It is a precious thing to be together for these days. I thought the message this morning was one of the clearest expositions I have ever heard on the practical matter of sitting in Christ, and how the Lord works in us and engineers circumstances to make us realize the position we are in, to deal with our flesh, and to deal with those things in our past lives that have been ground for the enemy. I thought that was a wonderful exposition.
And then Ernie’s sharing about the Holy Spirit last night also lends itself to what I would like to add this afternoon. As we are talking about this matter of spiritual ascendancy and looking at it from the aspect of the subjective experience of the Spirit leading us into reality—leading us into all truth, as our brothers shared last night—the Spirit of God is now here among us and within us for this purpose: to lead us into the truth of our position in Christ and of our spiritual ascendancy.
So we will try to touch on some matters today that will hopefully add to the things shared last night and this morning.
To begin with, I would like us to turn to a portion in the book of Acts that records Paul’s ministry to the Ephesians before we look at some verses in Ephesians itself. In Acts 19, we pick up where Paul arrives in Ephesus at the beginning of his third missionary journey and begins ministering there.
We will begin in Acts 19:8.
And Paul entered the synagogue and continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.
But when some were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the people, He withdrew from them and took away the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.
This took place for two years, so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.
God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out.
But also some of the Jewish exorcists, who went from place to place, attempted to name over those who had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, “I adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches.”
Seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this.
And the evil spirit answered and said to them, “I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?”
And the man in whom was the evil spirit leapt on them and subdued all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
This became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived in Ephesus; and fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified.
Many also of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices.
And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone; and they counted up the price of them and found it to be fifty thousand pieces of silver.
So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing.
Then, in Acts 19:23, there occurred no small disturbance concerning the Way. This is where the silversmiths formed a coalition against these gospel preachers. Let us read Acts 19:26-27, where Demetrius is speaking.
You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that gods made with hands are no gods at all.
Not only is there danger that this trade of ours fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis be regarded as worthless, and that she whom all of Asia and the world worship will even be dethroned from her magnificence.
Now let us turn to Ephesians 6, beginning in verse 10.
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
Put on the full armour of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Therefore, take up the full armour of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.
Stand firm 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;
in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows 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 petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.
And pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it, I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
Let us have a further word of prayer.
Lord, we realize that this matter of spiritual ascendancy has been given to us as something finished and accomplished by what Your Son has done. Father, we come to You today and pray that this will once again be underscored in our hearts as we look at some of these matters in the book of Ephesians.
How we thank You, Lord, that You are teaching us these things. We pray that there will be fruit in our lives—indeed, the realization of our position and a possession of those things that have been freely given to us.
Help us. Quicken us by the Holy Spirit even this afternoon, with tired bodies and minds that have been stuffed to capacity. Oh, grant us the ability to understand and see yet more in our hearts by the revelation of the Holy Spirit. We commit this time into Your hands, asking that Your refreshing would be upon us. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Yesterday, we tried to emphasize from Paul’s letter to the Colossians that this matter of spiritual ascendancy is predicated upon our being founded upon the Word of God and the truth of the Word of God regarding the will of God. If we have this as our basis, as our foundation, we will be able to experience spiritual ascendancy.
As our Lord said:
If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.
This is so important. We not only abide in Him, but we let His words richly dwell within us. This is what makes us fruitful in the body of Christ. That is when we can, with wisdom, offer psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, counsel, prayer, and all the things necessary in assembled life. It is this matter of having understood by the Word of God what Christ has done, where we sit, and who we are in Him.
But we not only have this precious Word of God; we have the Holy Spirit, who makes this Word of God real to us and takes us through experience—as our brother shared this morning—to make real the things we understand in our heads. He makes them real down in our hearts as He leads us into all truth.
For a start, look at Ephesians 5:18. We see a wonderful complementary verse to what we read yesterday in Colossians 3:16.
Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your hearts to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; and being subject to one another in the fear of Christ.
Put more correctly from the Greek, it says, “Keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit.” This matter of being filled with the Spirit is found throughout this letter to the Ephesians. Obviously, these saints understood what this meant.
In Ephesians 1:13, we see something that lends credence to what our brothers shared this morning: once we are saved, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit. He seals us in that position. Whether we wander, become full of doubts, or whether our soul life is uncrucified, the fact of the matter is that we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit. It is a very powerful work.
In Ephesians 2, of course, it mentions that we are quickened, made alive together. We know from the rest of Scripture that this quickening, this being born again, is by the Spirit Himself, who brings us to life. What a mighty, powerful work this is: bringing somebody who is dead in trespasses and sins into new life by the Holy Spirit. It is a tremendously powerful thing.
Then we see in Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1 that he is praying for three things to be seen by the Ephesian believers: that they could see the hope of His calling, the glorious riches of His inheritance in the saints, and, third, the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe.
Here again, practically speaking, it is the Holy Spirit who quickens us. It is the Holy Spirit who raises us up. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to sit with Christ in the heavenly places. These are tremendously powerful things.
Then, in Ephesians 2, as it speaks of Jews and Gentiles being made one, we find that it is the Spirit who gives us this unity. Now, this is a miracle. I know by several years of being married that it is a miracle that Julie and I are one. It is a miracle that brothers and sisters can come together and remain one, maintaining the unity of the Spirit.
This must be some tremendous fusing power that can fuse us together. But this is exactly what the Spirit of God does.
