sharing the gospel, to lead our people to faithfully share the gospel? What does it look like for us to be the best example of a Jesus follower that they have so that we can say like Paul, "Follow me as I follow Christ." But not so much so that we are then tempted to hide our own sin, but that we can live vulnerably and transparently with our congregation so that when we miss it, we can say, "Will you please forgive me?"
[00:30:27] And just speak honestly to them. I think that is the greatest thing that we can do. Again, in the same way that the greatest thing that a person can do to protect themselves is just to live as an authentic Christian, the greatest thing that our-- that we can do as pastors is to train our congregations to live as authentic Christians. The enemy, he's impatient. I... I'm not saying the attacks will stop, but as you have authentic Christians, they will be less effective.
[00:30:43] Ed Stetzer: Thanks, JP.
[00:30:43] JP Pokluda: Yeah, man. Thank you so much. Great to be with a legend.