PART III
THE WARFARE OF THE CHRISTIAN
EPHESIANS begins with the Christian in Christ in the heavenlies abounding in his exhaustless wealth as an heir of God and joint-heir with Christ. It continues with the Christian walking worthily of the Lord in loving and joyous fellowship with fellow Christians, and in the strength and peace of a harmonious home. This would seem to be a suitable place to end the epistle.
But what a change of scene and of atmosphere when we come to 6:10! We are suddenly transplanted from the restful shelter of the home to the rigorous warfare of a battlefield, where we see vast hosts mobilized for conflict; we hear the call to arms, and we smell the smoke of battle. 6:10-18 pictures the Christian facing a foe, forced into warfare. Does this present an anti-climax, and is it a bit disappointing? By no means. It is the inevitable consequence of a life lived in Christ in the heavenlies, filled with the Holy Spirit, and walking as a foreigner through a world “that lieth in the evil one” (I John 5:19 R.V.) and is under his domination. So here we have a clarion call to arms to which every Christian should respond courageously.
Back to the Table of Content 6:10, 12. “Finally, my brethren, be strong—for we wrestle.”
“Finally” indicates the close of the epistle, implying also a climax. “My brethren.” Note that Paul does not call only fellow apostles, or fellow-pastors, or fellow-evangelists, to arms, but summons fellow-soldiers. The arch enemy of Christ is attacking His
Body of which the “brethren” are members. Therefore no one of them is exempt from the conflict. God has no place for a spiritual pacifist. Every Christian is conscripted for both defensive and aggressive warfare. He calls every saint to arms. “Not into a religious playground or sports field, but into grim, terrible, bloody conflict are we called.”
Back to the Table of Content
6:12 (R.V.). “For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”“Our wrestling against.” The warfare involves powerful antagonists in terrific, desperate, hand-to-hand battle. Tremendous issues of life and death, defeat and destruction must be at stake, for it is no ordinary combat. The word “against” stands out five times upon the page. We have an out-and-out adversary who is actively and aggressively warring against us, assisted by powerful and wicked allies. “Not against flesh and blood.” This negative statement clarifies the atmosphere immediately regarding the nature of our foe. The conflict is not with the human and the visible, but with the superhuman and the invisible. We do not belong to the same order of being or to the same plane of life as our foe.
The Antagonists
Let us marshal the antagonists and their allies before us, and then study their method of warfare.
THE LORD “brethren’ 6:10 6:10 “we”—the saints 6:12 vs
"principalities" THE DEVIL powers 6.1 6. 11 “world rulers darkness” “spiritual hosts wickedness” 6:10-18 reveals a battlefield where the empowered, energized hosts of the Lord are pitted against the demonized, mobilized hosts of the devil. It is a mass organization of the supernatural forces of heaven against the subtle fiends of hell. One necessity in victorious warfare is to know the enemy. So let us see what Scripture teaches regarding the devil.
Our Adversary—His Person
Scripture everywhere shows Satan as the bitterest enemy of God and His people; the implacable foe of Christ and the Christian. It distinctly warns us against him as a cruel adversary seeking whom he may devour.I Pet. 5:8. “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”
The names given him indicate personality; Satan, spelled with a capital S, deceiver, liar, murderer, accuser, tempter, prince, Apollyon (destroyer), the evil one, Beelzebub. Every name is repulsive and repellent, and discloses his nature. God speaks also of “the working of Satan,” and every one of his works, which are defined as “wiles” (6: 11), “devices” (2 Cor. 2: 11), “snares” (1 Tim. 2: 24), reveal personality. He beguiles, seduces, opposes, resists, deceives, sows tares, hinders, buffets, tempts, persecutes, blasphemes. Every work of Satan is diabolical and destructive. Our Lord spoke of Satan many times, and every time in a way and by a name that confirms his personality. Our adversary, then, is personal, aggressive, intelligent, cunning and destructive, who is to be reckoned with seriously, vigilantly and intelligently.
Our Adversary—His Position
He occupies a very superior position which is twofold. In governmental authority he is a “prince” in two localities—in the earth and in the air; and rules over both evil men and evil spirits. Christ never acknowledged Satan as king, but three times he calls him “the prince of this world,” thereby acknowledging his governmental authority. Ephesians teaches that he is the ruling spirit over “the children of disobedience,” which includes all unregenerate mankind.2:3. “The spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.”
Satan also has control over the nations and is the master mind behind the whole system of world government dominated by lust for power, greed, ambition, intrigue, hatred, lies, aggression, rivalry, and brutality. Satan offered Christ all the kingdoms of this world with their power and glory if He would but worship him. Christ did not dispute his claim to their control. Moreover, Christ plainly says there is a kingdom of Satan (Matt. 12:26). Ephesians teaches that the devil heads the rulers of the darkness of this world.
6:12. “Our wrestling is against the world rulers of this darkness.”
Satan has governmental authority, also, over a vast host of demons and evil spirits. The devil has his angels (Matt. 25:41). Ephesians teaches that he rules as prince over hosts of evil spirits in the aerial heavens.
2:2. “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the prince of the power of the air.”
6: 12. “Against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”There is, then, an evil one (6:16) presiding over a Satanic government composed of powerful potentates of exalted position, with tremendous authority, who have in their employ hosts of evil spirits with ability and power to control and govern human affairs. It is a perfected mass organization of hellish forces working secretly and subtly against heavenly forces.
principalities powers 6:12. “Our wrestling is against world rulers darkness spiritual hosts wickedness" Scripture accords Satan another title and position which shows that he has gone to the utmost limit of revolt against God in seeking and getting the worship of men. He trespasses upon the most sacred in the spiritual realm and becomes the god of this age.
II Cor. 4:4. “In whom the god of this age hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”
Satan has set up within his kingdom what someone has aptly called “a state religion.” It is an exact counterfeit of true Christianity. Satan has his “synagogue” (Rev. 2:9); his gospel which is “a different gospel” (Gal. 1:6 R.V.) from that of God’s grace and redemption through the precious blood of Christ; his “ministers” who pose as ministers of righteousness (II Cor. 11:14); his “doctrines” (I Tim. 4: 1), though his ministers decry creeds, while having a well-defined creed of their own which is a denial of all the fundamentals of the Christian faith; his “sacrifices,” “communion,” “table,” and “cup” (I Cor. 10:20, 21), all devoted to Satanic worship; his “depths” (Rev. 2:24), for there is no extreme of imitation and deception to which he does not go to satisfy the innate religious instincts in man as long as it stops short of true, living faith in Christ. Satan will even permit his followers to have the Cross as a symbol hung on the wall, made into a bookmark, worn as an ornament, worshipped even as a thing. In lands where one is constantly confronted with the Cross as a symbol two persons said, “I love the Cross, but I hate the blood.” Only a Satanic counterfeit has a bloodless cross. Behind all false systems of religion, ancient and modern, all cults, by whatever name, all error, however garbed, is this arch-heretic and supernatural apostate. Satan presides as “god” over the apostate Christendom of all centuries.
Our Adversary—His Power
The power of the devil is very definitely acknowledged in Scripture, so, for us to deny it when God admits it, is sheer folly. In fact, men are held captive by the power of Satan until delivered from it by the power of the Saviour.Acts. 26:17. “The Gentiles unto whom I now send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God.”
The power of Satan is “the power of darkness”—malign (Col. 1:13); “the power of the air”—invisible (2:2); “the working of Satan with power and lying wonders” - supernatural (II Thes. 2:9); “the power of death”—destructive (Heb. 2: 14). It is the power of that awful, “great red dragon” (Rev. 12:3) and like unto that of the king of beasts, “a roaring lion” (I Pet. 5:8).
Satan is not only powerful in himself, but he is mightily equipped and strongly entrenched for this warfare. He is “the strong man armed” (Lk. 11:21). He has his “strongholds” (II Cor. 10:4); his “palace” (Lk. 11:21); his “armour” (Lk. 11:22); his “hosts” (6:12); and he has carried from the battlefield mighty “spoils” (Lk. 11:22).
Our adversary is a supernatural person occupying a superior position and exercising supernatural power. He is supreme dictator over the kingdom of evil; a pastmaster in every phase of diabolical deception and deviltry to be used in the seduction and destruction of human souls, and the instigator of all hatred and rebellion toward God and His Son. In the light of such a revelation, what utter folly for anyone to underestimate or ignore the power of the devil!
Our Adversary—His Purpose
From Genesis through Revelation Satan is revealed as an arch traitor in open revolt against God. Was he always thus? He could not have been so, for among his many names are two very beautiful ones: “Lucifer, son of the morning, the shining one” (Is. 14: 12), descriptive of his person, and “the anointed cherub” (Ez.28:14), indicative of his position. Evangelical scholars believe that Ezekiel 28:11-19 reveals Satan as he was originally in person, position and power. As Lucifer, son of the morning, he was God’s noblest and most beautiful angelic creation. “Perfect in beauty and in all his ways” and “full of wisdom,” he was a being gifted with marvelous intelligence and glorious in holiness (Ez. 28: 12, 15). In position also he surpassed all other created beings, being nearer to God Himself and in closer relationship to His throne. He was entrusted with the exalted position of “the anointed cherub,” which probably gave him governmental authority over the angels of God and may also have made him a prince over the primeval creation. Possibly he also led the worship of the angelic hosts. Such a position gave him power second to that of God alone. This perfect creature in that exalted position with this mighty power was called by God “Lucifer, son of the morning,” meaning “daystar.”But, incredible as it seems, his heart was lifted up with pride, which led to self-exaltation, ending in rebellion (Ez. 28:15-18). Open revolt against God followed, and Lucifer, son of the morning, became Satan, father of the night, and king over the kingdom of darkness, Satan would no longer be second in position and power, but first. So he purposed to dethrone God in His own universe as sovereign and to displace Him in the worship of angels and men by becoming their god.
Is. 14:12, 13. “How art thou fallen from heaven, 0 Lucifer, son of the morning! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I WILL BE LIKE THE MOST HIGH.”
When Lucifer said “I will,” sin began in God’s universe. How awful was the fall of heaven’s greatest and most glorious archangel! Satan’s sin was high treason, and brought down upon him the immediate condemnation and punishment of God. He was cast out of heaven and the immediate presence of God and deprived of his position.
Ez. 28:16. Thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God.”
Is. 14:12. “How art thou fallen from heaven.”He was ultimately to be deprived of all power and brought down to hell.
Is. 14:15. “Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell.”
Hereupon his hatred of God began to be crystallized into a well defined plan with a definite objective.
Our Adversary—His Plan
Satan’s revolt against God precipitated a rebellion among some of the angelic host in heaven, who transferred their allegiance and worship to him and became his obedient servants.II Pet. 2:4. “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.”
Matt. 25:41. “Then shall he say unto them also on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”As soon as God created man and placed him in the garden of Eden, Satan was there seeking to extend his kingdom and establish it on earth by tempting Adam and Eve into self-will and disobedience to God. He succeeded, and they became the first human subjects in the kingdom of darkness and the first slaves of the devil. With this beginning, he began to build up a world-system that holds captive all of mankind that refuses to accept God’s way of redemption and to obey and worship God. As “prince of the power of the air” and as “prince of this world,” Satan now had the beginning of his spiritual and human hosts of wickedness, through whom he would work to establish a kingdom that would overthrow and supersede God’s kingdom in heaven and upon earth.
To understand his plan of accomplishing this, we must never lose sight of his declared objective, which was to be like the Most High. Then Satan would make himself as near a counterfeit of God as possible and his plan of action would imitate that of God. God had a Son whom He had appointed heir of all things and by whom He had made the worlds: who was the brightness of his glory, and the express image of His person, who upheld all things by the word of his power, (Heb. 1:2, 3). Did Lucifer, who was “full of wisdom,” know this, and was it perhaps one cause of his revolt in heaven? Could it account in part for his implacable hatred of the Son of God? However that may be, the plan of this arch-traitor will one day culminate in “the man of sin,” “the son of perdition,” who is the Antichrist, who will appear on earth claiming to be God and taking the place of God.
II Thes. 2:3, 4. “That man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.”
“That man of sin,”—the very incarnation of sin in its highest development of treachery and apostasy, the man in whom sin will have found its most comprehensive expression and in whom Satan will have his most perfect tool. As the Christ is the Representative man of redeemed and holy humanity, so the Antichrist will be the representative of unregenerate mankind which refuses redemption.
To this man of sin Satan will give power, his throne and his authority, and place him as his own personal representative in the warfare against the Lord and His saints.
Rev. 13:2-4, 7, 8 (R.V.). “The dragon gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority . . . and the whole earth wondered after the beast; and they worshipped the dragon, because he gave his authority unto the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? and who is able to war with him? ...And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them; and there was given him authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation. And all that dwell on the earth shall worship him, everyone whose name hath not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that bath been slain.”
Satan, then, is a self-constituted sovereign over a rebel government. A deep-dyed traitor is in the midst who is ruler over a kingdom of darkness whose subjects are all moral intelligences, angelic or human, celestial or earthly, of all centuries and climes, who are in revolt against God and therefore are outside of His kingdom. To his Satanic activities are due the present awful state of world affairs, the appalling apostasy in Christendom, the growth of multitudinous false religions and counterfeit world movements, all of which are devised and used by him to prepare the world to receive “the lawless one,” to believe his lie, and to worship him as its deliverer and God.