Then, in Ephesians 3—and I am just going over some things that I think we all know—during Paul’s prayer, he prays that we might be strengthened in the inner man by the Holy Spirit. Now, if we are going to stand, overcome, intercede, and do spiritual warfare, we have to be strengthened by the Spirit in the inner man so that Christ can dwell in our hearts through faith. This is an absolute necessity if we are to be in a position of spiritual ascendancy.
Then, in Ephesians 5, Paul talks about being filled with the Holy Spirit when we assemble ourselves together—an absolute necessity. The Holy Spirit must be with us as we worship together. Then, in Ephesians 6, when we come together for prayer, we are to be praying always in the Spirit.
The Spirit is absolutely essential to our learning and living this life of spiritual ascendancy. He will lead us into all truth.
The things we have read in both Acts 19 and Ephesians 6 bring us to the matter I would like to touch on today: spiritual warfare and its relationship to spiritual ascendancy. Our brother shared this morning that part of spiritual warfare is for us to realize where we really stand, and that can only be tested in the crucible of conflict.
When we are in spiritual warfare, we find ourselves being humbled, because our flesh is always getting in the way. We are always coming to the Lord confessing, finding ourselves humbled in the presence of the Lord. Then He lifts us up and shows us His victory.
If I had to pick out a book that most often shows us the process we go through in this subjective manner of coming into spiritual ascendancy, it would have to be the book of Psalms.
When you read the Psalms, there must be—well, I have not counted; I am going to say there must be forty psalms. Let us make it fifty. A third of the Psalms start out with David down on the ground in conflict, with enemies around him, or personally laid low because of his own sins. In some way, he has been brought low.
Then the Word of God comes to him:
Why art thou cast down, O my soul?
Hope thou in God:
For thou shalt yet praise Him.
He finds himself being lifted up, and then he finds himself standing with God. He says, “My heart is fixed, my heart is fixed.” You see, he has gone through a process. This is our process too.
We may be New Testament people, but we find ourselves scraping our chin on the ground because of sin, being brought low, or because the enemy has attacked us and blindsided us, or because our boss has gotten after us, or because something has happened that brings us low. We say, “Oh, woe.”
Like David said in Psalm 73, “I look around, and all the sinners are cheating on their income tax, hiding their bonuses, and they are just doing great. Here I am declaring my bonuses, getting killed by the IRS, and I am looking around—everybody is getting away with murder. I am trying to do the right thing, and I cannot even buy groceries.”
Then I go into the house of God and sniff the fragrance of holiness, and I realize, “What am I talking about?” It is better to have little and have the Lord and be content than to dwell in the courts of the wicked, where you will be snuffed out at any moment.
How many times did David go through this process? He confesses his foolishness, or he simply cries out, “God, why are they attacking me? I used to be their friend. They are attacking me. What is going on?”
Then somehow God lifts him up far enough into the heavenly places that he says, “Ah, but You—I can always trust in You.” Then the whole tide turns. Now, is that not our experience? This is what we go through.
The Holy Spirit uses circumstances. The only problem is that we are so dumb—and we are so dumb—that we think circumstances just haphazardly happen to us.
We would go a long way at the beginning of every day if we could simply say this: “Lord, I trust You today because I live in You. I believe I am exactly in the right marriage You want for me. I am going to the exact job tailored for me. My lot is exactly how You have apportioned it to me.”
Then we will start out on the right foot instead of, “Woe is me. Where is my résumé? Woe is me. Who is this woman next to me?” And so on and so forth. “Why? Oh, when the kids grow up, then I can finally be spiritual.” We have all these ideas that circumstances have been laid upon us and that God does not know. He has forgotten about it.
But when we find ourselves in the heavenly places, we find out God has never forgotten about us. He has prescribed these things for us, and they are for our sanctification—therefore, our education. Sometimes it is for us to finally stand up and say, “In Jesus’ name, I call it quits.”
The world gets in and slowly steals your soul, like that old frog they put in the frying pan and start heating the water slowly. The next thing you know, you are on a job where you are making so much money that you cannot even enjoy it because you are working ninety hours a week. They have got your soul.
Well, the Lord even allowed that to happen to you. If He delivers you, do not jump from the frying pan into the fire with another high-powered job that involves your soul and your right arm. If we do not learn from these trials we go through, then we will have to repeat them and lap around the wilderness another time.
This becomes crucially important. As a matter of fact, it can be the life and death of a fellowship: understanding the dimensions of spiritual warfare.
I do not know; it is just who we are. When the going gets tough, we blame one another and wrestle against flesh and blood. Whether it is a family conflict or a fellowship conflict, we are stupid enough to think it is the other people who are the problem.
“Oh, Lord, deliver us from Brother So-and-so. Then we will all be free.”
Until we realize that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but that there are forces behind the scenes out to destroy anything that bears a testimony concerning Jesus, redemption, unity, and what He can do, we will not be wise in this matter of spiritual warfare.
In the progress of our spiritual life, we must understand the matter of quickening, raising, and ascension. Let me put it this way: when we begin as new Christians, our lives are almost completely outward, are they not?
When I got saved at twenty years old, I was so thankful that He saved me from the sins I had committed and could recount very clearly. I was so glad I could say, “He saved me,” and He started changing my outward conduct.
I was a smoker, a curser, a wise guy, and a liar. Slowly but surely, God started changing that outward conduct, and I said, “Man, am I becoming a perfect Christian or what?” I was even doing the thing that only monks and nuns did: I was reading the Bible.
Yet my inner life had hardly been touched at all. Yes, I had been quickened, but my whole deliverance was from outward things—bad friends and all the rest. I thought, “Oh, this is what being a Christian is all about.”
