You would think a guy going into this field of apologetics would know but the reality is, I am clueless. I need some good book recommendations that are solid because there is so much I don't know and need to learn.

There are two books by frank parretti (I'm not sure if the last name is spelled correctly) called This Present Darkness, and the sequel Piercing the Darkness. These are fiction books in the sense of the stories not being real, but it shows the spiritual war that is going on all the time. The enemy is always at work. He never sleeps and he never gets tired. These are good to start with.
Also, there's a church called New Season in Hiram Ga that is currently doing a series on spiritual warfare. Their website is newseasonchurch.com, the sermons are under media. They're in the middle of the series right now, but the first two sermons have a lot of info.
ETA:
Here's a pretty good article
https://bible.org/seriespage/26-spiritual-warfare-ephesians-610-20

Bible Search  

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Ephesians 6:13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that ...

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you
may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ...
//biblehub.com/ephesians/6-13.htm - 18k


Ephesians 6:11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take ...

Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take
your stand against the devil's schemes. ...
//biblehub.com/ephesians/6-11.htm - 17k

Study these well and understand their spiritual and physical ramifications with other like material that has been offered !

Breastplate of Righteousness.......

Helmet of Salvation.......

Sword of the Spirit.......

Feet shod with the Preparation of the Gospel of Peace...........

Gird Your Loins About with the Truth............

Shield of faith..........

And all related to these topics and more in-depth as the Holy Spirit of God directs you. These type studies will never end and are eternal both in their tempos and in their natures according to the state of being of the word of God, or the Christian Bible, and are the basic rudiments of spiritual warfare with and on our enemy who is real; in which these are some of the weapons every Christian should practice with and become more familiar with everyday, and to the best of their abilities and at all times being ready for spiritual conflict with Satan and or his emissaries.

Great wisdom and strong resolve will prevail here!

We must become very proficient at what we do as kingdom soldiers for Christ and His enduring message.

We will get back to you and God bless you!

Thanks,

SAE

How do tales of fiction in any way show that a "spiritual war" is real?

For that matter, a "spiritual war" can only occur if God desires it. Why would a "loving" God want war of any kind?

What does the word of God or the Christian Bible say about such things?

great books

I read those years ago

fiction, yes  --  but they helped me to see situations in my life in more of a true good vs evil sense

god doesn't desire spiritual war

but there is a very real battle going on for your soul

satan knows he has been defeated, but he and his demons are trying to take whoever they can down with them

That statement is contradicted by the idea that God is omnipotent. If he truly is all-powerful, he could easily destroy Satan and his followers, thereby ending the conflict.

Since he has not done so, the unavoidable conclusion is that:

a. God wants a spiritual war;
or
b. God is not omnipotent.

a. is correct.

God cast Lucifer out of heaven by design; as God has a plan through His design concerning every created thing.
God is omnipotent. All strength and power is subordinate to His will and purpose, and when and where He wishes to direct it and for what reason.
God is, was known and understood this way in the old Hebrew way and style according to, "The Power" of the God of Abraham.

Thanks,

SAE

Design-< to form or make (plans, schemes ect.) in the mind; conceive; invent. To intend; purpose. To make original drawings or plans; to be a designer. Archaic/ To mark out; designate. Conceive.

In the beginning was the Word (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit: The Word of God representing the One in the Three), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God in the beginning (or from a juncture or section in eternity before time had began, as God was already there).

All things were created through Him (The One God in Three Parts of Himself), and apart from Him (that One), not one thing was created that has been created.

The Gospel of John the Revelator
Chapter 1: 1-3

God the Creator of All Things

Those books were suggested to me about 17 years ago, and they definitely gave me a greater insight into the battle that is fought constantly everyday.

http://www.kneillfoster.com/articles/Glossolalia.html

God Is A Warrior

Powers of Evil

Angels, Satan and Demons

First two are a little academic, but not out of reach to the layman.  Angels, Satan and Demons is written on a more popular level and is very useful.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 New International Version (NIV)

3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Demolish-< 1 to tear down; raze, as a building.2 to destroy utterly; ruin

To build down with plans to restore with purpose.

And the gates of hell shall not prevail against this.
They cannot because they have no understanding of these things!

