Would you turn with me to the prophecy of Isaiah? Just one verse in Isaiah 59:19:
So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west,
And His glory from the rising of the sun.
For when the enemy shall come in like a flood,
The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.
When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. Some versions render it quite differently, but the Hebrew says exactly that. It is possible to play with it because of the context and to render it, “For He will come as a rushing stream, which the breath of the Lord drives.” But I think the old rendering is much more faithful: when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.
Now one more verse, this time in 1 Samuel 2:9, the wonderful song of praise of Hannah, the mother of Samuel:
He will keep the feet of His holy ones;
But the wicked shall be put to silence in darkness;
For by strength shall no man prevail.
Now, in the New Covenant, in Ephesians 6:10:
Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.
Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles, or stratagems, of the devil.
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.
Wherefore take up the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.
Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
Withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one.
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;
With all prayer and supplication, praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
Back in the Old Covenant, in 2 Chronicles 20, a great multitude came against Jehoshaphat: the children of Moab, the children of Ammon, and others with them. Jehoshaphat feared, set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. Judah gathered themselves together to seek help from the Lord.
Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem and prayed:
O Lord, the God of our fathers, art not Thou God in heaven?
And art not Thou ruler over all the kingdoms of the nations?
And in Thy hand is power and might, so that none is able to withstand Thee.
Didst not Thou, O our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before Thy people Israel, and give it to the seed of Abraham Thy friend for ever?
Then he came to the heart of the matter:
O our God, wilt Thou not judge them? For we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon Thee.
Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel in the midst of the assembly, and he said:
Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat: Thus saith the Lord unto you, Fear not ye, neither be dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s.
Tomorrow go ye down against them.
Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: take your position, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Fear not, nor be dismayed: tomorrow go out against them; for the Lord is with you.
Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down before the Lord, worshipping the Lord. The Levites stood up to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, with an exceeding loud voice.
Beloved Lord, we want simply to give ourselves into Your hands for this afternoon time. We stand against all heaviness and sleepiness that belongs to this time of day. Lord, we look to You for a refreshing and renewing of Your Spirit for all of us.
We thank You for the anointing that You have provided for speaking, translating, and hearing. Into that anointing we stand by simple faith, that, Lord, we shall meet with You. We ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I want to talk this afternoon about what to do when the enemy comes in like a flood. You cannot have gone very far in the work of the Lord, in the building of the house of God, in planting and building a church, or in the Christian life, unless you have found that there are days and times when the enemy comes in like a flood.
It seems as if everything goes wrong; as if the whole is given over to the devil himself; as if he is supreme and master. There seems to be such a coordination of evil that everything goes wrong on every side, and the Lord seems to be a million miles away. What do we do when the enemy comes in like a flood?
You and I have been born into a battle. It is much bigger than us, much greater than us, broader than us. It is a battle that straddles the whole of time, and you and I have been born into it.
When we are very young in the Lord, the Lord mercifully protects us from the battle. He puts a kind of wall around us and protects us within a kind of divine, spiritual kindergarten. But there comes a time when the Lord says that we have to learn that we are in a battle. We have to learn how to put on the whole armour of God. We have to learn that there are weapons of warfare which we must use by the Spirit. We have to grow up and become soldiers of the Lord Jesus.
This word in Isaiah is very interesting: “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord lifts up a standard against him.” This coming in like a flood is like a mighty, driving force that carries everything before it.
Some years ago, I was in the far south of Sinai, in a little bay called Naama Bay. A friend and I were in a small hotel, the only one on the bay. As we looked across the Gulf of Aqaba, I saw lightning—green lightning—and remarked that it looked as if there were a storm somewhere in Saudi Arabia.
About midnight I woke up and heard the most incredible sound. I thought the people in the next room were having an unusually long shower. It sounded as if they had turned it on full blast and had forgotten to turn it off. Then I thought perhaps a tank on the roof had burst.
My friend, who was a deep-sea diver, was fast asleep. I looked out of the window and saw water pouring down it. Then I opened the other door onto a long veranda. I shall never forget it. Around the hotel was a great horseshoe cliff, and the whole thing had become a huge waterfall, like a miniature Niagara.