Then the Lord touched my inner life and showed me the nature of sin in me. Now I had to be brought to resurrection, because that killed me. When I saw my old man, I became very self-conscious. Then I tried to hide the old man. I would hold my breath when people came around, hoping they would not know who he was.
I refined and reformed my old man. I tried to use flowery words, but it was the same old proud, arrogant, pushy, domineering personality. What a process—understanding that the cross is our deliverance from the old man, and finding that deliverance in tripping over into that exchanged life where you actually sense His life inside. That is resurrection.
You have been raised up with Christ. I asked yesterday, “Have you experienced that?” Do you sense there is a heavenly life within? This is an amazing thing: I am walking on earth, but there is a heavenly life within.
Actually, to have a heavenly motive at least once a month—to actually care about somebody else more than myself—that is miraculous. That is a heavenly life within. Now you are living on a new plane.
That is the second stage in our lives, when we realize, “It is not I, but Christ.” That is the key. That is the centre. That is the focus of my Christian life. But we still have not come to ascendancy yet. There is still something more that must happen.
The Lord has to deal in our lives yet more and yet more, and very often spiritual conflict is one of the ways He brings us in.
We read the passage in Acts because it was only recently, while studying the book of Acts, that I realized and saw the flow of Luke’s account.
Ephesus was the last church that Paul constructed from the ground up, as it were, and the church with which he spent a large amount of time. Shortly afterward, he made a little trip up into Greece, returned to Jerusalem, and was jailed.
The church at Ephesus was built with the greatest wisdom in master building. It was while Paul was in Ephesus that he wrote to the Corinthians:
I as a wise master builder laid a foundation.
The foundation can only be Jesus Christ. We mentioned yesterday that even Paul, in his life, continued to progress in clarity regarding spiritual things. As he came to Ephesus and the church began to be built there, he had a wisdom accumulated through his past ministry.
We see a wonderful church being established. He did not merely work with Gentiles and say, “I kick the dust off my feet from the Jewish synagogue.” No, no. He took the Jews out of the synagogue who had been saved, brought Jews and Gentiles together, and established beautiful oneness. He laid that foundation.
He laid such a foundation during his three years in Ephesus that the church had first love. They loved the Lord. The church had revelation. They saw much more deeply—so deeply that he could write this letter to the Ephesians.
Not only that, but during those three years, in his wisdom, he raised up brothers besides Timothy—other young men in the area—sending them out, bringing them back, sharing with them, and working with them as they preached the gospel in Laodicea, Hierapolis, Colossae, and other places. It was like a work centre. There was so much going on there.
This was the quintessential church-building work. This was a high-water mark of Paul’s active building work as an apostle. After that, as I say, he was thrown in jail. Though he visited churches afterward, this was the last original work, we might say.
Luke emphasizes something in Acts 19: how much spiritual conflict is involved in building the church.
It was while Paul was in Ephesus and writing to the Corinthians that he made it clear that even preaching the gospel was spiritual warfare against the god of this world, who blinds the eyes of unbelievers.
As Paul worked in Ephesus, we saw the story in Acts: spiritual conflict after spiritual conflict. Paul took his stand with the brethren, God gave victory, a greater response followed, the Word of God spread more effectively, and the Spirit had victory.
We saw great acts being done as demons came out of people. There was spiritual oppression and evil spirits. Brothers and sisters, that can only be dealt with by being filled with the Spirit and under the blood of Jesus.
Part of the work of building the church, especially in preaching the gospel, is understanding spiritual conflict with demonic elements. These demons were being cast out, it says, even through handkerchiefs carried from Paul’s presence.
Paul also had to deal with the spiritual counterfeits of these exorcists, who exercised in the name of Jesus but without the reality of Jesus. When you are building the church, there is counterfeit ministry that must be exposed.
In that exposure, fear came upon people because they saw that Jesus does not allow people to fool around. Suddenly, people started coming, confessing their sins, and asking for salvation.
Then those who practiced witchcraft and all manner of occult practices brought their magic books and burned them. This brought forth the ire of occult worshipers, practitioners, and idol makers.
Finally, we come to this matter of Artemis. They went into the great theatre in Ephesus. I said that I was with Brother Christian Chen this summer. We went to the theatre in Ephesus, which holds probably sixty thousand people. You can hear there, without the aid of a microphone, before sixty thousand people.
Brother Christian asked me if I could pretend I was the Apostle Paul, get up in the middle of the theatre, and preach. I shared my testimony—how I turned from false gods and came to Jesus as my Saviour.
I stood there without a microphone, and there were five thousand tourists up there. They all stopped and listened. Of course, in the story in Acts, Paul never got to go into that theatre. The Christian friends would not let him go in, though the crowd dragged in other Christian brothers.
Demetrius was up there propounding, “Oh, this Paul! What a terrible man. He is bringing people away from sin and to Jesus. It is terrible, terrible.” The worst thing about it was the great temple of Artemis.
I did not realize this. You need a complicated person like Christian Chen to tell you all these facts. When we were in Athens looking at the Parthenon—you have all seen pictures of the Parthenon—the temple to Artemis in Ephesus was four times as large as the Parthenon. It was the largest temple and one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
This goddess Artemis was not only an idol. She was the principality and power over Asia Minor. In the process of preaching the gospel in Ephesus, they touched that principality over the whole area. That principality yelled and, in the end, chased Paul away.
Interestingly, second-century church tradition says that John the Apostle later came to Ephesus—which we know is true—and went into the temple of Artemis and said, “Jesus Christ is Lord.” The altar of Artemis broke in half. Whether that is true or not, I cannot say. These traditions are spectacular, you know.