The Result of Satan’s Revolt
The high treason of Satan, which knew no bounds in its perfidy and proved capable of no repentance, made two demands upon God. Just retribution must be meted out to Satan and all angels and men who followed him in revolt against God, and a place must be prepared for them outside of God’s domain. In the sublime statement of Genesis 1:1 we read that “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” But God did not create an underworld. It was Satan who necessitated the lake of fire for rebels like himself. So God prepared a place for the devil and his angels, and all men who refuse the redemption offered in His dear Son will go there.Matt. 25:41. “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Satan’s revolt had caused a terrible disarrangement in God’s ordered universe, requiring a reconciliation unto God of all things both in heaven and in earth (Col. 1:20). Adam’s fall made a third demand upon God—a way of redemption for sinners who desired to escape from the servitude of Satan. With the fore knowledge of Deity God was prepared for this revolt, and a way out to perfect victory was made “according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (1: 11). He willed that His kingdom must be freed of every rebel and of every trace of rebellion; every enemy must be put under His feet, and everything must be brought into subjection to Him, and He must become all and in all as He was at the beginning. This was to be accomplished through His Son.
I Cor. 15:24, 25, 28 (R.V.). “Then cometh the end, when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have abolished all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till lie hath put all his enemies under his feet. And when all have been subjected unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subjected to .him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.”
God’s Eternal Purpose
We meet this eternal purpose of God at the very threshold of Ephesians, and its outworking in part is unfolded to us in the epistle. In the eternal counsels of the triune God it was determined to carry out God’s purpose of retribution, redemption and reconciliation through the Son, who by stages covering many millenniums of human history would become the seed, the Saviour and the Sovereign.3:16. “According to the eternal purpose which he proposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Christ —the seed of the woman The SON Jesus —the Saviour of sinners Lord —the Sovereign of heaven and earth Three cords run through Scripture which mark the trail of God’s eternal purpose. There is the black cord that starts with the treason of Satan in heaven, blackens the entire course of human history, and ends in the torment of Satan and all his followers in hell. There is the red cord of salvation according to the riches of His
grace that begins in heaven with “the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world,” leads to the Cross of Calvary on Golgotha, and ends in heaven with the adoring worship of the redeemed. Then there is the golden cord of sovereignty, with its beginning in heaven in the eternal Son made heir of all things, which runs the whole length of humiliation and suffering of the incarnate, crucified Son on earth, and ends in the throne in heaven of the risen, exalted, sovereign Lord.God’s All-inclusive Plan
God’s eternal purpose eventuated in a three-fold plan.Conquest over Satan
Satan’s apparent victory in the garden of Eden was in reality his death-knell. The sin of Adam and Eve gave opportunity for the manifestation of God’s grace. “For where sin abounded grace did much more abound.” God made a way of salvation from sin for Adam and Eve and for all men who wish to escape from the sovereignty and slavery of Satan. In that dark hour at the very dawn of human history, God gave the promise of a Saviour, who would defeat and destroy Satan, and nullify his work through the redemption of man. The coming Conqueror would be Christ, the seed of the woman.Gen. 3:14, 15. "The Lord God said unto the serpent . . . I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
The enmity between Satan’s seed and the woman’s seed results in a double bruising. Here the very heart of God’s eternal purpose is revealed—the Cross upon which hangs a bleeding Saviour made Victor over a fatally-bruised Satan.
It is most fascinating to trace the two seeds through the Old Testament. The overshadowing of the seed of the woman is most beautiful as one sees how God chose an elect nation—the Jewish, through which the Messiah should come: then a tribe,—Judah; then a king,—David; until finally the time approaches for the Virgin Mary to bring forth a Son. Side by side all through the prophecies run the two cords, the red and the golden, as we see Christ, the Messiah, a suffering Saviour as in Isaiah 53, and a triumphant Sovereign as in Isaiah 11. The black trail of Satan’s seed is seen everywhere, as he seeks by every conceivable cunning to destroy the seed of the woman. But God frustrates every crafty plan of Satan, and defeats him stage by stage.
Redemption of Man
The day long promised dawned and “the seed royal” was born of a virgin. His name was called JESUS,—the Saviour of sinners.Matt. 1:21. “And she shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name JESUS, for he shall save his people from their sins.”
Luke 2: 10. “For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, who is Christ, the Lord.”It is the finished work of this Saviour that we find in Ephesians I-Il, where we see Christ made HEAD of the Church, which is His Body, composed of the redeemed out of every race, nation, people and tribe. In this present age of grace the HEAD works through the Body, carrying out to its fruition God’s redemptive plan. The supreme task of the Church is to preach and teach the gospel of full and free salvation through a Saviour by which sinners are delivered out of the kingdom of Satan and are made saints in Christ. The whole force of Satan’s implacable hatred for Christ is now lashed like a hurricane against the Church and the Christian who are the Lord’s faithful witnesses and wrestlers. This is the warfare of 6:10-18.
Reconciliation of all things in heaven and upon earth
God’s eternal purpose will not be fulfilled until all things in heaven and upon earth are brought into reconciliation through subjection to the Son. Ephesians speaks of a double headship. He, who in this age as the risen Saviour is Head over the Church, in the age to come will gather all things together in Himself and exercise headship as the Sovereign Lord over all things.1: 10. “That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him.”
We have considered our adversary, the devil, who is one of the two antagonists in this spiritual warfare; we have also briefly reviewed God’s purpose in His Son, who is the other opponent, and His plan of campaign through Him for Satan’s overthrow and destruction. Let us now turn to consider the person, position and power of Satan’s antagonist. If in victorious warfare it is necessary to know the enemy and to estimate aright his resources and power, it is even more essential to know the greater prowess and power of the Conqueror, and thus be assured of our own invincibility in Him.
Satan’s Antagonist—His Person
Who is the One who is mentioned sixty-six times in the six short chapters of Ephesians? Let His names tell us Who He is. Twenty seven times He is called “Christ”; thirteen times “the Lord”; six times each “Christ Jesus” and “the Lord Jesus Christ”; five times “Jesus Christ”; and once each “Jesus,” “Lord Jesus,” “Christ Jesus our Lord,” “Son of God,” and “Master.” Could anything tell us more clearly that the One with whom Satan has to reckon is the God-man. And God told us this in matchless language centuries ago through the prophet Isaiah.Is. 9:6, 7. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. And of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, and upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever.”
“Unto us a child is born”—a Babe lies in that Bethlehem manger, born as no other child ever had been or ever would be born. Mary, his mother, “was found with child of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 1:18), and the angel said unto her, “that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” “They shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” No wonder He is called “Wonderful!” The Son of God born of woman! The God-man! “Unto us a son is given.” The child is born; the Son is given. The Babe of Bethlehem is none other than the eternal Son, who was with the Father before the world was (John 17:5); the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18); The Word, that in the beginning was God (John 1:1); which was made flesh (John 1: 14); the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8); Christ, the Messiah, foretold by the Old Testament prophets as the Lord, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace, who would rule the world in righteousness and peace. What names He bears! revealing Him to be God’s beloved Son and Servant and man’s beneficent Saviour.
Satan’s Antagonist—His Position
A child is born. To what end? To die. A Son is given. To what end? To reign. To fulfil the eternal purpose of God, the eternal Son became the incarnate, crucified, risen, ascended, exalted Son. God Himself tells the story in a matchless way:Phil. 2:6.11. “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also bath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth.”
The Incarnate Son
Out of eternity into time, out of heaven to earth, came the Son of God to become the Son of man. He took the body supernaturally prepared for Him (Heb. 10:5), in which He lived a perfect life fulfilling every demand of the law for righteousness and holiness; doing beneficent works that manifested the love, compassion and mercy of His holy nature; doing the Father’s will from the largest to the smallest thing in life. Then He voluntarily laid down that body in death (Heb. 10:10). Satan, who, until our Lord’s resurrection, had the power of death, tried in every possible way to destroy the human body of Jesus; to overthrow it through Herod, to overcome it in the wilderness, to overstrain it in Gethsemane, that he might keep it from the death of the Cross. But He was born to die on Calvary’s Cross, and no power of Satan could frustrate the redemptive death of the Saviour.
The Crucified Son
Thwarted in his attempts to keep Christ from going to the Cross, Satan tried through the voice of priests and people to persuade Christ to come down from the Cross before those triumphant words “It is finished” could be spoken. But our blessed Conqueror was “obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross,” for through that death alone could He destroy the devil and his works, and gain an eternal victory for God and for man over their adversary, the devil. The whole outcome of the age-long conflict, yea, the fulfilment of God’s eternal purpose and His prophecy-promise of Genesis 3:1 S hung upon the death of the crucified One. When the anguished cry “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” came from the lips and heart of the dying Saviour, it seemed as though Satan had triumphed. But another moment passes, and with the strong voice of One consciously achieving His long-promised mission of conquest and deliverance, the Saviour cried, “It is finished.”Satan’s destruction was accomplished through the death of Christ.
Heb. 2: 14, 15. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”
Satan’s works also were destroyed.
I John 3:8. “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.”
Satan’s workers also were included in Christ’s conquest over all the foes of God and the forces of evil.
Col. 2: 15. “And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”
Weymouth’s translation of this verse is very telling and throws light on 6:12. “And the hostile princes and rulers He shook off from Himself and boldly displayed them as His conquests, when by the Cross He triumphed over them.” Through the death of the Cross the victory is the Lord’s. The enemy and all his forces were routed. The principalities and powers were disarmed and so completely conquered that a public spectacle could be made of them with great boldness.
The Risen, Ascended Son
Satan well knew the prophecy of Genesis 3: 15 had been fulfilled. The Son lived and died as Saviour. But the dead Christ must be kept dead that God’s redemptive purpose might yet be frustrated and Christ might not reign as Conqueror. So the resurrection was opposed by all the forces of the evil one. The sepulcher was sealed. A watch was set over it. But by the working of the mighty power of God Christ arose (1:20) and, ascending, passed triumphantly through Satan’s realm as “prince of the power of the air,” and was seated at the Father’s right hand in the heavenlies, “far above all” the spiritual hosts of wickedness arrayed against Him.The Exalted Son
As we enter Ephesians we are ushered immediately into the throne room where we meet the triumphant Conqueror, the Victor Son, the supreme Lord of the universe, the Head over the new race of redeemed men. During our whole stay in Ephesians, whether we walk before men on earth or engage in warfare with the powers of Satan, we never leave this throne room, nor are out of sight of the victorious Lord.The Lord Jesus Christ now occupies the very highest position possible in God’s universe. As it relates to governmental authority, God has exalted Him to be Lord of the universe, a position of supreme authority and power. In position He is far above all angelic and celestial beings, both good and evil (1:21; 6:12), and has been given sovereign control over all things which were put under His feet (1:21). As it relates to worship, Christ has been made the Head over the host of the redeemed out of every race and nation. Over them also He was given supreme control and direction. As Head of the Church, He has His holy temple (2:21); His gospel (1: 13), which is the gospel of a full and free salvation from sin and perfect deliverance from the bondage of Satan; His ministers, called “apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastors” (4: 11); His doctrines, which are all summed up and included in the “one faith” (4:5) and “the faith” (4:13); His “sacrifice,” the precious blood of Calvary’s Cross (1:7), His “table” and “cup,” around which His Church gathers to have communion with Him in adoring worship. So our blessed Lord presides as High Priest over His true Church.
Satan’s Antagonist—His Power
Satan is powerful, but the Lord is all-powerful. Ephesians speaks repeatedly of God’s mighty power and of its effectual working (1:19; 3:7; 6:10). But all God’s power He manifests in and through His Son. Satan has authority within his realm over fallen angels and evil men, but the Lord has authority over Satan and his hosts. All authority has been given to the Victor-Son, as He Himself said:
Matt. 28:18 (R.V.). “All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and upon earth.”
In the light of this statement let the limitations of Satan’s power be noted:
Satan’s Power is a Permitted Power
Rom. 13:1. “There is no power but of God.”So Satan’s power is only what God permits him to exercise and which must inevitably be subordinated to the carrying out of God’s eternal purpose. Satan virtually admits this when he offers Christ the kingdoms of this world, in saying, “All this power will I give thee, for that is delivered unto me.”
Satan’s Power is a Limited Power
Job 1:12. “The Lord said unto Satan, Behold all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand.”
Job 2:6. “The Lord said unto Satan, Behold he is in thine hand; but save his life.”Satan was permitted to afflict Job, but his power was restricted. Job’s sheep, camels, oxen, asses, even his sons and daughters, were in Satan’s power, but not Job himself. God set a boundary line beyond which Satan could not touch or harm Job.
Satan was permitted even to tempt Jesus. But God set a time limit to the temptation and, when God’s moment came for its ending, the devil had to depart (Lk. 4:13). Just so the God who knows the exact proportion of our strength and endurance will not allow Satan’s temptation to proceed a whit beyond what we are able to endure (I Cor. 10:13).
Satan’s Power is a Resisted Power
Lk. 22:31, 32. “The Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold Satan bath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.”
Heb. 7:25. “Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”
Acts 12:5, 11. “Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him
And Peter said, The Lord hath sent his angel and bath delivered me out of the hand of Herod.”Satan does not have a smooth path nor an easy time, for his power manifested for harm against God’s people is met by a barrage of prayer both from the faithful High Priest in heaven and His prayer warriors on earth.
Satan’s Power is a Broken Power
Lk. 11:21, 22. “When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace: but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth the spoils.”The stronger man has already overcome the strong man. Since Calvary Satan is a defeated foe. He has no claim whatsoever upon any child of God, and no power to touch him beyond what God permits for the outworking of His own purpose in and through that child. Satan was permitted through his emissaries to stone Stephen to death, but God without doubt used Stephen’s triumphant martyrdom as one factor in robbing Satan of one of his most successful warriors, Saul of Tarsus.