That night seven people died. There was no way to do anything. Everywhere was water. The sea and the desert had become one. There were huge waves everywhere. For the first time I understood Psalm 93 and its reference to the sound of many waters.
Later I learned from Bedouins who survived the flood that five wadis—dry, seasonal riverbeds—all converged on that one little bay. When the storm struck with the force of a typhoon, all five riverbeds became huge rivers and converged in one place. It carried everything before it.
I have experienced that kind of flood only once in my life, and it was quite enough for one lifetime. But I have experienced that kind of spiritual flood a whole number of times. Everything seems quiet, restful, routine, and normal; then suddenly something strikes, and everything becomes abnormal.
A huge flood hits us and carries everything before it, and we wonder, “Where is the Lord?” Spiritually, when this happens, we lose all our landmarks. All the roads have gone; all communication has gone. We do not know where we are. The enemy has come in like a flood.
But the marvellous promise is this:
When the enemy comes in like a flood,
The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.
In this evil day, when we have lost our spiritual landmarks, when all our communication seems disturbed, when we feel as if the Lord is a million miles away and as if the power of darkness has taken over, the Spirit of the Lord will move in grace. He will lift up a standard.
What does the word “standard” mean? Where the standard is, that is where the commander is standing. When the Spirit of the Lord lifts up a standard against this flood of the enemy, we know that is where the King is. That is where the King is standing. That is where the Commander is, and that is where the commands will come from.
In spiritual warfare and prayer warfare, we have to recognise the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit. We have to look for where the standard is. Wherever the standard is, there we shall receive understanding; there we shall receive direction; there we shall find the way to victory.
The enemy has a huge propaganda machine. He knows our weaknesses, and before long he is accusing this brother and accusing that sister. We begin to think, “This is what is wrong. So-and-so is wrong. If so-and-so had not done this, we would not be in this mess.” There are a thousand and one possibilities.
But the Spirit of the Lord lifts up a standard. When we see where the standard is, that is where we must rally. Once we get to that point, the Lord can give us the understanding we need. The King has a strategy, and we need to recognise it and understand what we must do.
In Ephesians 6, Paul speaks of the evil day, the wiles or stratagems of the devil, and the whole armour of God. He tells us to stand, to withstand in an evil day, and, having done all, to stand. At the end of this remarkable passage, he speaks of taking the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, with all prayer and supplication, praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
There is a divine strategy in this battle. It has something to do with the word of God as the sword of the Spirit. As we stand and withstand, and as the Holy Spirit applies the word of God to our situation—whether local, family, business, national, or even international—we can pray in the Spirit and come through to complete victory.
Supplication, in its essential meaning, is a beseeching appeal. It is the appeal that a subject makes to a king, or that people make to a high court. It is an appeal to the highest authority: a fervent appeal, a strong appeal. The appeal consumes you because you are in such a situation that you must beseech.
For me, the most helpful way to understand supplication is inquiry. We need to inquire of the Lord.
One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to inquire in His temple.
In 1 Timothy 2:1, Paul speaks of supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings. This covers the whole range of prayer: from worship and devotion to intercession and the simplest pouring out of the heart. But supplication comes first. You cannot intercede without first supplication.
If you do not know the will of God, you cannot intercede. You have to inquire of the Lord. You have to make your appeal to Him. You do not come with a fast, iron, blinkered idea of what the Lord wants. You begin to ask the Lord, “What does all this mean? How are we to pray? In what way are we to face this situation?”
The problem is that we often think prayer meetings are one-way traffic. We do all the talking, and God does all the listening. Where do we have a prayer meeting that waits upon God?
Some Christians are afraid of quietness. If there is quietness, they feel that something dreadful has happened and that they must fill it with a song or something else. But the Quakers used to wait upon the Lord in absolute silence. They trembled in the presence of the Lord because suddenly the Lord was there.