But the fact that there was spiritual warfare against Artemis is true. Do not think it was merely a statue with no power behind it.
People say, “What is the problem with having a little idol in the home? I have an idol dangling from my front-view mirror. What is the problem?” It is never merely the idol. It is the power behind it that most people do not even realize.
Paul came to see in his building of the church that he preached the gospel and relied on the Holy Spirit, but he also did spiritual warfare in Ephesus. Read that account: it is full of spiritual encounters after spiritual encounters, victories after victories. Every encounter led to a greater victory, and more people were saved. That is the nature of church-building gospel work.
It is an eye-opener when we see how much we need the power of the Holy Spirit.
I will never forget: it was 1971, and I was down in Times Square as a young pastor of a Baptist church from Long Island. I snuck into the city. Actually, Brother Ernie also snuck in there with me.
There was a brother named Arthur Blessitt, an evangelist, spending the summer preaching the gospel in Times Square. Many people got saved. I went in on a number of occasions and joined him. I played my guitar, people would sing, and then he preached the gospel.
He was an amazing preacher. He was a street preacher, but he was amazing. He would catch people’s attention. We did not start the meetings until people came out of the Broadway shows—about 10:30 at night—and the meeting went until 2:00 in the morning, right there in Duffy Square, where the ticket place used to be.
I will never forget one night when I went in there and Arthur was not there. His assistant was there, a very nice guy. We sang some songs, and this nice man stood up with a bullhorn and started to preach.
He got five minutes into it, and a woman stood up and said, “How dare you say that? How can you prove that?” She started rattling on and talking, and the man could not continue. He said, “Just pray, brothers and sisters.” She ruined the little gospel meeting.
She was a demon power at work. At that point, of course, ten Christians went right to her: “What are you talking about? How can you say things like that? Leave the man alone. Let him speak.” She kept talking and talking and talking.
By that time, I was walking around behind her. I was curious. There was a crowd of forty people in front of her, and she was talking that way. I walked behind her.
I am telling you, this is the truth. I was just walking by looking, and she spun around and said, “You man of God, what are you doing here?”
Man, I tell you, the colour went out of my face. My heart was down in my shoes. I wish I could say I said, “Drop dead, lady,” and boom, down she went. But I was so caught off guard and so ill-equipped.
All I could do was stand there and stare at her. I stared at her. I would not let her eyes leave my eyes. She stopped talking and left.
Now, I am not talking about some great victory, believe me. But it was a moment of reality.
I was driving home a half-hour later, and my hands were shaking. The Lord said to me, “Unless My brothers and sisters know what it means to be filled with the Spirit, you might as well pack up your bags and leave a place like New York City.”
If we think we can just walk in on principalities and powers, walk right through without static, conflict, stoppages, or problems, we are foolish. There is great conflict out there.
It scared me into humbly asking the Lord, “Forgive me for ever saying I am filled with the Spirit. I want to know more of Your Holy Spirit.”
It is going to take that in these last days for all of us. It is not just New York City. In these last days, we need to know what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
If this is the case, then we must stand together as brothers and sisters, not as lone rangers. Of course, in that day, I was a Baptist pastor, and that meant a lone ranger. It was me.
Now I have brothers and sisters. I would not dare go somewhere alone and try to do something against the devil, principalities, and powers. But if we stand together with the Lord’s people, who are praying in the Spirit, then the Lord can do some things.
There is an interesting aspect to the book of Ephesians. It has to do with this progress in Paul’s life, where he sees more and more of the dynamics of the spiritual reality before him.
As a result, when he writes this letter to the Ephesians, he has to find a phrase to explain a reality that has become clearer and clearer to him. As he is looking at the unseen instead of concentrating on the seen, there is this reality. What does he call it?
A phrase springs forth from his mind that occurs five times in the book of Ephesians: the heavenlies. It is the only place this phrase is used in the Bible.
Paul has come to realize that if we are to know and experience spiritual ascendancy, it begins with recognizing this realm called the heavenlies. Your Bible may place the word places in italics afterward, but it actually just says, “the heavenlies.”
Let us look at the five places where this phrase occurs. In Ephesians 1:3, we see immediately that part of our great problem as Christians is that we begin with an outward sense of salvation. We almost become like Jews expecting financial prosperity because we have become Christians.
Paul says:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
Where is that? If you want to cash in on your spiritual blessings, they are all located in the heavenlies. That is not down at your local bank. Paul is not saying, “Blessed is God who blesses us with every material blessing.” He says every spiritual blessing is in this place called the heavenlies.
Then, in Ephesians 1:19-21, we see what happened to Christ:
And what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
Then, in Ephesians 3:10, the church has a testimony in the heavenlies:
So that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.
Then, in Ephesians 6:12:
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
I want to attempt to paint a little picture of this heavenly sphere, this spiritual sphere, because it has helped me.
I suppose I grew up with the Greco-Roman idea of heaven, or the Babylonian idea of heaven: up there in the clouds, a celestial city. You can see one of Walt Disney’s castles rising above the clouds, and that is where we are all going—streets of gold, up in the heavenlies, a wonderful feeling of weightlessness.
We are up there forever, floating around and having a wonderful time. It is all very celestial. We have learned to breathe thin air, and everything is crystal white and wonderful gold. But, brothers and sisters, that idea of heaven is nowhere in the Bible.