When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man.
He then laid His right hand on me, and said:

"Don't be afraid! I am (or I Am) the First and the Last, and the living One.
I was dead, but look------I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the
Keys of death and Hades (or the keys of death and Hell).

Therefore write what you have seen, what is, and what will take place after this.
The secret (or mystery) of the seven stars that you saw in My right hand,
and the seven gold lampstands, is this: the seven stars are the angels
of the seven churches (or those angels who are messengers),
and the seven lampstands (other mss add; that you saw).
are the seven churches.

Revelation 1: 17-20

Jesus has put us in it to win it brothers!
There are no seconds here on any level.
God is eternal with all matters factored into
time from the eternal places
for our successes!

We are more than just ordinary conquers in Christ Jesus here!
God has already paved the Christian Way for us.
With His sacrifice and love for us,
and with His acceptance of us
from the beginning
until now!

For the LORD will have compassion on Jacob and will chose Israel again. He will settle them on there own land (or settle them on their own land again).
The foreigner (or the people from all nations) will join them and be united with the house of Jacob (or the new dynasty of Judah united with the old dynasty of Israel).
The nations will escort Israel and bring it to its homeland (or what has come to pass by a mandate of the League of Nations declaring Israel a sovereign state in 1948),
Then the house of Israel will possess them as male and female slaves (or as administrators of God's word and law to them) in the LORD's land.

They will make captives of their captors (or they will become an thriving and victorious military people) and rule over their oppressors (or continuously offset the ones who would wish to oppress them by God's help for them as the word of God dictates their future in Messiah until all is fulfilled by Him).

When the LORD gives you rest from your pain, torment, and the hard labor you were forced to do, you will sing this song of contempt about the king of Babylon and say:

How the oppressor has quieted down,
and how the raging (or how the raging of a violent society)
has become quiet!

The LORD has broken the staff (or the authority) of the
wicked, the scepter (or the injustice) of the rulers. It struck
the peoples (or the people of the world) with anger and
unceasing blows (or unceasing oppression). It subdued
the nations in rage with relentless persecution. All the earth
is calm and at rest; people shout with a ringing cry (or a ringing cry of freedom).

Even the cypresses and the cedars of Lebanon (or from the islands to the mountains)
rejoice over you: "Since you have been laid low, no woodcutter (or foreign occupation) has come against us,"

Sheol (or inner earth; hell fire) below is eager to greet you your coming.
He (or God) stirs up the spirits of the departed for you (or stirs up the spirits for you to do you harm)-------all the rulers of the earth.
He makes all of the kings of the nations rise from their thrones. They all respond to you, saying: "You too have become as weak as we are; you have become like us!

Your splendor has been brought down to Sheol, along with the music of your harps (or your harps to constantly play dirges for you in your torment).
Maggots are spread out under you, and worms (or canker worms) cover you (or eat endlessly through you in your horror of them)."

Shining morning star (or counterfeit Day Star, lesser son or angel of the dawn), how you have fallen from the heavens!
You destroyer of the nations, you have been cut down to the ground.

You said to yourself: "I will ascend to the heavens; I will set up my throne above the stars (or over the massive angelic armies) of God.
I will sit on the mount of the god's assembly (or sit on the mount of authority over all spirits angelic and the super human) in the remotest parts of the North (or Zaphon; the place of all knowledge according to the totality of God's laws, statutes, and precepts for all creation to exist).

I will ascend above the highest clouds; I will make myself like the most High."
But you will be brought down to Sheol into the deepest regions of the Pit.

Those who see you will stare at you; they will look closely at you:
"Is this the man (or has appeared to many as a seducing superior man)
who caused the world to tremble (or to cower down to him), who shook
the kingdoms, who turned the world into a wilderness (or a wilderness through war),
who trampled its (or its: Satan's) cities and would not release the prisoners to return home?"
All the kings of the nations lie in splendor, each in his own tomb. But you are thrown out without a grave
(or you have no earthly grave because you have always been a creature of the spirit and not a man), like a worthless branch, covered by
those slain with the sword and dumped into a rocky pit like a trampled corpse. You will not join them in burial,
because you destroyed your land and slaughtered your own people. The offspring of the evildoers will never be remembered.
Prepare a place of slaughter for his sons (or the sons of Hamon) because of the iniquities of their fathers.
They will never again rise up to possess a land or fill the surface of the earth will cities.