Satan’s Power is a Doomed Power
A day is coming when Satan will be shorn of all power and sent to the bottomless pit for a thousand years.Rev. 20:2, 3. “And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years. And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years be fulfilled.”
The Reigning Son
The warfare begun in the holy mountain of God in heaven; extended to the garden of Eden on earth; waged against “the seed of the woman” through the Old Testament times; focused on the human body of Christ in His earthly life; concentrated upon His mystical Body, the Church, in this age, will end in one climactic, catastrophic war after the translation of the Church and at the end of the tribulation period. The eternal purpose of the Father is coming nearer and nearer to its final fruition. The time is near at hand, we believe, when the usurper-prince and the apostate-god is to be deprived of all power and even of all freedom, and the Victor-Son and pre-eminent Lord is to come to His own throne to reign as King of kings and Lord of lords. So all the hate of all the ages of the great red dragon, the devil, toward God and His Son is summed up and expressed in the Antichrist, who will reign during the brief tribulation period as a civil and political potentate over the whole world, and in the false prophet who will act as head of the religious apostasy. It will be Satan’s final attempt to wrest from Christ His right to govern His own universe and to have and hold the worship of men for whom He laid down His life. The issue will then be settled once for all. With all the cunning and wisdom of a master mind he will summon his human and hellish hordes from the ends of the earth for the decisive combat. The Lord will descend to earth: the battle of Armageddon will be fought, and Scripture records the result. Will you not pause just here to read it in Revelation 19:11-20:3.He who becomes King of kings and Lord of lords will set up His kingdom upon the earth, where He is to rule for one thousand years. During this time Satan will be in the bottomless pit. Released at the end of the millennial imprisonment, which has wrought no slightest change in his diabolical nature, surcharged with venomous hatred of Christ, he will start again the role of a deceiver of the nations. And marvel of marvels, there are still men on earth who will follow him even though the end be the lake of fire.
Rev. 20: 10. “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever.”
Rev. 20:15. “And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”The warfare between heaven and hell; between darkness and light; between the devil and the Lord, is ended at last; every enemy has been subjected and cast out; and the kingdom is delivered up unto God. The eternal purpose of God through Christ Jesus our Lord has been perfectly fulfilled, and God is all and in all.
Back to the Table of Content It is most important to know where this warfare takes place, as its location determines our position in relation to the enemy, the nature of the warfare, and the kind of weapons to be used. The battlefield is definitely located.
6:12. “Our wrestling is against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places.”
Where, then, do we find Satan’s opponent? The Captain of the Lord’s host is twice located in Ephesians.
4:10. “He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.”
1:20, 21. “In the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion.”Two localities seem to be mentioned here. One the “heaven of heavens,” the dwelling-place of God, and the other a yet lower heaven, the atmospheric heavens, where Satan and his forces have their seat of operation. This places the enemy in a distinctly lower and disadvantageous position.
Then where are the Lord’s wrestlers? As they are none other than the members of His Body, they must be where He is, and this is just where Ephesians locates them.
2:6. “Us—in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
From this superior, advantageous position on the battlefield we may approach the enemy with an absolutely confident attitude. We will never be terrified unless we have allowed ourselves to get beneath, but we may always be triumphant because we know our position to be “far above.” The position from which we face the powers of evil determines our defeat or victory.Prof. H. S. Miller makes this illuminating suggestion regarding the place of warfare:
“Where, then, is the wrestling, this hand-to-hand encounter? In the heavenlies, surely, but which heavenlies? It is difficult to see that Christ sends us down, or even permits us to go down to the level of these demonized, spiritual powers to fight there with them. The alternative is that they have access to the spiritual place where we are, and that their suggestions are such as would, if successful, at least bring us down to their level.”
The location of the battlefield determines, also, the nature of the warfare. If in the heavenly realms, it is a spirit-warfare. May not our defeat be that we have fought with human rather than spirit foes, and that we have encountered the enemy on an earthly rather than a heavenly plane?
The place of warfare decides, also, the kind of weapons that must be used. As the old-time bayonet or even more modern hand grenade avails little against mechanized, motorized tanks and fleets of air bombers, so the carnal weapons we so often employ have no power against the cunning “wiles” and “fiery darts” of the wicked one.
II Cor. 10:4. “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.”
Satan contests the Lord’s victory and fights to retain sinners in his kingdom and to regain control of saints. But he wrestles as an already defeated and therefore desperate foe. Satan knows the manifold wisdom and mighty power of God as he sees Christ and His Church “far above all” in the position of invincible, unconquerable power and authority; the already determined position of full and final victory.
Back to the Table of Content 6:12. “For we wrestle.”
“We.”—This is the “we” traced through Ephesians as those redeemed through Christ’s blood (1:7); identified with Christ in His death, resurrection and exaltation (2:4-6); His workmanship (2:10); who have access unto the Father through the Son by the Spirit (2:18); who are members of His Body (5:30) and members one of another (4:25), and it is synonymous with “the brethren” of 6: 10. The wrestlers are the Church in its corporate capacity and each Christian within its fellowship.
On what ground do we become wrestlers against these terrible forces of evil mobilized under Satan’s leadership? If the conflict is between the two seeds, the supernatural antagonists, Christ and Satan, how do we become involved in it? Ephesians unfolds a threefold reason, the positional, the personal and the prophetic.
The Positional Reason
2:6. “In heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”Before the risen, exalted Lord lay the task of continuing and consummating His redemptive ministry. The eternal purpose of the Father must go steadily on to full fruition. As truly as Christ needed a human body through which to accomplish His redemptive work, He needed a mystical Body to make the fruit of that work available to all men everywhere. So on the day of Pentecost, ten days after His ascension, the Holy Spirit descended to form the Body of Christ. From that day to this everyone redeemed by the precious blood of Christ has been baptized into His Body as a living member of Christ Himself.
Satan recognizes that organic union, so now the venomous hatred and the vicious attacks of the evil one are directed against the Church as they were vented against Christ in His earthly life. It is Christ in the Christian and the Christian in Christ that Satan hates and would destroy.
The Church is the most damaging evidence of Satan’s defeat on Calvary, for it is the greatest proof of Christ’s resurrection. The Church, the Body of Christ, is a reminder to Satan, not only of his own personal destruction, but also of his works, for every saint was a sinner taken from Satan’s kingdom. The Church reminds him further of his broken power and of the mighty power of Christ, for all the unsearchable riches of Christ, His wisdom, strength, power, even His authority, have been given to the Church through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So the devil sees that with Christ in the Church and the Church in Christ he has no less to cope with now than he had when Christ was upon earth. All the resources of Christ which proved too much for even his most cunning wiles then, and led him each time of an attack into ignominious defeat, have now been made the riches of the Church, which constitutes it a r truly formidable foe.
Even in the beginning of the apostolic Church Satan sought its destruction. For this purpose he used many cruel rebels, but his most fanatical warrior was Saul of Tarsus, who fairly breathed out threatenings and slaughters against the Christians, and, according to his own testimony, was committed to the persecution unto death of both men and women. That Satan was striking at Christ in the Christians through Saul was revealed so clearly when from the glory Christ spoke, saying, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” The devil suffered a tremendous defeat when Saul turned “from the power of Satan unto God,” and all the fanatical fury once poured out against Christ and the Christians was changed into the most skilful strategy against Satan and his hosts. Who can estimate the damage done to Satan’s cause by this wonderful epistle to the Ephesians, setting forth as it does the way of complete and continuous victory over Satan and all his evil forces?
According to the faithfulness of the Church in revealing the standing and state of the sinner in Satan’s bondage, in preaching the gospel of full salvation through Christ alone, in indoctrinating the Church in the fundamentals of “the faith,” which has the atoning sacrifice upon the Cross as its very heart and the coming reign of the King as its blessed hope, will be the fierceness of the fury which Satan will pour upon it. In Christ we inherit not only all the love of God but all the hate of the devil.
The Personal Reason
3:17. “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.”
4:15. “May grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.”
5:18. “Filled with the Spirit.”The Church on earth is the fulness of Christ. Its presence proves the ascension of our Lord and the descent of the Holy Spirit to indwell the Christian that the life of the living, glorified Christ may be manifest on earth to an unbelieving world.
We should not marvel, then, that “we” are drawn into the warfare. Who is the devil’s greatest hindrance? Who menaces the carrying out of his plan in greatest measure? Most assuredly it is the Christian who lives “far above all,” who “walks worthily,” who is “filled with the Spirit” and so is “able to stand against all the wiles of the devil,” and “to withstand in the evil day.” To so appropriate our wealth in Christ that we are enabled to walk worthily glorifies Christ; reveals the beauty and desirability of the new nature; advertises the privileges and possessions of the new life in Him; manifests the superiority of life in the Spirit over life in the flesh; furnishes an open testimony to Satan’s subjects that the advantages of citizenship in the kingdom of Christ far exceed those in the kingdom of Satan.
This is a distinct check on Satan. It impedes and imperils his work, arousing and angering him. No testimony is stronger against the devil than that of a consistent Christian walk. When the Lord Jesus becomes an inward reality by the indwelling of and infilling with the Holy Spirit, then the life of the glorified Lord is reproduced. The saved, separated, Spirit-filled saint is Satan’s greatest enemy on earth. The Church, “the fulness of him that filleth all in all,” and the Christian, “filled unto all the fulness of God,” arouses all “the fury of the oppressor.” Hence we wrestle.
The Prophetic Reason
1: 10. “That he might gather together in one all things in Christ.”
Rev. 3:21. “He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father in his throne.”
Rev. 5:10. “And hast made us unto our God kings and priests; and we shall reign on the earth.”
I Cor. 6:2, 3. “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? Know ye not that we shall judge angels?”The prophetic reason is not emphasized in Ephesians, but a slight hint is in 1:10, which refers to Christ’s future headship over all things. The Christ of Ephesians is seated at the right hand of the Father on His throne. But in the millennial age the Son will be upon His own throne reigning over the kingdoms of this world, which will have been wrested from the control of Satan and his world-rulers and given to Him who has become King of kings and Lord of lords. As we are now seated with Him at the right hand of His Father’s throne, so then, as overcomers, He will give us the right to be seated with Him on His throne and to share with Him His reign over the earth.
But what relationship has this future glorious task to our present warfare with Satan? Much, every way, both from Satan’s viewpoint and ours. Will it mean nothing to Satan that his rule over the world for so many millenniums is wrested from him and conferred upon Christ and the Christians whom he hates with such violent hatred? Can he be indifferent to the prospect of those very saints whom he persecuted and sought to destroy on earth becoming the judges of the world that belonged to him and the fallen angels? Does he not know that his time is short (Rev. 12:12), and that the age-long conflict between the two seeds is nearly over, that the armies of the Lord are being especially prepared for the last campaign? Could this not account for his especial hatred toward the Christians of the present time who believe in and teach the imminent return of the Lord, and who “press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus?”
Would any ruler on earth place wholly untrained and inexperienced men in positions of great leadership and authority? Then surely the saints who will be reigning and judging conjointly with Christ in the millennial age must now be trained for such a task. Those who will reign over the world must now overcome the world rather than be overcome by it, and must overcome Satan from whose control that world must be wrested.
I John 5:4. “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”
I John 2:14. “I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.”The Lord will permit severe testing which will be part of this training, and the devil will challenge every step onward and upward of God’s saints with such diabolical assaults as they have never known before. But the outcome is assured, and our eyes must ever be upon Him in whom we overcome and with whom we are made worthy to reign.
Back to the Table of Content If in warfare the first necessity is to know the enemy’s position, surely the second is to know his tactics. “Satan’s empire is ruled with a settled policy. His warfare is carried on with a systematic strategy.” No wrestler, then, should be ignorant of his “devices” (II Cor. 2: 11) in so far as Scripture reveals them, nor unintelligent concerning his objective. In the light of Ephesians Satan will attempt three things:
To Despoil the Christian of his Wealth.
To Decoy the Christian from his Walk.
To Disable the Christian for his Warfare.To Despoil the Christian of His Wealth
The wealth of the Christian is deposited in a Person, and is dependent upon a position. Our riches are Christ Himself, made ours by our organic union with Him. In Christ we possess Christ. So to despoil us from our wealth Satan seeks to distance us from Christ and to dislodge us from our position in Him, on that highest plane, “far above all.”Let it be clearly understood that once really in Christ through the baptism with the Holy Spirit, the Christian is forever there. No power of Satan or of hell can ever break the vital union between Christ and any member of His Body, but that union can be weakened. Having had his own works destroyed through the redemptive ministry of Christ, Satan will do all within his power to deprive Christ of the fruitage and the enjoyment of His work.
Satan would first wean the Christian away from Christ through coldness of heart, and then he is prepared to weaken his belief in Christ’s Word through blindness of mind. Satan would first rob Christ of the Christian’s love and then of his loyalty.
Is not this order in Satan’s studied strategy revealed with unmistakable clearness in the messages of the glorified Lord to the seven churches, recorded in Revelation II and III? Read if you will Revelation 2:1-7, which pictures the church of Ephesus at the end of the apostolic age. There is very much that the Lord finds to commend. This church was still absolutely evangelical and sound in “the faith,” so much so that it hated all forms of error and evil, and tried those who were false apostles and judged them as liars. From the record it is certain the church at Ephesus was a beehive of activity, much commendable work being wholeheartedly done in the name of the Lord. But the Lord makes one very definite and most damaging charge against it:
Rev. 2:4 (R.V.). “But I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.”