Heaven is mentioned many times in the Bible. I think it is mentioned 434 times in the Old Testament itself. Three-quarters of the time, “the heavens” describes the sky or the stars. “The heavens declare the glory of God” means the stars, moon, sun, and all that.
But a quarter of the time, the heavens are mentioned and defined consistently as the place where God’s throne is.
You might not think that is anything spectacular, but during the time the Old Testament was being written, the mythologies of the world—Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greco-Roman—were rich in descriptions of heaven.
Zeus had the big beard. That is how we supposedly know what God looks like: He has a big beard like Zeus. He is up on Mount Olympus, because that is where heaven was to the Greeks. We get the idea that heaven is up on some big mountain.
All this stuff has been brought into Christianity today. We have songs about crossing the river. Well, that is Greek mythology—crossing the river Styx. They made it the River Jordan, into a promised land and heavens where there is always harvest time and all that kind of stuff.
There is a whole non-Christian understanding of heaven that, unfortunately, most Christians really believe.
In the New Testament, half the time heaven is mentioned, it is again talking about God’s throne. It is always reticent to describe the details. A quarter of the time, it deals with stars, usually quoting the Old Testament.
Then, in one-quarter of the New Testament references, three new phrases arise that were not in the Old Testament:
Without going into too much detail about what these mean—for they vary somewhat from usage to usage—heavenly usually means as opposed to earthly. You have a heavenly calling as opposed to an earthly one, without much further definition.
But when there is definition, there are three very interesting things that the phrases “kingdom of the heavens” and “the heavenlies” have in common.
First, the heavenlies and the kingdom of the heavens speak of a present spiritual realm where spiritual beings and even conflict are going on right now.
When we read those references to the heavenlies, of course the first thing we saw was that Christ is enthroned in the heavenlies. That is where His throne is right now. He is in this heaven, in this sphere that we cannot see. He is on His throne.
But there are also principalities, powers, world rulers of darkness, and evil. The strategies of the enemy are coming out of the heavenlies. There is all kinds of talk about the first heaven, second heaven, and third heaven, but that is unnecessary.
What is important is to realize that this unseen spiritual realm is presently the scene of a great conflict. It is in this spiritual realm that Jesus our Lord has gained the victory. He sits enthroned over all principalities and powers, but they are still scattering about. Their plans and purposes still come out of this sphere called the heavenlies.
Ephesians 6 says we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, and world rulers of darkness in the heavenlies. That is where our conflict is.
Second, the kingdom of the heavens and the heavenlies have this in common: the heavenlies are in close proximity to the earth.
When we think of the heavenlies, consider Jesus. He was lifted up from their sight and carried up above the clouds into heaven. How far up do you think He went? Was He like a missile from Cape Canaveral, where you watch Him go up and up?
We know the heavenlies are up. They are close to earth, but they are up. Yet I would say He went up one hundred yards and vanished, because the heavenlies are juxtaposed to our physical realm. They are proximate to it, but they are a spiritual realm.
How close is it? It is so close that sometimes spiritual forces are exposed on earth. It is so close that something prayed about here on earth can be interrupted by spiritual forces, like the prince of Persia who interrupted Gabriel from answering Daniel’s prayer.
There are things going on unseen to us but right over our heads—literally right over our heads. I am not talking seven miles up, just past Proxima Centauri, or somewhere above the North Pole. Heaven is a spiritual realm, but heaven is not far from here.
When Joshua stood ready to take Jericho and wondered what to do, an angel suddenly showed up. He did not travel six nights and four days. He showed up.
When you read carefully at the beginning of the book of Judges, you realize that Joshua and the children of Israel won their victories in conquering their inheritance because the Captain of the Lord’s host took the Lord’s angelic army ahead of the children of Israel and gained the victory.
What do you think happened when they walked around seven times, blew the trumpet, and shouted? Was it a sonic phenomenon? It may have been, but I think it was probably just a couple of angels who squished the wall.
Half the time when they faced their foes, those foes were half defeated before the Israelites even raised a spear, because this invisible army had done things to them.
Elisha said, “Lord, show my servant what is here.” He did not see the heavenlies; he was only seeing the earth.
What does it mean that we have a heavenly calling? Does it mean we should be no earthly good and merely heavenly minded? “My life is in the clouds. Oh, praise God, I do not have to worry about money or food anymore.” No. A heavenly calling is walked out here on earth.
What was the heavenly city Abraham saw, as Hebrews 11 says? Do you think he saw Disneyland? No. He saw a city on earth that had heavenly foundations. I know that is a paradox, but the heavenlies have very much to do with earth.
They are not another world, a retreating place. They are something juxtaposed right over our physical reality, and they have very much to do with it.
Daniel saw this clearly and said to Nebuchadnezzar, as he interpreted one of his dreams, “Nebuchadnezzar, I am sorry, but our God is going to discipline you until you see that the heavens do rule in the earth.”
That is the reality. Jesus Christ is Lord upon His throne over this earth. If we could only see that.
Now, I know this is conjecture, but I am going to say what I think. How close are the heavenlies to us? When Stephen was being stoned, he did not look up and see Jesus twenty-nine miles past the sun. He saw Jesus as near as He was.
How close is Jesus’ throne to the earth right now? Two hundred yards? But unseen.
I am just giving you something to think about, because this area of the heavenlies is very, very close to us. It has very much to do with how we serve, how we worship, how we pray, and how we preach the gospel. It is very present.
Third, the kingdom of the heavens and the heavenlies have this in common: this spiritual sphere is temporary until the final coming of our Lord.