"I will rise up against them"------the declaration of the LORD of Hosts------"and I will cut off from Babylon her reputation, remnant, offspring, and posterity"-------the LORD's declaration.

I will make her a swampland and a region for wild animals, and I will sweep her away with a broom of destruction."
This is the LORD's declaration.

The Prophet ISAIAH
Isaiah 14

God End's the Earthly Reign of Satan: God Declares Justice for Jacob and the Nations

So, if Lucifer is evil, and God permits Lucifer to exist, that means God is an enabler of evil, and therefore also evil.

<><

god has given man free will

sometimes in order for us to choose the right we have to see the wrong...

http://www.biblestudy.org/question/why-has-god-not-killed-devil-satan.html

I have difficulty reconciling the idea that Man can truly have free will, what with being designed by an omniscient, omnipotent Creator.

And even if the "free will" premise is accepted as true, I find it illogical for God to give Man free will, then punish him for not making the "right" choices. If God has the attitude, "It's my way or the highway," then it seems to me everybody would've been much better off if Man had been made without free will.

Thanks for the link. But, there seems to be a lot of speculation and questionable reasoning in the answers. For example:

"If he denied us freedom to sin, people would complain about not having the freedom to find out if some other way besides God's way would work."

I think this is nonsense. If Man was designed without free will and the ability to sin, why would he possibly wonder if there was a different way???

Another example:

"...Lucifer was created perfect... Satan attacked the Creator and his character, and got one-third of the angels to side with him."

If Lucifer/Satan was created perfect, wouldn't he have known that God was omnipotent, and therefore could not possibly be defeated?

IMO, there is a whole lot of rationalizing, and too little critical thinking, being done on these and other matters.

Do you have a Bible my son?

hypothetically sure, but man WAS designed with free will, thus the question of what would happen if he chose the other way

satan and the angels were created with free will like you and me - however satan is NOT omniscient

in the same way why do we rebel against god knowing we dont stand a chance without his grace and forgiveness ?

thank you for your thoughts on this topic - its given me a chance to think deeper through a few things

Christians are not omniscient, either, but profess to know that God is omnipotent. So why wouldn't Satan have known? After all, he was originally far, far closer to God than any mere mortal, was he not?

If, by "we," you are referring only to Christians, I don't know the answer to that.

If you mean all humans, then - speaking just for myself - I think the Christian God is more than likely a fictional being, so I am not knowingly rebelling against a real deity.

IMO, the greatest work of contemporary Christian apologetics was Mere Christianity by CS Lewis.

Probably not popular here because its perspective was traditionalist Anglican.

The law was written onto each and every man and womans heart, there is no way of ignorance and saying I didn't know.

Just my thoughts on this area

My heart didn't get a copy of that memo.

All those who sinned without the law, will also perish under the law will be judged by the law (or judged by the law and be under strict subjection to it).
For the hearers of the law are not righteous before God (and so likewise the ones who deny God's laws outright), but the doers (or the ones who practice righteous activity through Christ) will be declared righteous (Lit will be justified or acquitted).
So, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, instinctively do what the law demands, they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law (or have never had the opportunity to receive the law in the content that it was meant to be given in Christ; which means to the Jew also).
They show that the work (or they show that the work or active intent) of the law is written on their hearts (or in their hearts to do right and well as doers of the law).
(Therefore) Their consciences testify in support of this, and so likewise, their competing thoughts (or competing thoughts which are sensual and thus worldly) either accuse them of excuse them (or accuse them, or excuse them from the letter of the law which will kill them if they are not excused from it) on the day when God judges what people have kept secret, according to my gospel through Jesus Christ.

Romans 2: 12-16
The Apostle Paul
God's Righteous Judgment
.

For through the law I have died to the law, that I might live to God.
I have been crucified with Christ; and I no longer live, but Christ (or the Holy Spirit of the One) lives in me.
Therefore the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (or gave himself totally for my total salvation in Him).
I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

Galatians 2: 19-21
The Apostle Paul
Freedom from the Law