Christ forgotten in the defence of and devotion to the Church! Love for Christ Himself waning while loyalty to His work and to His truth waged with ever greater intensity! From the church at Ephesus to the Laodicean church, where Christ is so little loved and so completely forgotten that He is outside the door, even seeking entrance, there are but six steps downward.
Oh, what a word of warning this is to the Christians who have smothered their Lord in a dead orthodoxy and in hectic activity that leaves no time for quiet communion over His Word; for fellowship in prayer; for adoration and worship of Christ Himself! Dear fellow-Christian, have you left your first love? Has the love of your heart waxed cold? Has it lost the lustre of the warmth, intensity, fervour, constancy, depth, and faithfulness of the first days and years you knew Him as Saviour? Is He still the pre-eminent Lover and Loved One in your heart? Oh, if not, for His sake and for yours will you not return to your first love to-day? For it is Satan who, because of his hate against Him, has weakened your love for your Lord.
To be in Christ in the heavenlies is to enjoy marvellous privileges. There every spiritual blessing is ours. There one experiences liberty, victory, peace, rest, assurance and security. There one is conscious of sharing in Christ’s victory over sin and Satan and of being “more than conqueror through him that loved us.” As long as that position is taken and maintained by faith, we are invulnerable to both Satan’s allurements and attacks. This he knows, so seeks desperately to dislodge us from our position by undermining our faith. Let us study his method, for certainly he uses a systematic strategy here. Who he is enables us to know what he will do.
Satan is a liar and the father of lies. John 8:44. “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it.”
Satan is a deceiver. Rev. 12:9. “That old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.”
Let us keep ever in mind Satan’s purpose—to take God’s place. Therefore his ruling passion is to draw men away from God unto himself. To achieve this end will he come out into the open and frankly say, “I am the great red dragon, the devil, Satan by name, come follow me, fall down and worship me!” Did he approach any truly reborn child of God in that way, he would run from him in terror. Satan depends upon his power to lead us away from God through lies. The underlying principle of all Satan’s tactics is deception. It will well repay you to study the emphasis Scripture puts upon this word in relation to the devil’s work. Satan does not purpose to be unlike God, but to be as like God as possible. Therefore he is a crafty, clever camouflager. He designs to counterfeit everything God is and does. Satan’s last deception and his masterpiece will be the Antichrist, such a skilful imitation of Christ that almost the whole world will be prepared to worship him. This duplication of God’s Christ will be a great humanitarian, working for the welfare of mankind.
But for his deceptions to be successful, they must be so cunningly devised that his real purpose is concealed by wiles. So he works subtly and secretly, always with duplicity. He would deceive even the very elect, and no Christian, however spiritual or strong, is beyond his seductive assaults. Satan is an adept at deception, for he began that work in the garden of Eden 6000 years ago and has practiced the art ever since.
Gen. 3:13. “The woman said, The serpent beguiled me and I did eat.”
In Eden Satan used a serpent as his mouthpiece. Since then he has used men. Satan has in his constant employ seducers.
II Tim. 3:13. “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”
Ephesians warns us of these seducers, unveils their deceptions, and shows how necessary it is for us to grow up into spiritual maturity that we may not be ensnared.
5:6. “Let no man deceive you with vain words.”
4:14. “That ye henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.”Let us now see in what guise these deceivers come, that we may be able to recognize them and discern their works.
Satan uses men as false teachers.
Paul warned the Ephesian elders that such men would arise from among themselves, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples unto themselves (Acts 20:30). They would be the false teachers of whom Peter writes:
II Pet. 2: 1-3. “There shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.”
“False teachers.”—There is no truth in Satan, the liar. Second only to his hatred of Him who is the truth is hatred of “the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation” (1:13). It follows naturally that he hates all those who “walk in the truth” (III John 3). So there is no length to which Satan will not go to dislodge the saint from his faith-position in Christ. To do so he has counterfeited the entire system of God’s truth, and has trained men as teachers of this cleverly designed religious system, with the distinct objective of causing God’s people to believe what is false and to lead them into error and delusion. Sometimes his doctrines are a flat denial of all the essentials of the Christian faith; sometimes they are half-truths—a clever admixture of truth and error; the truth furnishing the bait, the error the poison that kills the one who takes the bait.
“Among you.”—Note particularly that Satan does not build a church of his own out of his own funds and put a sign upon it: “First Church of Satan.” Oh no; he calls it the “First Church of Christ.” He goes even to the uttermost limit of devilish deception and places his teachers in the pulpits, Bible classes and Sunday Schools of evangelical churches. It may be the man or woman who teaches you or your children in your church is one of these false teachers, and you do not know it.
“Privily,” “creeping along under some sort of cover.” Under cover of the prestige of a church or institution that for generations has stood for evangelical truth; under cover of the name of some theological seminary or Bible school in which the false teacher once studied, but from whose teachings he has wholly departed; under cover of the vocabulary of orthodoxy these false teachers deliberately and intentionally “bring in damnable heresies,” to turn men away from the Lord, “even denying the Lord that bought them.” This unmasks them and stamps their teaching as Satanic, for Satan’s deepest hatred—the one that inspires all other hatreds—is for the gospel of redemption through the shed blood of Christ. Had it not been for that shed blood of the Redeemer, every man, woman and child since Adam’s day would still belong to him.
“Many shall follow their pernicious ways”—not knowing that in gulping down and feeding upon what these false teachers say they are taking the devil’s poison into their spiritual life. Thousands of uninstructed Christians are so deceived to-day. Recently in the Sunday School of a church belonging to one of the largest denominations, a very earnest young woman gave a talk which was absolutely contrary to the truth of God’s Word. A friend of mine who heard it spoke to the young woman afterward, expressing grief that she should have given such a message. “Why,” said she, “I got it out of the S. S. Quarterly.” And so she had—a Quarterly filled with these same “damnable heresies.”
How could that truly earnest young woman be so deceived? “They with feigned words make merchandise of you,” and again in vs. 18, “For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh.” Their use of high-sounding words, which seem like the epitome of scholarship, culture and oratory, are a part of the trickery so cleverly designed to beguile unthinking and untaught souls.
How can we know these false teachers are Satanic? Is it unrighteous judgment, or is it spiritual discernment that places them as Satan’s emissaries? They “bring upon themselves swift destruction” and “their damnation slumbereth not.” God Himself has thus judged them, and so exonerates every child of His who not only has discernment to distinguish between the false and the true, but the courage to expose the false.
The Holy Spirit has taken special pains to warn us of these apostate teachers in the days preceding our Lord’s return, and has Himself disclosed their Satanic origin.
I Tim. 4:1, 2. “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy.”
These false teachers have departed from “the faith” which God has given as His revealed truth for the Church in this age of grace. The Spirit distinctly states that the reason for their turning away is that they gave heed to Satan’s lies and deliberately chose to accept the doctrines of devils rather than the truths of God. So they themselves become the mouthpiece of Satan, speaking lies with his own duplicity and hypocrisy.
Satan uses men as false prophets.
In the early Church God chose His own prophets, and bestowed them upon the Church as His gift (4:11), yet even in the beginning of church history false prophets arose.
II Pet. 2:1. “But the there were false prophets also among the people.”Our Lord told His disciples that in the end of this age many false prophets would arise to deceive many.
Matt. 24:11. “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.”
There is ample proof of the fulfilment of this prophecy. False prophets have arisen in such numbers that thousands of Christians have been utterly confused and led astray. Back of all such false systems as Christian Science, Unity, Russellism, Ballardism, Mormonism, Bahaism, Spiritism, Theosophy, and all others where men or women claim to have received some special revelation from God, or to be His special messengers, is Satan, the arch-deceiver.
Satan even uses men as false Christ:.
Again our Lord in His Olivet discourse, where He answers the disciples’ question concerning the signs of His coming, states first of all that there would be many false Christs.
Matt. 24:4, 5. “Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.”
Incredible as it seems, now in our time this prophecy is being fulfilled; some men actually claim to be divinely appointed liberators of the oppressed,—in other words to be “The Messiah.” It seems still more incredible that men and women by the tens of thousands are deceived into following such persons. Is it not indicative of the gnawing unrest, uncertainty and dissatisfaction that fill men’s hearts to-day? Everywhere there is perplexity and bewilderment. Men have lost faith in their fellow-men. Nations are truce-breakers: men are liars. Who is trustworthy enough to be trusted? The prestige and power of even the greatest nations is gone. The whole world is looking for a superman; men are crying out for a deliverer, and they are ready to accept self-constituted Messiahs, false Christs, who pose as saviours of the down-trodden. All this is but Satan’s preparation for his Antichrist.
“False teachers, false prophets, false Christs!” One would think this word “false” would be enough to establish their origin as Satanic and quickly reveal them to us as deceivers. Why is it, then, that so few of God’s children detect them as such? It is because of the very falseness of the way in which they approach God’s people. Not only is what they teach and profess to be false, but their method is the very acme of deceit. This is God’s own indictment of them. He says these powers of darkness mask as angels of light.
II Cor. 11: 13-15. “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”
Let us study the method of approach of Satan and his present day satellites who seek to dislodge the saints from their faith-position in Christ.
To Dislodge through Doubt
The arch-deceiver entered Eden as an angel of light. He was there as the great humanitarian who would excel God as a benefactor to man. True, God had placed Adam and Eve in a perfect garden and had given them all needful for spirit, soul and body, in overflowing abundance. A single commandment had been given—one reservation made, and that for their greatest good.Then comes this Satanic “angel of light” with his insidious question, “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (Gen. 3:1). For, if He did say that, then can God be called good? So argued the serpent who “beguiled Eve through his subtilty” (II Cor. 11:13). To distance Eve from God Satan bores into her heart through doubt, with the diabolical intent of weakening her love for and trust in God. Having won such a signal victory in Eden by this “angel of light” method, Satan has not departed from it.
He comes to-day through his apostate teachers, asking the same insidious question, “Hath God said” that every man is a sinner, and that the soul that sinneth it shall die? “Hath God said” that there is no other way of salvation but through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ? “Hath God said,” that all men who do not believe upon and receive Jesus Christ as Saviour shall be eternally separated from Him? If so, then, can such a God be a God of love?
To Dislodge through Disobedience
Having instilled doubt regarding God’s goodness into Eve’s heart, then Satan, the liar, comes out with a bold, blatant denial of God’s Word with the studied intent to break their relationship with God through disobedience. In commanding Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God said, “For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” “The serpent said unto Eve, Thou shalt not surely die.” The issue was perfectly clear. Would they believe and act upon Satan’s lie, or upon God’s truth? They believed Satan’s lie, and were immediately dislodged from their position of fellowship with Him, and hid from His presence. They became the first “children of disobedience” (2 :2).Satan comes to-day with the same lies and the same denial of God’s Word. God has said that all have sinned, and that the wages of sin is death. Satan through one set of false teachers says that no one sins, for there is no such thing as sin; and no one dies, for there is no such thing as matter. God has said that sin is lawlessness, and that the very core of sin is enmity toward Him. Satan through another set of false teachers says that sin is not at all the heinous thing God declares it to be, nor does it need the kind of salvation which He requires. Sin is rather a “fall upward,”
and, if only man’s environment and circumstances were made perfect, then man will fall backward into a personal righteousness which a truly loving God would accept. So in a thousand different forms this intelligent, versatile apostate sets his lies over against God’s truth, and misleads people as to plainly-stated fact, thus beguiling them into error.To Dislodge through Delusion
The world to-day is flooded with Satanic cults. All kinds of new movements are coming on to the arena which are suited to the temperament and circumstances of the ones Satan seeks to ensnare. He has one kind for the elite and another for the common run of folks. Some of these are such clever counterfeits that even saintly souls are being deceived. Sometimes the vocabulary used is that of Scripture, but with a private interpretation given to it. Then again the language of the Word is studiously avoided, and that used is capable of diverse meaning. But it all sounds so fair and enticing that it makes the counterfeit even more dangerous.Earnest children of God are often taken unawares by Satan’s craft in times of sickness, suffering or sorrow, when they seek for healing, relief or consolation. The devil takes advantage of the physical, mental or spiritual condition to ensnare them through his “lying wonders.” Many of God’s children, longing for health, and not knowing that Satan has power to perform miracles, have been drawn away from the pure gospel of Christ to the cult of Christian Science. Other thousands of God’s people, sorrowing over the loss of loved ones, and longing for touch with them again, have been ensnared by the “lying wonders” of Spiritism. But God shows us clearly the origin of all such perversion of truth, which has deluded such large numbers of people.
II Thes. 2:9-11. “Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie.”
To Dislodge through Deflection
No child of God will be left untempted by Satan’s snares. Those who would not be deceived by these grosser errors he tries to deflect from the whole truth of God’s Word by the admixture of error with truth; of law with grace. He will do all he can to strike a deadly blow at the gospel of salvation by grace so marvelously set forth in Ephesians and to seduce men from trust in Christ alone for salvation and for sanctification. In Paul’s day Satan tried to deflect the Galatian Christians from this gospel of grace. They were saved, and were running well, but they wanted to go further and know the power of fulness of life in the Spirit. Just there Satan sought to dislodge them from their position of liberty and to entangle them again in a yoke of bondage. For this purpose Satan used false brethren.Gal. 2:4, 5. “And that because of false brethren unawares brought in who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ, that they might bring us into bondage; to whom we gave place by subjection no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.”
How manifold are such deflections from the pure gospel to-day, and how watchful every saint should be that he is not taken unawares by them! If Satan cannot get us to believe too little of the gospel, then he will attempt to get us to believe too much and to go beyond what the Word teaches.