Our Lord is King of the kingdom of the heavens. But His parables in Matthew 13 make us know for sure that the enemy still works in the kingdom of the heavens. There is a mystery there. “The enemy has done this,” it says, when they see the tares among the wheat.
How can the enemy be allowed to work in the heavenlies? Because conflict is still going on, but Jesus has won the victory. When He comes back, He is going to take the heavenlies and bring them down here on earth.
Suddenly, we will see all these spiritual dynamics that we could not see before, and we will see Him especially upon the throne. It will be spiritual reality as physical reality. I am sorry—it already is spiritual reality, if we could see it. By the Spirit, we can see it.
If these things are temporary, brothers and sisters, then this matter of Jesus standing at the door and coming on the clouds means He is much closer than you think He is.
The angels, as well as demonic forces, are all around—much closer than you think. They are helping us much more than you realize. How often has the Lord sent angels to help us in times of dire need?
These are unseen things and largely remain unseen, except as the Spirit of God gives us a spirit of wisdom and revelation to see Christ.
Why do we need to see Christ? Because our whole seeing of the heavenlies—including seeing demonic conflict and angels—is keyed into seeing the Son of Man.
Look at John 1:48-51. In this first chapter, as He meets Nathanael, an extraordinary statement is made by Nathanael, countered by an even greater statement made by our Lord Jesus.
Nathanael said to Jesus, “How do You know me?”
Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”
Nathanael answered Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.”
Jesus answered and said to him, “Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”
And He said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
Son of Man. Think about this for a minute. What is this talking about?
Nathanael is Israel. He is a son of Israel, a son of Jacob. Jacob saw the ladder, God at the top, and angels going up and down. Jesus says, “One day, when the Son of Man is exalted, He is going to be the ladder.”
He is the ladder. You will see messages coming down and going up, help coming down and going up, on the Son of Man Himself. Jesus is the centre of the revelation of the heavenlies.
If we see Jesus on His throne, then the angels come and go. It is an open heaven, brothers and sisters, when we see Jesus is on that throne. The angels are up and down, up and down, and there is no interference when we are under the throne and see the Son of Man.
He says to Nathanael, “You are going to see it. You are going to see it. Angels up and down, and up and down.”
As Christians, I am not going to be afraid of angels. I do not believe in the worship of angels. I do not believe in getting crazy about angels. Nor have I ever seen an angel—my wife, of course, but you know.
Some of you folks may say, “Woo, this has gone too crazy.” So let us get back to it.
There is the heaven of heavens, the highest heaven where God’s throne is. There is no evil there, no evil spirits, nothing except the kingdom of God. His throne endures forever in the heaven of heavens.
There is this earth. We know this earth. We live upon this earth.
There is an intermediate sphere that connects the heaven of heavens and earth. Jesus sits at the right hand of the throne of God in the heaven of heavens. This intermediate sphere connects heaven and earth and enables things to be bound and loosed because of what is going on in the heavenlies.
If we could see that the battles are to be won in the heavenlies rather than on earth, we would not spend our time talking against one another and praying against one another. We would see what is going on in the heavenlies and bind those spirits causing division in the body of Christ.
It is a matter of seeing that there is this place. One day we will all be in heaven. Now, please, I know heaven is controversial, and what I am saying will probably have to be expunged from this tape.
Heaven, I believe, when the whole thing is worked out, Jesus is crowned here on earth, and a new heaven and a new earth come about—heaven is going to be earth glorified, full of God, full of His glory, full of redeemed men. That is going to be heaven.
So forget about looking for the third cloud on the left. Forget those stories about people who go up to heaven and knock on Saint Peter’s door. No, no. Heaven is going to be here on earth with a redeemed, resurrected body, before God and His throne—His presence down here with us.
That is heaven. It is very earthly. The heavenlies have to do with earth. He is not interested in building a new planet made out of fluff. He is going to renew the heavens and the earth, and you and I are going to enjoy heaven on earth forever.
That is what I think will happen. So do not get too up there about it. Look and see what the Bible says about it.
Do not forget: the New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven and sets up right here. Right now, the Bible says, in the heavens there is the true tabernacle. Wait until it gets laid down on Mount Zion. Jesus is the centre of the tabernacle, God is in the midst of her, and there is no more night.
We cannot imagine what the earth will look like in its glorified form. It is just going to be wonderful. To be together with you and me—thank God, you will be changed by then, and then I can take you. Maybe you will be able to put up with me a little bit too.
This whole matter of the heavenlies for the Christian has everything to do with the Holy Spirit revealing to us the reality of the heavenlies. It starts with the throne of Jesus.
Do not look into the heavenlies merely for demons; that will scare you to death. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you begin to see the spiritual conflict behind things that are going on.
This is an important point to reach in the Christian life, especially for men gathered together in responsibility. If we cannot see things from the heavenly point of view and recognize the spiritual conflict behind the things happening in fellowship life, then we will not prevail. The enemy has got us.
How we need to humble ourselves and ask the Lord to show us what is really going on. This should almost be our prayer in all counselling. Dear brothers and sisters, as you mature and counsel new Christians, you should almost always say, “Lord, what is really going on here?”
Because it is seldom what we hear at face value. There is so much more going on.
I share all these things just to make a few practical applications in corporate life. Until the throne room is central to church life, we are not gathering under an open heaven.
Is the throne of our Lord Jesus central to church life? Is He really the Lord and the Head when we gather together?
If we see Him seated above all principalities, powers, and forces, it releases faith as we gather together. Let us think about some of our gatherings.