Noise does not necessarily mean that the Lord is there. Sometimes the Lord comes in and everyone starts to shout, and that can be wonderful. But I once heard a brother from a very conservative Mennonite background say, “When the Holy Spirit fell upon us, you could hear us two miles away.” Then another brother, from the wildest Pentecostal background, said, “When the Holy Spirit fell upon us, we were silent for two hours.”
Why are we not listening? Do we really think that the Lord is dumb, that He never speaks?
I once received a phone call from a sister who said, “Brother, God has given you a gift of counsel. He has given you wisdom. I have a problem.” She then spoke continuously for twenty minutes. I could not get a word in edgeways. Finally, she said, “Oh, brother, thank you for your counsel. It has confirmed me in what I believe is the way I should go,” and she put the phone down.
That is how many of us pray. We pour out everything to the Lord, but we never listen. Even if the Lord were to shout, we would not hear. But a listening ear is the key to genuine service.
If a servant of God cannot hear the voice of the Lord, cannot receive the directions of the Lord, and cannot know the word of God applied to the situations he is facing, then his service is self-produced. It is mechanical.
The Book gives us all the knowledge and facts, but it is the Holy Spirit who enables us to apply them.
When the enemy comes in like a flood,
The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.
The problem, very often, is that we are too big. Why does the Lord allow the enemy to come in like a flood? I think sometimes it is to bring us back to the place where we are totally dependent. We do not know how to deal with it. We do not know how to face it.
There is such turmoil, such upheaval, and such a welter of voices that we do not know where to turn. Then we are reduced to weakness. We may be tempted to think that everything is lost. We are broken, afflicted, and weak.
The problem with servants of God is not that we are not strong; it is that we are too strong. The more knowledge we have, the more it can inflate our natural strength. Then, every now and again, there is an evil day.
In that evil day, everything seems swept before the enemy. Our lines of communication with God seem broken, and everything goes wrong. But when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord lifts up a standard against him. If we are sore enough, weak enough, and broken enough, we will look to the standard, rally to the standard, and hear once again what the Commander is saying.
What a wonderful word Hannah spoke:
For by strength shall no man prevail.
Hannah was weak. The other wife had children; Hannah had none. But Hannah was an intercessor. The other woman was a producer. When Hannah went before the Lord, Eli thought she was drunk, because he saw her lips moving and thought she was swaying. But she said, “It is not wine. I am filled with a burden.”
When we are weak, God can work. Hannah had prevailed by intercession, by the power of God alone.
Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.
Not strong in knowledge; not strong in your own zeal; not strong with mental determination or stubbornness. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
The satanic strategy is to overwhelm us. Then one of two things happens: either we resort to the arm of the flesh to deal with the problem, or we throw in the glove. We either try to deal with the problem ourselves, or we give up.
You cannot do it. If you use the arm of flesh when the enemy comes in like a flood, the situation becomes infinitely worse. Yet the other alternative is also terrible, because the enemy says, “See? You are no good. You have all this knowledge and all this experience, but when the enemy comes in, you are finished.”
The enemy may come in like a flood, but thank God, the Spirit of the Lord is lifting up a standard against him. Much of the problem is phantom; it is propaganda.
When you get into difficult situations, ask, “What are the facts?” So often people do not have facts. They have rumours, suspicions, assumptions, and impressions. The enemy’s propaganda becomes established in people’s minds, and then they do not know how to get rid of these delusions.
These phantom things are enemy propaganda. They are often more difficult to deal with than actual jealousies, actual problems, or genuine differences over interpretation. But the Lord knows how to deal with them.
What does the Word say?
Take your position, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord your God.
Where do you take your position? Where the Spirit of the Lord lifts up the standard: with the King. That is where you take your position—with the King.
What a wonderful word: stand, withstand, and, having done all, stand. What a strange way to win a battle. You do not go forward, you do not go back, you do not go to the left or to the right. You stand. You withstand. Having done all, you stand.
This standing implies something: it implies that the victory is already won. You stand because it is a victory already won.