From this brief study of Satan’s deceptions we see he is doing two things in the minds of Christians in relation to the truth. He would, first, corrupt their minds to turn them from the simplicity of the gospel.
II Cor. 11:3. “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”
Failing in this, Satan then tries to confuse the minds of earnest Christians. An illustration of such devilish work is seen in Satan’s attempt to confuse the minds of those devoted Christians at Thessalonica over the precious truth of the Lord’s return. in the first epistle to the Thessalonians Paul had written of this blessed hope that it might bring them “comfort” (I Thes. 4:18). Satan tried to pervert the truth to bring confusion.
II Thes. 2:1, 2. “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.”
Satanic deceptions began in the first days of the apostolic Church. Paul, Peter, John and Jude discerned them and warned against them. Our Lord declared that Satanic deceptions would be a special sign of the growing apostasy leading up to His return. To-day such deceptions abound on every side and are increasing. The question that confronts every true Christian is how to stand against these wiles of the devil. We need not be deceived. God exhorts us repeatedly in Scripture to take heed.
Lk. 21:8. “Take heed that ye be not deceived.”
Our faithful Lord has made ample provision for every child of His to meet Satan, the deceiver, victoriously and to discern his deceptions.
Through the Abiding of Christ.
I John 3:24. “He abideth in us, by the Spirit which he bath given us.”
I John 4:4. “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”It is this Christ in us, who calls Himself the truth, who will meet Satan, the liar and the deceiver, and overcome him.
Through the Anointing of the Spirit.
I John 2:20. “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.”
I John 2:27. “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.”Under the teaching of the Holy Spirit the tests of Scripture will be applied to these Satanic deceptions, and every lie will be exposed as a lie, and God’s eternal truth will shine in our minds, giving the light of God for clear discernment.
To Decoy the Christian from His Walk
The Lord Jesus offered a very significant prayer for His disciples:John 17:15, 16 (R.V.). “I pray not that thou shouldest take them from the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”
“They are not of the world.” The saints are an other worldly company, a people who are now citizens of heaven, even though they walk as pilgrims on earth. Though in the world they are not of it. “I pray not that thou shouldest take them from the world.” But how very difficult to live an other-worldly, heavenly life in such a world as this, which Christ and His apostles declared would grow worse and worse until it reaches such a state of appalling wickedness that God has to act again in judgment as He did in the days of Noah (Matt. 24:37-39). Look upon the picture of the state of the world in the last days, and see if present-day conditions warrant one in thinking we are nearing this stage.
Matt. 24:6, 7. “Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.”
Luke 21:12, 16, 25, 26. “They shall lay their hands upon you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name’s sake. Ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake. . . Upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.”
II Tim. 3:1-4. “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. . . . For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy . . . without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.”
Division —wars, nation against nation. Disloyalty —betrayal, traitors, false accusers. Distress —persecuted, hatred, prisons, put to death. In Degeneration —without natural affection, unholy, incontinent.
self more than the Debauchery —lovers of money lovers of pleasure God
World Dishonesty —truce-breakers. Depression —perplexity, hearts fainting for fear. Discord —unthankful, disobedient to parents. It is a terrible and terrifying picture, yet we must honestly admit it is all too true of the world in which we are now living. We witness to-day a world-wide revolution to destroy governments through anarchy, society through debauchery, and Christianity through apostasy. We live in a world whose civilization is on the brink of utter collapse, literally rotting to pieces through its own corruption. Moral
restraint has been cast to the winds. Growing indecency permeates every phase of life, manifesting itself in speech, in clothing, in amusements and in relationships. The very atmosphere is charged with unwholesome and unclean suggestions which pollute both eye and ear. The evils of Noah’s day, with all their demonized, degrading influences, seem rife in our midst. The very foundations of even the nations built upon the fear and the love of God are being destroyed. Those things that ministered to the finer and nobler things in human life are largely discarded. The cultural side of life has declined. There is little time to read or think or converse. Sadder still, there seems no sense of loss in the passing of those things that in other days were the charm of many homes. The modern-day person is a bundle of nerves, accurately described as without self-control.Perhaps the most hopeless thing is the abandonment of the standards that safeguarded the moral, ethical and religious life of human society. The standards of our forefathers are not only scoffed at by the world, but are ridiculed also by the Church. Students in a Bible class were asked to define sin, and one person said, “That is a very difficult thing to do, for what was considered sin twenty-five years ago is not sin to-day.” Alas! how true; and this lowered evaluation of sin accounts for the moral deterioration of the past generation. God describes the attitude of men in the last days toward godliness and holiness, “blasphemers, unholy, despisers of those that are good.”
Yet from such a defiled and defiling world Christ does not pray for the Christian to be taken. Nor does He lower the standard of life expected of the saint. The journey from 1:13, the day we first heard the Word of truth and believed in Christ, to 5:27, when we shall be presented to Him without spot of blemish, is long and difficult. But God chose us to be holy, started us walking on the highway of holiness, and expects us to go steadily on to the goal. Satan will dog our footsteps along every bit of our pilgrim journey. This our Lord knew, so prayed “that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one.” The devil came to Christ as “the tempter,” and he will come to the Christian in the same way.
Matt. 4:3. “The tempter came to him.”
Lk. 4:12. “Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost . . . was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil.”
I Thea. 3:5. “When I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter have tempted you, and our labour be in vain.”
I Pet. 1:6. “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.”
Throughout the earthly life of Christ the devil sought to tempt Him to swerve from the path divinely marked out for Him—the pathway to the throne by way of the Cross. By enticing words, by threats, by every conceivable subtilty, Satan tempted our Lord, but found nothing in Him (John 14:30). Knowing the fierceness of the devil’s temptations and that there is within us a sinful nature that responds to such enticements, our Lord faithfully prays that we may be kept when these temptations assail us. Let this be great comfort and strength to us.
Throughout the pilgrim journey of the Christian, Satan will seek to decoy him from the sevenfold walk so clearly unfolded in Ephesians, by tempting him to yield to these demonized influences of his worldly environment and circumstances, and to the evil desires of the flesh. His temptations will come from without and from within, and each has its definite objective. Let us note how cunningly he adjusts the temptation to each phase of the walk.
Unity—Division
Satan’s first diabolical work was to destroy the unity among angels, and then among men. He brought division into the first home and family, causing brother to murder brother. He began this deadly work in God’s habitation, the Church, in its very beginning, and has continued through the centuries to cause schisms and splits, until to-day the Church is divided into hundreds of camps of Christian soldiers often fighting against each other rather than uniting all their forces against the one common foe. This is Satan’s masterstroke against Christ, to discredit before a hostile world the testimony of the Church, of which He is the Head.Satan divides Christian from Christian by injecting poison of unwarranted suspicion, unloving intolerance, intense dislike, corroding jealousy, and acrimonious criticism. These poisons go through the system and find an outlet through the tongue. An unbridled tongue, “full of deadly poison and set on fire of hell” (Jas. 3:6, 8), becomes the devil’s instrument and the poison spreads to other church-members until “Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth !” A full-fledged church quarrel is started with the membership taking sides and dividing into factions.
Satan is especially active in fostering misunderstanding between Christians who are in the front ranks of valiant warriors for the faith, and are united in soul winning and in building up Christians in Christ. In this morning’s mail came a letter from one working with others for a prayer retreat for revival, saying, “I am expecting great things from those two days. Ever since we settled to have this weekend difficulties have come. Untrue things are being said by other Christian workers. We can expect Satan to work now and we must be above everything. But these attacks come from such unexpected corners, that it is like a thunderstorm suddenly bursting loose, when nothing has happened. Such things do bring us to our knees more than ever.” Is that not exactly the victory the Lord would gain in such an attack? He would keep us very humble and dependent; reminding us to be very watchful of our own attitudes, and very vigilant in guarding our hearts against every Satanic temptation to separate us from fellow-Christians.
Holiness—Degeneration
What has been the result upon the Church of the crumbling of the foundations of civilization and the collapse of standards in modern life? Sad to say, instead of withstanding these deadening, degrading influences emanating from the powers of darkness, too often the Church has succumbed to them and become the devil’s prey. Everywhere there is a lamentable deterioration in the very warp and woof of Christian principles and standards. There is such an appalling ignorance of God’s Word on the part of most Christians that they know little of God’s ways and still less of Satan’s, so they follow the path of least resistance, that of the world and of the flesh, both of which tend toward the unrighteous and the unholy.Satan would lure the Christian away from the high ground of heavenliness to grovel in the dust and dirt of earth. He would have us interested in and satisfied with the things of earth and time and sense. Satan wars against daily growth into the image of Christ, and will go to any length to hinder a continuous, consistent walk. The devil ever trails the saints to decoy them away from the highway of holiness, and to detour the heavenly pilgrim into the haunts and habits of sin. He argues with the Christian that Christ is no joykiller and that Christianity is not narrow. “Does not Bypath Meadow always seem to lie close by the King’s Highway? Does it not always promise the easiest going?”
Doubtless all of us have somewhere a blind spot, and just there Satan concentrates his temptation to inconsistency. He will make some fall forward in worldliness while they bend backward in orthodoxy, as the militant fundamentalist who smoked and played bridge, seeing no discrepancy between her orthodoxy and unspirituality. Often-times Satan trips us at our strongest point. Manifestations of the self life that had been counted crucified appear again in the same hideous form. In the measure the Christian seeks to advance and to live habitually on the highest plane he will be the target for Satan’s fiercest fury.
Love—Disloyalty
“The brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death.” These words almost take away our breath, for they seem so terrible. Yet they describe conditions already existing in some countries. A friend of mine visited her aunt in one of the totalitarian countries of Europe and, when questioned as to the difficulties observed, she said that one dared not speak with freedom, even within one’s own home, for fear there might be a spy in the family.But in many homes in all lands a more refined but scarcely less cruel form of disloyalty is often manifested by unsaved members of the family toward a real believer. Several days were spent in the home of one greatly used in teaching God’s Word. One daughter would not eat at the table with us, and even the most charitable person could not truthfully have called the husband polite. Later the wife was forbidden to have Bible classes in the home. “TVithout natural affection. How Satan delights to separate good friends! Oftentimes it is accomplished by a fiery dart of misunderstanding allowed to lodge in the heart; then it is easy for motives to be misconstrued; words to be misinterpreted, and actions to be misrepresented.
Oh, how often the heart of the missionary or minister is well-nigh broken by disappointment through the disloyalty of someone for whom he had willingly poured out his life. Did not our Lord know something of the suffering of disloyalty when all His disciples forsook Him and fled? When Peter, who had avowed allegiance to Him even if all others deserted Him, denied Him three times? The tragic note of such suffering is found more than once in Paul’s epistles. How each of us needs to have the Spirit of love shed abroad in our hearts, the love of God, that we may never yield to Satan’s temptation to jealousy, envy, malice, dislike, slander, backbiting, or misunderstanding.
Light—Distress
“Upon the earth perplexity, for it is a day of trouble.” And no person is left untouched by this environment that is surcharged with fear and foreboding; with dread of what even a day may bring forth. Within the past weeks a whole continent was held in the grip of the fear of war. To-day a letter came from a French friend showing how the awful atmosphere filled with the aerial hosts of darkness oppressed her.“During the past weeks we have had a strenuous life, full of work and worry. We feared even to be obliged to go South, far from a possible war. But, worst of all, we felt this wave of hatred, fear, war, around us; everywhere there is persecution, oppression, war in one form or another, and nobody seems able to find a right solution for all the problems of the world. But God reigns! If we did not believe that, life would not be worth living.”
In China the greatest migration of all human history has been made by whole villages and families who sought greater peace of mind through deliverance from the fear of death or atrocities worse than death. Everywhere to-day there is a haunting sense of insecurity engendered by fear, which Satan capitalizes to bring believers as well as unbelievers into a state of bewilderment, keeping one from seeing issues clearly and from being able to pray through problems.
Satan delights to torment God’s saint through injecting his own filthiness into the mind. The experience quoted is one all too common to-day.
“I am a woman of many years’ experience and service in the Christian life. In my younger years I never indulged in unclean thought, conversation, reading or stories; the suggestive joke is an abomination unto me, and the picture shows have little or no attraction for me because of their suggestiveness of the impure. Now for some time evil, obscene, unholy thoughts have been flashing unbidden through my mind, vile words (and I have seldom even allowed myself to indulge in slang), enter my thought and the simplest thing will suggest impurity. I realize this is from Satan. Last night when at prayer unholy thoughts flashed up and I felt prostrated with fear and shame and almost despair.”
Such distress of mind that torments even to despair has but one source, the devil, and should be refused and resisted as from him.
Wisdom—Distraction
“Men’s hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things that are coming upon the earth. Satan first busies himself with working havoc in our circumstances and then in us by getting us “to look after” those things which he has wrought, thus filling our hearts with anxiety, worry, care and fretfulness. The Holy Spirit would have us always looking up. Satan would keep up looking around. The Spirit would fix our eyes upon Christ, whatever our circumstances. Satan would keep our gaze upon our circumstances to obscure Christ. If we look up, we shall be enabled to live above and get clear guidance on all the perplexing problems confronting us; but, if we look around, we shall surely be beneath and wholly unfit for the decisions and actions required.Praise—Depression
The human spirit is the headquarters of the Holy Spirit in the believer, and the vantage ground from which He works to carry the abundant life of Christ to the uttermost part of the human personality. So it is very necessary to keep it untrammelled, joyous, assured, thankful. For this very reason Satan assails it and tempts to depression.The devil not only tempts us to look around, but to look in, and for the same purpose—to keep our eyes off of Christ. He will make us wrongly concerned over our spiritual condition in order to create doubt of God and disbelief in the work of the Holy Spirit within us. One of the saintliest men I ever knew suffered acutely at times through the Satanic temptation to doubt his own salvation. Beyond most men he exalted the Lord in his life and magnified the Word in his preaching and gloried in the grace of God toward man. Yet the devil periodically cast over his life a baneful cloud of doubt regarding his own acceptance with the Lord and God’s goodness to him, robbing his heart of all peace and his face of a glory that shone with marvellous beauty.