The prayer meeting is the place where God—where our Lord as Head—wants to govern the church. It is such a vital meeting.
In church life, the Lord wants us in prayer to declare the will of God. But we cannot declare the will of God unless we see the will of God. We cannot see the will of God unless we gain a heavenly point of view.
Do not get cloudy about what I mean by a heavenly point of view. Many times, it means somebody has found a Scripture that explains what is going on. Then we can declare the will of God based on the Word of God, and suddenly we can bind and loose.
It says, “Whatever you bind on earth shall already have been bound in heaven.” Would it not be a good idea to see that being bound in heaven and then declare it on earth? That should be our privilege and our portion when we gather together in prayer. It is that important to be praying in the Spirit.
If we are before the Lord and under His headship, we will also sense the priority of the burdens brought into the prayer meeting. Most of us have a shopping list by the time we get to the weekly prayer meeting. We have ten things, twelve things, people who are sick, and all the rest.
But what is the Lord’s priority? What does He want us to pray about that particular night? It may be four things, and He will take care of the rest. It may be one thing. It may be all the things. Or it may be that we are to pray for one another that night.
This is a living experience when we gather together in His name. It is for Him to symphonize and organize that prayer meeting in the Spirit, so that we can bind, loose, take hold, use the keys, and do all these things.
It all takes seeing Jesus upon the throne, having a heavenly point of view, and having the Word of God as the sword of the Spirit.
So often our prayer meetings are just the opposite. We do not take hold of anything. We do not really know the priorities. We get lost in the shuffle of things that are going on.
I am thankful that I know things from many places. Brothers and sisters in Queens, New York, had a little house, and they decided to extend it. Praise God. That way they could meet. It was a wonderful thing.
What spiritual conflict they got into! They had no idea. They started building that place, and suddenly code violations came up. Zoning violations came up. Somebody in the neighbourhood started a petition to stop the building work when it was three-quarters of the way through.
Then there was the problem of getting a permit. You know what? They learned some spiritual warfare because they had to take this above the individuals. It was not just the woman on the street who was angry because all the cars were parked in front of her house—although they learned that lesson too.
But there was spiritual warfare involved in building a building. Can you believe it? All they were trying to do was say, “Jesus is Lord over New York City.” This was a very small matter.
They fought and fought and fought, and their prayer meeting took on a battle-room strategy. The Lord had His way. The Lord got the victory. Thank God they could rise above it and see, “This is a conflict in the heavenlies over this building.”
How important it is that we see this, and that we be seated with Christ in this heavenly place as we gather together.
Often in our prayer meetings, the enemy brings in static and heaviness. We are praying, but we are not getting anywhere. What has happened? We have become viscous. We are slowing down. “That woman prayed and almost killed us.” Oh, what is going on? We are going down and down.
Somebody needs to stand up and say, “Jesus is Lord. We lift this heaviness off of us now. We pray in the Holy Spirit.”
Otherwise, we all become sick and tired. I always thank God for whoever shows up at the prayer meeting, because I know they had to overcome something. It is almost guaranteed.
Thank God. But then we cannot go there and just fall asleep. You have only won half the battle: you got there, and now you are asleep.
But is it not wonderful when we have touched the throne? By God’s mercy, how many of you have been in a prayer meeting where we touched the throne? It is so wonderful. You go home refreshed.
“Praise God, I do not know exactly what happened, but we were up there somewhere. Jesus was there, and He said, ‘Amen.’ Something is going to happen here.” We go home refreshed.
So let us be in the heavenly places if we are going to have a prayer meeting, okay? Under the throne of Jesus, alive by the Holy Spirit, sensing His burden—not praying everything because we have a list of twenty-six things—moving by the Spirit. He will take care of everything else. But we need to find His way in this matter.
Let me mention another matter: gathering in worship. I know there are assemblies that gather on Sunday morning without a prayer. Everybody comes toodling in: “Hi, Myrtle, how are you doing? Hey, Fred, how are things going?” Somebody is tuning a guitar; the piano player is playing. Nobody prays. They start the meeting.
I tell you what: you have a fifty-fifty chance that meeting will go nowhere.
If we see that when we come to worship the Lord, and we have the table before us, that table is spread in the presence of our enemies, then we will understand the need to pray.
If all the brothers do before the meeting is say, “Jesus Christ is Lord over us today. Oh Lord, by Your precious blood, cover us. Fill us with Your Holy Spirit. Push out all distractions, and let us live in Your presence as we worship You today,” that is all it takes.
Sometimes the brothers get into a meeting beforehand to pray about everything else, but they do not take hold of the meeting on behalf of all the saints in the name of the Lord Jesus. But this is the ground we need to stand on. Then the ground is clear.
What is Ephesians 5:18 about anyway—“Be filled with the Spirit”? It is specifically talking about our life in corporate worship.
What a wonderful thing when Spirit-filled people are among us and offer psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; when they sing and make melody in their hearts; when they pray with thanksgiving. Their prayers are Spirit-filled, and their worship is Spirit-filled.
If we all came together full of the Holy Spirit, what a transfiguring time of worship we would have together. But many of us drag in. We have not even prayed. We have just been fighting with the kids.
How we need to be filled with the Spirit in order to offer psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs—to be in tune and symphonized by the Holy Spirit when we gather in worship. This is such an important time.
Paul was very aware of angels. He said concerning women and head covering, “Do you not realize the angels are watching when we gather?” Did you know that?
We women—we women, women. I guess I must say, you women.
Should that not be our spiritual reality? “Oh, the angels are watching. Oh, wow, there is this whole matter of covering and submission here.” Very important.