Listen to Hebrews 2:14:
That through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
And might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
When Jesus died, He neutralised every weapon in the satanic armoury. He nullified the influence of the powers of darkness. When He died, the prince of this world was cast out. It does not mean that the devil is not going round as a roaring lion. It does not mean that the whole world is not lying in the evil one. But the victory is won.
Jesus has sat down. He is no longer fighting. He has won the victory. Now we must stand in that victory and declare it.
Through death, the Lord Jesus has reduced the devil to nought. Nought is nought. However many times you multiply nought, it remains nought. Stand on it. Do not call him names. Do not speak to him. Declare the truth: he is a defeated foe. He is not the Lord. He is zero.
He has no right to touch the church, the people of God, or the work of God. He will do everything our ignorance allows him to do. He will come in where he does not belong; he will possess what is not his to possess; he will seek to destroy the inheritance, the worship, and the functioning of the body of Christ.
But through the death of our Lord Jesus, he was brought to zero.
There is another wonderful Scripture in Colossians 2:14-15:
Having despoiled the principalities and the powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Through the Cross, the Lord Jesus disarmed principalities and powers. The picture is that of a conquering ruler returning to Rome, with defeated kings, nobles, and generals chained to his chariot. The Lord Jesus has stripped the principalities and powers of their armour and triumphed over them through His Cross.
Do not try to talk to them. That is dangerous. Talk to the Lord. Declare the victory. That is your right as a child of God.
In 2 Chronicles 20, Jehoshaphat had to find a way to express faith. They were told to take their position, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord. How could they express it concretely?
They sang. They declared that the loving-kindness, steadfast, unchanging, loyal, covenant love of the Lord endures for ever.
Give thanks unto the Lord;
For His lovingkindness endureth for ever.
Praise is a declaration. The Lord is King. The Lord is exalted. The Lord is enthroned. The steadfast love of the Lord endures for ever.
The Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites turned against one another, and when Judah came out in the morning, they found dead bodies. I am not speaking about flesh and blood. I am speaking about spiritual powers. Anything that attacks the work of the Lord, the house of the Lord, the throne of the Lord, and the people of the Lord must be overcome through the victory of Christ.
When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. May the Lord teach us how to recognise the lifting up of that standard by the Spirit of God, how to rally to it, how to stand together, and how to express our faith in the victory of our Lord Jesus.
I will finish with a story. A brother who knew much about horses was deeply depressed. His family was in trouble, his sons were giving him difficulties, and it seemed as if the enemy had come in like a flood. He came home, and his teenage sons were watching one of Britain’s famous horse races.
The race was very close. One horse was just ahead of the other, and nobody could tell who had won. Then the commentator said that they would have to wait for the committee to decide. Finally, they announced that one horse had won by a nose.
Then the Lord said to this dear father, “You see? The nose went over the finishing line, and the tail has won.”
He understood that the Lord was saying, “Your Head, the Lord Jesus, has gone over the finishing line. He has won. You are the tail. But if the Head has gone over the line, the tail has won.”
It is a marvellous picture for us. Our Lord Jesus is seated at the right hand of God. He has gone over the finishing line. He has won. Because He has won, we who are in His body have won.
He made Him to be head over all things to the church,
Which is His body.
Everything has been placed under His feet. It does not always seem like that, but when we declare it and possess this truth, the power of God is released and the victory is made manifest.
May the Lord help all of us. If the enemy has not come in like a flood at present, there will surely come a day, if you are a child of God, when you experience such an evil day. In that day, may God bring this back to you in living memory and help you to win the victory.
Beloved Lord, we commit ourselves to You. You know very well that we are all in a battle. This is not our battle, Lord; it is Your battle. Yet we are in this battle, and we often feel our unworthiness, our weaknesses, our failings, and our sins. The enemy accuses us.
But, oh, beloved Lord, we praise You that we can take our position, stand still, and see the salvation of our God. Let this become a reality in every single one of us—in the house of God, in the building of the house of God, in the fulfilment of the purpose of God, and in the work of the Lord.
May it be so not only corporately, but individually: in the families represented here, and even in businesses. Lord, may it be so for every one of us. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.