The lengths to which Satan is going is unthinkable, even at times successfully tempting some of God’s choicest ones to suicide or to such depression as ends in insanity. He cruelly commandeers the pains of illness and the sufferings through disaster to serve as his vassals in robbing the saint of a thankful, praise-full heart. One should ever recognize any torment of spirit through depression as from the devil and instantly refuse it.
Harmony—Discord
In all the relationships of life to-day one has to be constantly on guard against the discordant dart, for the devil can make such big chasms out of such little cracks. Fretfulness, irritability, nagging, incompatibility, indiscreet behaviour, can result in estrangement between husband and wife. Disaffection between parents and children can disrupt the home. Satan thinks of hundreds of ways to cause
friction and Irritation between members of a family which make it almost impossible for them to live in the same house.How, then, are these manifold temptations to be met and overcome? First of all by recognizing the tempter and refusing to yield to the temptation. Christ knew it was the devil speaking through Peter and said, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” So must we go behind the flesh and blood instrument to the Satanic instigator of every temptation and definitely resist him. Secondly, we must follow the clear instructions given in Ephesians IV and V to put off the old man; to put on the new man; to yield no place to the devil, and not to grieve the Holy Spirit. The devil will constantly seek place in us through the uncrucified flesh. If yielded to him, the Holy Spirit is grieved and rendered powerless to enable us to resist the devil. To live with an ungrieved Spirit is to have the secret of victory over the temptations of Satan.
To Disable the Christian for His Warfare
The great objective of Satan now is to delay the final consummation of God’s eternal purpose, that his own ejection from the earth and imprisonment in the bottomless pit may be projected into the future as far as possible. For this age of grace it is God’s purpose to complete the Body of Christ and to prepare His chosen ones to be presented to Christ, purified and perfected in His likeness. To this end He would have the gospel carried to the ends of the earth that every person might have an adequate opportunity of hearing the Word of truth and of believing upon the Saviour; and He would have the spiritual life of the Church enriched, deepened and vitalized by the continuous infilling and energizing of the Holy Spirit.
To-day there is felt everywhere a desperate attempt to thwart God’s plan of world-wide evangelization and of real revival within the Church. When the last soul needed to complete the Body of Christ has been won from Satan’s kingdom, the Lord will come for His own to take them unto Himself, and then to return with them to reign on the earth. So the final battle of the ages comes on apace. The devil knows full well it is no mere skirmish or sham battle in which he is engaged. The issue for him is destruction, so the warfare is desperate. Satan will do everything within his power to sidetrack and to hinder the work and to lay low and wear out the worker. There is no method he will not employ to intimidate or to intrigue into folly. He draws upon every resource within himself to disable God’s wrestler. So let us see who he is in order to know what he does.
Satan is the Accuser of the Brethren
Rev. 12:10. “Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.”To win others to the Lord one must have both the liberty and the power of the Spirit. There must be the inward consciousness that there is no known, unconfessed sin, or any deliberately permitted inconsistency of life; that one is himself living obediently according to the Word he preaches and teaches to others. As the apostle Paul said, he must exercise himself to have a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man (Acts 24:10).
To disable for soul-winning, Satan will pour into or upon the worker a stream of accusations, whether true or false. From within he will torture with the remembrance of past sins and present sinfulness, pressing home the realization of failures, defeats, mistakes, shortcomings, and weaknesses, until we feel utterly incapacitated to speak to others of salvation. Satan will turn our thought in upon ourselves in self-reproach, so that we will think it hypocritical and futile to witness to others. From without through his emissaries, animated by jealousy, prejudice, hatred or dishonesty, he will often flood a community with lies, false accusations, slander, against some devoted, innocent, unoffending Christian, to besmirch his reputation and to nullify his witness. The object of the accuser is to create within the worker a sense of his own personal unworthiness and unfitness before the Lord, and to make him cringe in fear before the devil.
Satan is the Hinderer and Great Adversary
I Thes. 2:18. “Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan hindered us.
I Cor. 16:9. “For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries.”From every mission field to-day, and even from other countries, these very words are heard, describing the hindrances to God’s work by the great adversary. Every fresh opportunity to preach the gospel in hitherto untouched fields is challenged; every true and powerful work of the Spirit in revival is crosscut or counterfeited; efforts are being made to close the door to the gospel in one country after another and to compel missionaries to leave. The number and kind of adversaries are many indeed. Sometimes it is the leaders of a
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Why and how Satan hinders is described by a missionary on a far-flung mission frontier:“When the child of God, yieldedly and wisely, attacks sin, preaching the Cross, and redemption from sin through blood alone, then let him confidently anticipate opposition. Trouble will surely come, and very generally from some most unexpected source. Great spiritual awakenings have occurred, quietly, with no excitement, like unto deep-flowing water. And every time such outpourings of the Holy Spirit have been followed by difficulty. The very powers of evil have been marshalled. Satan invariably gets busy. Everything goes badly. Seriously needed supplies do not arrive with the coming of the annual ship, that which does arrive is very generally ruined by sea water, our preserved meats mouldy, our eggs spoiled, our drugs and medicines not as we had expected, furniture broken. We are misunderstood, our motives questioned, and our best efforts maligned. Programs go awry and our earnest endeavours seemingly go for naught.”
Satan will resort to countless ways to keep us from fruit-bearing service. He will hinder us from going to prepared places and people; will dissipate our time and strength, putting upon us such pressure that Christ’s power is lacking, and we become strained and feverish in too many activities; he will occupy us with secondary and secular concerns; will tempt us to use carnal instead of spiritual weapons; will intrigue us into worldly alliances and the acceptance of worldly counsel instead of seeking to know and follow the counsel of God.
Satan is the Persecutor and Murderer
John 8:44. “Ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of you father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning.”Satan would ever seek to kill God’s Gideons, those stalwart wrestlers, the “called, chosen and faithful” ones (Rev. 17:14) who would gladly lay down their lives in martyrdom, if need be, or in an even more tortuous daily dying through days and nights, months and years of lengthened persecution, rather than make any compromise with God’s truth or be disloyal to God’s Son.
This very day there are ministers of the gospel languishing in concentration camps and prisons, others are enduring terrible torture and barbarous persecution because of refusal to worship at pagan shrines. Every Spirit-filled wrestler is open to Satan’s murderous attacks and death ambuscades through disease and disaster. There needs to be a definite committal of the body to the Lord for protection from every such danger.
How, then, is this accuser, adversary and murderer to be met? With fear or with faith? If with faith, upon what solid ground does our faith rest for the power to overcome such a powerful enemy?
Rev. 12:11. “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony: and they loved not their lives unto death.”
“They overcame him.”—Victory is absolutely assured. No child of God need or should ever fear the devil. The way of victory over all his accusations, hindrances and murderous attacks is clearly outlined in this verse, “By the blood of the Lamb,” or on the ground of the blood. We may have been guilty of every sin of which the devil accuses us; we may even be guilty this moment of the accusation he brings, but the precious blood of Christ was shed to redeem us from the guilt, penalty, and power of sin, and we may trust ir1 the blood of Christ to answer every indictment the devil may bring against us. Instead of his holding over us the fear of our own guilt, we may hold over him the fact of his own defeat as our accuser by the already accomplished victory of the Cross.
“By the word of their testimony.” To overcome the enemy he must be silenced and his power to hinder must be thwarted. Next to the power of the blood is the power of the Word spoken in the power of the Spirit. A deep, genuine experience of the truths of salvation and sanctification, wrought in one through the indwelling, infilling Spirit, and then witnessed to by one empowered by the Spirit, is a mighty weapon against the adversary.
“They loved not their lives unto death.” What can the murderer do but acknowledge himself overcome before such a sacrificial spirit as this? To save us and to destroy Satan our Lord was “obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.” When for love of Him, or for those to be won to Him, we are willing even to lay down our lives in death, or “to fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in your own flesh for his body’s sake,” through long drawn out persecution, then Satan, the murderer, has been truly overcome.
Back to the Table of Content 6. THE CHRISTIAN WRESTLER’S VICTORY
We have not shrunk from declaring the power of the devil, which is clearly stated in the Word and seen in the world. While it is foolish to underestimate his power, it is fatal to overestimate it. However great and powerful he is, be has been overcome by the mighty Lord, whose victory is our victory (I John 4:4). Let us now see how that victory is made ours:
The Assurance of Power in Christ
6:10. “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.”
“Be strong.”—Never fear nor falter nor faint, but always be prepared through an enduement with fresh strength which enables you to be victorious from the start to the finish. The devil says, “Be fearful, look around at difficulties and dangers. Be cowardly and give up, for you can never win out against such hindrances and opposition. Be discouraged, look in at your own weakness.” But God says, “Be strong!” Victory is ours when we realize that strength lies first of all in our inward attitude. To assume power we must be assured of power. But that assurance will never come if we look in at ourselves or out at the enemy. If we try to match our power against his, we will succumb in ignominious defeat. We may raise up all kinds of sandbag defences of our own making, but the master strategist will make a surprise attack on our blind side, or drop a fiery dart from the air, and we are overcome.
“Be strong in the Lord.” Our strength lies in a Person, and Oh, what a Person! Note His name. THE LORD. Ponder that name until it stands out before you in all its singular glory and solitary grandeur. Not “Jesus,” his personal, human name that indicates His Saviourhood, sweet and precious as that name is. Not “Christ,” His official, mediatorial name, The Anointed One, indispensable as that is to us. But “LORD,” His sovereign, kingly name that stands for His rulership over the universe and all in it. “The Lord, the mighty God, the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords.”
“IN.” Yes, capitalize, italicize and underline this two-lettered word. But why give it such emphasis and importance? Because herein lies hidden the secret place of victory over the devil. Where we are determines our victory, because it determines our strength and power of resistance. “In the Lord” we are both strong and secure. Our Victor envelops us, for “we are hid with Christ in God.” So, as someone has said, “Before the devil can touch you, he must get through God and Christ.”
“And in the power of his might.” Our strength lies not only in what He is, but in what He has. Our power is in a Person whose power is extraordinary, for “it is the power of his might.” This is exactly the same word used in 1:19, when describing the quality of the power used in raising Christ from the dead. In the strength of the mighty power of the Lord we are equipped to fearlessly meet Satan and all his hosts, confident that we shall be “able to stand,” “able to withstand,” and “able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.” Our part, then, is calm, confident assurance of power over all the power of the enemy. We enter the warfare victors through faith in the victorious Lord, upon whom we keep our eyes fixed. Dear reader, do you know in your daily experience the conquering power of His might?
The Assertion of Our Position in Christ
6:11. “That ye may be able to stand against all the wiles of the devil.”
6:13. “Having done all, to stand.”
6:14. “Stand therefore, having—”
6:13. “That ye may be able to withstand.”“That ye.”—Every Christian, even the least and the lowliest, is included. Not one need fear the enemy, for there is victory for every Christian who has heard the call to arms and offered himself as a warrior. “May be able.” What intense relief and courage these words, used three times in this passage on warfare, bring to the warrior! They are God’s pledge of perfect provision for victory. God cannot lie and will not mock us, therefore, “ye shall be able.”
“To stand.”—Do not fear, falter, faint, fall nor flee before the foe. Never expect defeat or plan retreat, but wait to see the devil depart from you as he did from Christ in the wilderness. Do not even fight. The battle is not ours, but the Lord’s. Our part is to “stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, for the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.” “Stand” in the perfection of Christ’s finished work and in your divinely-appointed position in Him. Seated in Christ in the heavenlies, far above all principality, power, might and dominion, we are able to stand against Satan. In Christ the enemy is under our feet. We do not wrestle for a position of victory, but from one. Therefore standing in Christ we may reckon on the battle won before it is begun. Calmly, confidently, take your position in Christ and assert it courageously. Stand unafraid.
“Stand against the wiles of the devil.” Note it does not say “the power,” but “the wiles” of the devil. He is a practised strategist who has been in warfare against God and His people for many millenniums, and there is no art, no craft of cunning, no machination in warfare of which he is not the master. He can out manoeuvre us completely by his deceptions and devices. But Christ, the wisdom
of God, is Victor over Satan, the master of wiles. So in Christ we stand undaunted.“Having done all, to stand.”—Having fully equipped ourselves according to God’s directions, and having nothing more we can do to prepare ourselves for battle, then during an especial attack of the enemy we must stand unmoved. However fiery the trial of faith may be, however long it may last, we must stand in faith, refusing all doubt and depression, knowing that all is by the Father’s permission and in the fulfilment of His purpose. The Lord of hosts anticipates no cowards nor deserters in His army. It is not enough for us to resist sometimes and to gain occasional victories, then, when some peculiarly hard trial or severe affliction comes, to go under in defeat. However fierce or often the attack, or however many the forces massed against us, let us never give in, nor retreat one step, but in the thickest of the fight and in the darkest hour, let us see the enemy overwhelmed and overthrown, the battlefield covered with victor’s spoils, and ourselves standing in the midst as overcomers. Stand unconquered. “Stand your ground in the day of battle, and having fought to the end, come off victors on the field.”