In Ephesians 3:10, it says that the manifold wisdom of God may be shown through the church. The angels look down—not just demons. The angels look down and say, “Oh, look at that. They are all one. Look at that. They all love Jesus. Look at that. They all have the Holy Spirit.”
The angels love to see the church in unity, the body of Christ loving one another.
That is why it is important that Paul says, in effect, “You do not realize it because you do not see the heavenlies. You are too carnal. But some of you are sick. Some of you are taking the cup in an unworthy manner. Some of you do not discern the body at all. You do not recognize the Lord in His body.”
The Lord is disciplining us, and we do not even realize it because the heavenlies are like something we do not even know is there. We come into church, see one another, and think this is merely a composite of individual human beings. It is not.
Every time we gather in the Lord’s name to break bread and come before His table, we take a place in the heavenlies, if we realize it. That is how close the heavenlies are to earth.
We do not have to go off there to reach Him. He is right there. He joins in singing when we sing in the Spirit. Think about it. He is much closer than we realize.
When we hold a gospel meeting, how we need to take hold of the Lord beforehand and say, “Lord, we know the god of this world wants to blind our gospel friends so that they do not see the truth that Jesus is God. Oh Lord, set their eyes to see as the gospel is proclaimed.”
We need to realize that there is enemy static going on even in the gospel friends who come to a meeting. Many times, they go through a lot of, “I do not want to go,” while the wife is forcing them, and all this stuff. There is great conflict in preaching the gospel.
Just realize that. That is all I am saying. Do not be afraid of it. Jesus Christ is Lord.
I remember one time I was in Manchester—no, that is not right—some city in England. I cannot remember. Oh, Nottingham, that is right.
At the University of Nottingham, some young people asked, “Could you have a gospel meeting here?” They had a big square. I said, “Well, how do you want to do it?” They said, “We do not know.”
I said, “Okay, we have a big square. That is a good start. Let us go out in the square.” There were twenty-five or thirty at something like InterVarsity. I said, “Let us join around in a circle. I have my guitar. Let us start singing some songs.”
We got there, and before we even sang, I said to them, “Now look, let us pray and ask Jesus to circumscribe this whole square with His presence.”
We started to sing. People started opening doors and windows in the dorms, sticking out their heads. They started coming out and joining us, and we had a whole bunch of people.
I had two or three brothers and sisters share their testimony of how they got saved. It was a wonderful meeting. People asked how they could accept Jesus.
But would you just sit there in enemy territory and start singing? Let us realize that the Lord can sanctify this ground, as it were. Let His presence be among us as we do whatever it is the Lord wants us to do.
Finally, just to stand for the Lord’s purpose is to invite spiritual conflict. We can do many other things, have a good work going, busy ourselves feeding the poor, even preach the gospel. But when we decide to stand for the Lord’s purpose and to be a testimony for the Lord, we should not be ignorant, but wise.
There will be spiritual conflict. But we prepare. We know this is a reality. We stay under the blood of Jesus. We submit ourselves in the presence of God. We humble ourselves in the presence of God. We resist the enemy, and God gains the victory.
So, wherever we gather together, humbly gathered in His presence, He gains the victory. We learn who we are in Christ and who He is above us—the reality of the heavenlies.
We no longer look at things merely from the earth, as though we war against flesh and blood. We begin to see this richer, fuller understanding of our life: victory is found when we touch something in the heavenlies—namely, the throne of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Here is a mystery. It says in Colossians 3:3:
For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Only the Holy Spirit can make that real to us, is that not so? He puts us in the middle of kingdom and says, “Do not pursue things. Seek first the kingdom of God.”
He puts us in the middle of busyness and says, “Turn aside. Be devoted to Me. Rise early in the morning.” I mean, He tells us the most impossible things. It is almost like saying to the man with the withered hand, “Stretch forth your hand.” It is impossible.
He puts you in the middle of university and says, “Enroll in the school of Christ,” and so on and so forth. He puts us in this impossible environment.
I tell you, brothers, this is not bragging, but New York has got to be the toughest place. I know you want to nominate your city. It is impossible to stand up for the Lord except by the strength of His might.
We put on His full armour and stand there. Here we are, little skinny weaklings wearing His armour, standing in Jesus’ name. And the Lord gains the victory.
Let that be our experience, brothers and sisters. Be filled with the Holy Spirit. Let us pray.
Lord, we pray not shouting out to a throne that we reckon is a hundred light-years away, but we pray under a throne that is nearer than we ever imagined.
Oh Lord, at times You allow us all, in Your mercy, to see something of the heavenly places: to see an angel, to see the conflict, to see our Lord’s enthronement. Oh, how wonderful it is.
Help us more and more, as we grow in our spiritual life, to realize this spiritual sphere called the heavenlies. Help us to realize that You are the King of the heavenlies.
Even though the kingdom is not seen with signs and outward observations, there You are in the midst of it. Oh Lord, we believe we see You on Your throne, and we pray that Thy kingdom would come and Thy will would be done on earth, even as it has already been sealed in heaven.
Oh Lord, we pray: give us these eyes to see by the Holy Spirit our Lord Jesus, the Son of Man. Bring us into that place of spiritual ascendancy, with all the messengers ascending and descending under an open heaven because the Son of Man stands there for us.
We praise You and thank You, and ask that You teach us these lessons as we gather together for prayer, for worship, for gospel meeting, or for whatever reason. Help us to realize the ground where we stand, and that we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places.
Oh, let this be our portion. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.