“Stand, therefore, having—.” After one attack, do not be worried or worn out, but stand firmly holding your ground, fully equipped for the next assault. Stand without flinching or faltering, but joyously and peacefully when all is pitch-dark before you, when you cannot see a step ahead, when the enemy seems to be in the ascendant and to have complete control over your circumstances. Stand with a victor’s spirit, faith, courage, assurance, conviction. Stand invincible.
“That ye may be able to withstand.” The believer’s exalted position in Christ is not one only of high privilege, but also of great responsibility, for Christ shares with him His authority over all the power of the enemy, as well as His victory. So it is not enough that, as a member of Christ’s Body, we stand in victory in our personal conflict with Satan. We must also resist his attacks against the corporate Body and against individual members of it. We must withstand Satan in his efforts to block world evangelization and the deliverance of individual souls from his kingdom, and in his opposition to revival within the Church. There is an offensive as well as a defensive warfare to be waged. Christ’s victory over Satan must be enforced and the spoils must be claimed. We rejoice exceedingly that on Calvary’s Cross the Lord spoiled the principalities and powers and triumphed over them. But the practical part of that victory involves stripping these evil powers of all the authority they previously exercised over us and, instead, exercising authority over them.
Just before our Lord’s ascension He said, “All authority bath been given unto me in heaven and on earth.” He assumed that authority when He sat down at the right hand of God in the heavenlies and was exalted as Lord over all created things and beings. He shared that authority with the Church, His Body, when He was made Head over it. Therefore, every saint in Christ is the possessor of the authority of Christ. This is a staggering fact, which we hesitate to accept, and from which we consciously shrink. The responsibility for such a possession is simply overwhelming, and most of us would gladly shirk it. The failure of the Church to assume and exercise this divinely-imparted authority accounts in large measure for its impotence to-day before the massed hosts of evil.
Let us understand clearly just what this authority is and involves. Authority should not be confused with power. The distinction is made clear in the following quotations:
“Authority is not power, it is only the imparted right to bring the power of another into operation.”
“One stands at the crossing of two great thoroughfares. Crowds of people are surging by; multitudes of high-powered vehicles rush along. Suddenly a man in uniform raises a hand. Instantly the tide of traffic ceases. He beckons to the waiting hosts on the cross street, and they flow across in an irresistible wave. What is the explanation? The traffic officer has very little ‘power.’ His most strenuous efforts could not avail to hold back one of those swiftly-passing cars. But be has something far better. He is invested with the ‘authority’ of the corporation whose servant he is. The moving crowds recognize the authority and obey it. Authority, then, is delegated power. Its value depends upon the force behind the user.”Having authority defined, now let us have it illustrated. Paul was an ambassador of Christ, sent into Satan’s domain to rescue sinners from his power and kingdom. On his first missionary journey he met two men in Paphos. One was Sergius Paulus, deputy of the country; the other, Elymas, the sorcerer, a false prophet. The deputy desired to hear the Word of God through Paul, but the sorserer withstood Paul, “seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith.” Here is the picture of a man, filled with the devil, withstanding a man filled with the Spirit. One has behind him the authority of Satan, the other of the Lord. Which would be the victor? Let Scripture answer:
Acts 13:9-12. “Then Saul, (who also is called Paul) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, and said, 0 full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?....And now, behold the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand . . . Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord.”
Note the three-fold expression of authority. In Paul’s look; “set his eyes on him.” Did not Elymas know he was defeated the moment his eyes met Paul’s? Did he not see in every expression of Paul’s face fearlessness, conviction, courage, victory? In Paul’s words: “Thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness.” What man would dare or would have the right to say such words to another man? Paul was only bringing the power of the Lord into operation against the power of Satan. In Paul’s act: “Thou shalt be blind.” How awful for one man to inflict such a punishment upon anotherl But no; a man did not do it. “The hand of the Lord is upon thee.” Paul was the Lord’s agent in the administration of punishment. But, even acknowledging that the authority is the Lord’s and Paul was merely the channel for its exercise, who is sufficient for such a task? Only he who is “filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Satan sought and found entrance into the early Church through Ananias and Sapphira, through whose sin he aimed to destroy the purity and power of the Church, thus dishonouring and defeating Christ, its Head. Peter used his God-given authority in discipline and in the destruction of Satan’s work (Acts 5:7-14). The spiritual condition of the Church would be vastly different to-day if such authority had been exercised during its history by those responsible for its leadership. God calls his warriors fearlessly to bind the strong man and his spiritual hosts of wickedness and of darkness in all parts of the world, as through the Spirit’s enlightenment they are made aware of their working.
The Acceptance of Our Protection in Christ
As our power and position are in a Person, so also is our protection. This is fully consonant with the whole truth of Ephesians in that all our wealth which is deposited in Christ is sufficient for the requirements both of our walk and our warfare.
God gives persuasive reasons why we should accept this protection: “For we wrestle against” a foe so powerful in himself, in the hots united with him, in the strength of his organization, in the cleverness of his wiles that, if unprotected, we will meet certain defeat. “Wherefore” we need an armour that is sufficient to protect our whole being and that will equip us for both defensive and offensive attacks. “Therefore” be prepared, either in an emergency or in ordinary circumstances, for any kind of an attack. Never knowing where, how or when Satan will attack us, we should never be unprotected or unprepared. His attacks may come at the most unexpected time and from wholly unlooked-for quarters. There will not be time when the attack comes to put on our panoply. “Therefore” it is well to anticipate that “evil day,” and to stand every moment fully protected by our divinely-provided armour.6:11. “Put on the whole armour of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”
6: 13. “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.”“The whole armour.”—There are six pieces of armour, each of which is a source of strength and security in warfare. Five are for defensive and one for offensive warfare. No part of the life must be exposed, for even one vulnerable place would mean defeat. So we cannot pick and choose what parts of the armour we wish to wear. We need to wear the whole armour all the time. “Of God.” What a relief to know that we do not need to provide the armour! How ignorant we are of the strength and the stratagems of the enemy! How inadequately we gauge our own inability and impotence! But our omniscient God, who knows all about our foe and about us, has provided an armour both suitable and sufficient.
“Put on”—clothe yourself with this armour for defensive protection against every wile of Satan to despoil you of your wealth, to decoy you from your walk, and to disable you in warfare. The armour is not a museum piece, but for the battlefield. “Take unto you” the whole armour as protection in offensive warfare. God makes the armour, but we must take it. Note that God has provided no protection for the back, for He expects no deserters.“Stand—having your loins girt about with truth”
We have seen that Satan comes to us first as the liar and deceiver, so we can understand why God provides first of all the girdle of truth for our protection. Christ, the Truth and the true God, is our armour against the attacks of Satan, the liar and deceiver.John 14:6. “I am the truth.”
21!Ray. 3:7 “These things saith he that is holy, he that is true.”The soldier’s girdle was no mere ornament. It went around the body, holding other pieces of armour in place and giving the soldier freedom in movement. So this divine girdle of truth must encompass our whole life. The whole circle of truth should wholly encircle us, leaving no gaps. This will really mean the two prayers of Ephesians answered in us; the revelation of God’s truth to our minds through the Spirit’s enlightenment, realized in our experience through the Spirit’s enablement. Truth apprehended will be applied. This involves a very intimate dealing of truth with every department of our lives, which the apostle John described as “a walk in truth.”
III John 4. “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.”
Such a walk implies a stern, strict dealing with sin and self; allowing no conscious hypocrisy or insincerity; no compromise with known sin; no excuse or vindication for wrongdoing; no condoning of sins such as temper, irritability, worry or depression on the ground of physical causes or domestic circumstances. It compels us to face things just as they are and call them by their right names. He who is the truth encompasses our whole being, making every part true, beginning with the inward character, and ending with the outward conduct.
“Stand—having the breastplate of righteousness”
Satan comes to us as accuser and tempter, so God provides for us the breastplate of righteousness.I Cor. 1:3. “Christ is made unto us righteousness.”
4:24. “Put on the new man which is created in righteousness.”“Having on.”—Righteousness is not a day a week luxury, but a seven days a week necessity, if we are to resist Satan’s temptations. “Wear integrity as your coat of mail.” “The breastplate”—covering the vital organs where a wound would be fatal. “Of rightousness.” Being right because adjusted to God’s will, and doing right because acting according to God’s Word. This breastplate of righteousness is ours when we live according to the pattern of Christ and the precepts of the Word in our relationship to men. We can then stand before Satan’s accusations with a good conscience and without selfreproach. We can also stand before his temptations without yielding. But there must be no flaw in the breastplate in the form of permitted wrong habit or practice. In all things, large and small, there must be strictest integrity up to our knowledge of God’s Word and ways. A lustful desire allowed to rest in the heart can result in adultery; a love of money can lead to theft or to dishonesty in securing or handling funds. “Nothing exposes a saint in conflict more readily than a bad conscience in his ways.”
“Stand—your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace”
We have seen how Satan is the destroyer of peace between man and God and the instigator of discord between men: how also he will rob the saint of the peace of God through all kinds of inward distress of spirit, mind and heart, that he might hinder him from being the messenger of peace. But Christ our peace is our protection against all such attacks.2:14. “For he is our peace.”
John 14:27. “My peace I give unto you. . . . Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”“Your feet shod.”—For progress in our daily walk or for protection in our warfare we need to be well shod. No warrior would think of entering a battle in dancing slippers. If you ever noticed a soldier’s shoes you know they are substantial and suitable for any kind of road, weather, or hardship. “With the preparation of the gospel of peace.” God has told us we would have temptations, trials, testings, so we must be prepared to stand the strain of slippery paths of temptation and of the stony hills of adversity and affliction. Only the peace of God is sufficient for the heart in the midst of life’s losses, infirmities and tragedies. As we walk through this disordered world there are a thousand things to bruise and wound us, but “the peace of God that passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
Stand—”above all taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one.”
Satan’s very first work with man was to create doubt of God Himself and then of His love, in order that man might be separated from God. On the manward side faith is the first necessity, for it is the cable that links us with Christ and keeps us united with Him. But even this faith is not our own; it is the gift of God, and is the creation of Jesus Christ.
2:8. “By grace ye are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.”
Heb. 12:2. “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.”"Above all.”—All other parts of the armour are put on or taken by faith, so faith really equips one for warfare. “Taking up”—as a gift, faith must be appropriated, as are all other gifts, and then used. Faith is not faith unless it is at work. True faith is always active. “The shield of faith.” In olden times the shield protected all parts, and had to be movable so as to repel attacks from any quarter. Faith has but one value for a warrior. It connects him with the Victor, the all-powerful, all-sufficient Lord, whose victory over Satan is his victory. “Wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one.” Oh, how many of Satan’s darts are fire-tipped, hellish balls of fire with but one purpose—to produce distress of mind, depression of spirit, disappointment in our relationships or in our work or in ourselves. “Of the evil one.” It is sometimes hard for the child of God to distinguish between a dart from Satan and discipline from God. The Lord tests, but He never tortures. The Lord’s discipline is for the purpose of making us a partaker of His holiness, while Satan’s dart is to make us a partner in his hellishness. “Able to quench.”—The shield in olden times was made of skins and saturated with water. As the fiery darts of the enemy came against it, they were quenched. As we daily take our shield of faith, that enables us to rest fully upon the faithfulness of God, the finished work of Christ and the fulness of the Spirit, we shall be able to quench every fiery dart of Satan.
Stand—”and take the helmet of salvation”
Satan wages a real battle for the possession, control and use of the mind of the saint. He tries in every possible way to corrupt or confuse it through his false teachings and teachers. The Christian has but one safeguard against his attacks.I Cor. 2:16. “We have the mind of Christ.”
Phil. 2:5. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”
4:23. “Being renewed in the spirit of your mind.”“Take the helmet,”—the covering for the head. There is tremendous need of protecting the mind of the Christian, for Satan finds an undiscerning mind a ready prey to deception and delusion and an undisciplined mind an easy mark for his defiling thoughts and suggestions. “Of salvation.” This is the great all-inclusive gospel word that gathers into itself the exceeding riches of God’s grace, and then gives out those riches in election, predestination, adoption, acceptance, redemption, enlightenment, inheritance, sealing and security, as we have found out in Ephesians. Salvation covers the whole range of the work of God, the Father, Son and Spirit in creating a saint out of a sinner and in making him an heir of God and joint heir with Christ.
The experimental knowledge of full salvation in Christ is absolutely essential for the Christian warrior, for if he has any doubt of his own salvation, how can he confidently meet the foe, or how can he effectually win a sinner to Christ? And in these days of manifold Satanic counterfeits, how can he discern the false from the true?
Stand—”and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”
Five pieces of armour were given for our defence against Satanic attacks upon us. But God provides one piece for offensive, aggressive warfare, that we may be able to deal death-blows to the enemy, and gather spoils from the battlefield.
“Take the sword of the Spirit,” which God Himself defines “which is the word of God.” The sword is God’s own utterance given to us in His written Word, inspired by the Spirit, revealed to us by the Spirit (1:17, 18), used by the Spirit in us to sanctify and cleanse (5:20), and then wielded by the Spirit through us to defeat the devil (6:17).
The word of God was the one weapon used by Jesus in the wilderness when, as the Representative Man, He won not only His victory, but ours too, over the devil. Each of Satan’s three attacks was met with a sword of the Spirit,—”It is written,” and three times Satan was repulsed. Only as we use this mighty weapon with intelligence and skill will we be able to withstand Satan successfully. This will require of us a constant, systematic study of God’s Word, that our sword may be easily and quickly unsheathed, and that just the needed part of it may be used at the right time and in the right way.
With such power, position and protection ours, should not our battle cry ever be “able to stand” and our battle song “The Lord bath given me the victory.”
Back to the Table of Content 6:18. “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.”
6:18 is not a mere postscript to 6:10-17. In the wars of earth many a battle has been lost by the sagging in spirit of a section of the army which, giving up in defeat, has. allowed the enemy to break through and win. How, then, is the spirit of an overcomer to be habitually maintained in the individual, and how is the spiritual morale of the whole army of Christ to be kept in effectual fighting trim? Then, if the victory of the wrestler is dependent upon the power, position and protection provided in Christ, how is his connection with the Lord to be maintained unbroken? Still further, if the Lord has given the Christian wrestler power over all the power of the enemy to bind him and spoil him of his goods, how is that power to be released and made operative? The answer is clear:
always Stand Praying with all prayer For all saints in the Spirit and watching The Potent Wrestler is a Prayer Warrior
“Stand praying.”—.-Subjectively prayer is the admission of utter ignorance and impotence. We neither know what to do, nor have the power to do; therefore we pray. Objectively, it is the expression of supernatural wisdom and power. We have been told what to do and given power to do it. The spirit of the prayer warrior is a strange paradox; Christward it is one of conscious weakness seeking strength: Satanward it is one of conscious strength expressed in victory. This dual attitude is both the cause and the effect of prayer. The Christian warrior has absolutely nothing in himself with which to meet such a foe or to win out in such a conflict. Standing alone before Satan and his hosts, he would tremble in fear and flee in defeat. He gladly acknowledges the truth of His royal Commander’s words, “Apart from me ye can do nothing.” But the wrestler has everything in Christ. His one necessity, then, is to keep in constant communication with his Lord. Unbroken communion through prayer with our Captain-Conqueror-Christ is the only ground of assurance of habitual victory over Satan.“Praying always” is to have the spirit in such unbroken communion with the Lord that all things, at all times, in all places, may be carried to Him in the upward look and inward attitude, even if no words are spoken. It implies also the outstretched hand of complete dependence both on ordinary days and in sudden crises. But preparedness against Satan’s wiles requires the wisdom and strength that only comes through definitely-stated times set apart for prayer. Many Christians in different parts of the world are setting aside a special day each month on which they give themselves in prayer for world-wide evangelization and revival Within the Church.
Satan fears nothing as he fears a saint who knows how to prevail with God in prayer and release the omnipotent power of God against him. So he will use every devise to keep us from praying. He will cause physical fatigue and lethargy; unfit us mentally for prayer through the cares and burdens of the home and of business; and destroy our power in prayer through doubt, discouragement and depression. So when we least feel like praying is the time we most need to pray, for Satan already has gained a foothold in us.
“With all prayer.” Might not “all prayer” have several meanings? Praying on all occasions, in a prayer group, in prayer meeting, in public worship, even where God’s people are gathered together socially, prayer is befitting. Praying in all places; in one’s own closet with the shut door, at the family altar each morning, in the Bible class, or devotional meeting. Praying at all times; in prosperity as well as adversity; in sickness or health; morning, noon and night, as the Psalmist prayed. Praying for all things in our personal life, home, business, work, that no loophole may be left for Satan to enter and to work. Everything needs to be covered by prayer. How often we could say what one friend recently wrote me, “For the enemy has attacked in such a surprising way and we were so unprepared to meet the onslaught.” “And sup plication.”—Going beyond our own needs and withstanding Satan’s attacks on others by specific petition. Prayer should be focused on some special need or danger of one of God’s saints, as the prayer of the Church for Peter when he was in prison.
“In the Spirit.” As carnal weapons do not prevail in spiritual warfare, neither will prayer that is in the flesh have any power. There may be a form of prayer without reality; even a use of all the accepted terms of prayer warfare, but without point or power. Prayer to be effectual in warfare needs to start with God, who sees the whole battlefield, who knows the devil’s plan of campaign, who decides the place and part of every wrestler, and who directs the movement of the entire army of the Lord with the definite objective of carrying out His eternal purpose. God Himself must give us the prayer to pray. It must come straight from His heart to ours with a deep sense of conviction, urgency and assurance. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. We do not see Satan’s hidden ambush, his ingeniously concealed snare. But the all-wise, ever-watchful Spirit sees every danger and pitfall, and will so inspire prayer within us that we are forewarned and forearmed. How can we ever remember all the things for which we know we should pray? We cannot, but the Holy Spirit will bring them to our remembrance, and we should never disregard any impulse of the Spirit to pray. The Holy Spirit praying in us will determine both the character and the content of our prayer. Prayer in the Spirit must be Spirit-inspired, Spirit-inwrought, Spirit-taught, Spirit-directed, and Spirit-energized.
“And watching thereunto.” The prayer warrior must be vigilant; permitting no laziness or self-indulgence that unfits for prayer; guarding his time so that even odd moments may be requisitioned for prayer, and definitely planning his daily schedule so that suitable time may be given to prayer; watchful for everything that feeds and fosters the prayer life, and on guard against anything that enfeebles or hinders it. “Thereunto.” Through the Word know God’s purpose both for the Church and the world; then watch the trend of events and praise as you see God’s eternal purpose being fulfilled, and pray as you observe Satan’s efforts to thwart it.
“With all perseverance.”—Hold on and hold out, not fainting through fatigue, not yielding to discouragement because of delayed answer, not being deflected by pressure of other things. But persevere in faith until victory comes.
“For all saints.”—We are members one of another, bound together in Christ in a union so real that if one member suffers, all the members suffer, therefore the members should have the same care one for another (I Cor. 12:25, 26). The whole body of Christ suffers defeat to the degree that the individual members are defeated and the victory of the Church over the Satanic foe is dependent upon the victory of every Christian. Herein lies the responsibility of each saint for all saints. Not all Christians are appropriating their wealth in Christ, or walking worthily of their high calling, or standing victoriously against Satan. Many are grieving the Spirit by still walking according to the world and the flesh, thereby giving place to the devil. So few are enlightened by the Spirit (1: 17); praying in the Spirit (6: 18); strenghtened by the Spirit (3: 16); and filled with the Spirit (5:18). Wherein does the blame lie for the weakness of the Church? Does not each saint share the blame in so far as he has failed to pray for all saints?
So much of narrowness, selfishness and exclusiveness characterizes our prayers. We pray for our own local church and for our own denominational home and foreign mission work, but what of the many other hundreds of battalions of Christian soldiers under a different name and leadership, but all part of the Lord’s host? Battles may be won here and there, but the war will be lost unless there is advance along all sectors of the fighting line. There are new recruits to be found; wounded comrades to be cared for; thinned-out ranks to be filled; officers to be trained; funds for carrying on the warfare to be provided, and only as each prays for all can all this be done. One wonders what measure of new life and power would come into the Church if every saint faithfully offered for all saints the two inspired prayers of Ephesians.
6:19, 20. “And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, . . . for which I am an ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.”
“And for me.”—Paul was Christ’s chief-of-staff of the human forces of that early Church. Therefore he was the mark for Satan’s most vicious attacks. Satan had succeeded in putting him in prison, and thought he had put him out of the conflict, but the dauntless old warrior binds the enemy with prayer, who had bound him only with chains, and in that very prison wins new spoils for his Lord.
Though undaunted, he was not self-confident. He needed strength and courage to preach the gospel boldly and to faithfully fulfil his duties as an ambassador of Christ. To this end he craves the help through prayer of other saints. Oh, what need there is today for this very petition for ambassadors of Christ, both on the mission field and at home! It is becoming increasingly hard for loyal messengers of Christ to proclaim boldly the gospel of a perfect salvation through the Saviour. Many are persecuted and imprisoned for the gospel’s sake, even as Paul was, and they are saying to us, “Pray for me.”
There is no retiring list in God’s army. He may shift the position of some of his old wrestlers and, because of their rich experience, gained in years of active service on the front firing line, place them with His prayer reserves. He needs prayer warriors to-day almost more than anything else, so, if He has given you the honour to be one, let it give you unbounded joy.
A tremendous responsibility rests upon the prayer warrior, both Christward, Churchward and Satanward, upon which we may only briefly touch. But the subject deserves most careful and prayerful study. Christward, it involves fullest co-operation with the Lord in the carrying out of the Father’s eternal purpose in and through Him. This requires a knowledge of the Father’s will in regard to the Church and the world as revealed in His Word, that we may know what within the work of the Church to-day is under the direction of the Lord Himself through the Spirit’s guidance, and what is the worldly wisdom and policy of human leadership, largely misguided through false prophets and teachers. Only so can we intelligently work, pray and give for the Lord’s work. By co-operation with our Lord in prayer we can fight in all parts of the battlefield, and penetrate to the furthest reaches of the enemy’s territory.
Our responsibility Churchward is great and manifold. From God’s Word we need to know the teaching regarding the Church as the Body of Christ; to recognize not merely doctrinally but practically our oneness with all saints of whatever colour, race, country or status, and to so live, work and pray that the whole Body of Christ is lifted to life on that highest plane, “far above all,” and maintained in that position in victory over Satan.
Satanward our responsibility is tremendously great, very far beyond what the vast majority of Christians have ever known or been willing to accept. Let Christ tell us what it is:
Matt. 12:29. “Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.”Luke 10:19. R.V. “Behold, I have given you authority . over all the power of the enemy.”
Have not most of us tried to spoil Satan of his goods before binding him? Have we not been ignorant of the authority given us and, when we did know of it, shrunk from fear to exercise it? Consequently, Satan has bound us (Lk. 13:16), instead of our binding him, and hindered us instead of our hindering him. The Lord would have His warrior know and experience this binding power of prayer in His name and use it in the defeat of Satan. God needs to-day prayer warriors who have learned the secret of exercising their God given authority in prayer, and who will direct it against the most strategic efforts of the evil one, so that he has no power to close doors to the gospel; to compel Christians to worship at his shrines; to expel missionaries from the mission fields; to stop funds and other supplies for God’s work; to send out his own ministers and false teachers to the mission field or into the pulpits of evangelical churches at home; to forestall the work of revival and the giving of the message of full salvation; to stir up trouble and strife in the church and the mission station; to wear out the saints in spirit, soul or body; to blind Christians to the truth of our Lord’s return and so hinder the work of the completion and the purifying of Christ’s Body; to hasten the ultimate triumph of Christ and the fulfilment of God’s eternal purpose.
Dear fellow-Christian, are you a prayer-warrior? If not, will you offer yourself to Christ to-day to become one as His Spirit teaches and trains you?
The Apostle Paul, himself a tried and trusted warrior, by two crisp commands warns of two vulnerable spots which open to Satan the way of victory through crippling the Christian in spiritual warfare. Then by a third he exhorts every Christian to perfect his preparedness for warfare.
Giving Place to the Devil
4:27. “Neither give place to the devil.”
Giving place to the Devil gives Satan headquarters in Christ’s camp. It provides him a base from which to conduct his campaign. Giving place to the devil makes a part of Christ’s army an ally of His arch-enemy, for the devil will not wrestle against himself. Giving place to the devil lessens the man-power of the Lord’s host and surrenders to Satan spiritual resources which belong only to the Captain of our salvation. It compels Christ to go out to war handicapped. It weakens the warring power of omnipotence. It diminishes the working force of the supernatural. Giving place to the devil divides allegiance and puts traitors and deserters into the army of the Lord.So the devil is ceaselessly busy seeking to gain some place in the life of every Christian wrestler. He will start with a very small place, anything so long as he gains a foothold. He knows our weak spot. He comes up on our blind side. He breaks through where the crust is thinnest. He bides his time until he can take us unawares. He tempts at our most susceptible points. He works wilily, archdeceiver that he is, to beguile us into making a league with him. To the truly spiritual warrior he comes most often as a veritable angel of light, even ensnaring some by claiming to be an envoy from God. He uses any method, however clever or cruel, to gain access, and does his best to disguise his approach. What he seeks to gain is a “place” to begin his activities, that he may undermine the Christian warrior’s morale and render him incapable of fighting, that he may ultimately gain control and use him as his own accomplice.
Grieving the Holy Spirit
4:30. “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.”
One who might shrink with horror and fear from giving place to the devil may, nevertheless, be making his victory in the heavenlies possible by grieving the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit dwells within us to reproduce within us the victorious life of the glorified Christ that we may be enabled “to stand” and to release through us His supernatural power that we may be empowered “to withstand.” Whatever restrains or restricts the Holy Spirit from carrying out His work to His utmost capacity, plays into Satan’s hands to defeat Christ.Then what is it in us that grieves the Holy Spirit? Naturally anything unholy. Whatever in us that is contrary to what He is, grieves Him. He is the Spirit of truth, faith, grace, wisdom, power, love, discipline, holiness, so anything that is untruthful, unbelieving, ungracious, unwise, unfruitful, unloving, uncontrolled, unholy, grieves the Spirit of God. Therefore sin of any nature or degree, whether open or secret, whether in flesh or spirit, whether gross or refined, grieves the Holy Spirit.
Being Filled with the Spirit
5:18. “Be filled with the Spirit.”
This is the slogan of the victorious wrestler. It is the Spirit-filled warrior, and only he, who overcomes and overthrows the satanic hosts.“Filled” with the Spirit’s wisdom (1: 17), he discerns the wiles of the devil (6: 11). “Filled” with the Spirit power (3: 16), he stands against them. “Filled” with all the Spirit’s fullness (3: 19), he is supernaturally equipped to engage in this warfare between the supernatural forces of good and evil and is supernaturally strengthened to come off victor.
6: 13. “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand your ground in the day of battle, and, having fought to the end, remain victors on the field.”
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