Actually, I do believe it was earlier than 1974. The first time I ever came to Richmond was to Frank and Llewellyn Miller’s home, and I remember the prayer meeting there, the fellowship, and the Bible study. I do not remember the year, but it was before then.
Then 1974 was Rutherglen, was it not? I remember, altogether apart from the spiritual side, sitting there and being amazed at the trees and the whole scenery, which was exactly like Richmond, England. That is why the original settlers called it Richmond. It was so incredible to me. I remembered, from childhood, Richmond Park looking down on Petersham to the River Thames. That is just another little aside.
Anyway, I am very glad to be with you this evening, and I would like to turn to a number of Scriptures.
First of all, to the first letter of the Apostle Paul to Timothy: 1 Timothy 1. I am going to read only one verse.
This charge I commit unto thee, my child Timothy,
according to the prophecies which led the way to thee,
that by them thou mayest war the good warfare.
That you might war the good warfare.
Then 2 Timothy 2:3:
Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
No soldier on service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life,
that he may please Him who enrolled him as a soldier.
And then 2 Corinthians 10:3-5:
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh
(for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds),
casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God,
and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
Then I would like to turn to Revelation 12:7-11.
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels going forth to war with the dragon;
and the dragon warred and his angels;
and they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven.
And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the devil and Satan,
the deceiver of the whole world;
he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him.And I heard a great voice in heaven, saying,
Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ:
for the accuser of our brethren is cast down,
who accuseth them before our God day and night.
And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb,
and because of the word of their testimony;
and they loved not their life even unto death.
Then, in the Old Covenant, I would just like to read one of the most quoted psalms in the New Testament, Psalm 110—just the first few verses.
The Lord saith unto my Lord,
Sit Thou at My right hand,
until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out of Zion:
Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.Thy people offer themselves willingly
in the day of Thy power,
in the beauty of holiness.
Just a further word of prayer.
Beloved Lord, we want to thank You this evening that You have provided for us everything needed, not only to speak Your Word, but to hear it. Our prayer now is that You will use this time to bring illumination and understanding—revelation as to where we are in Your economy, where we are in the last days—and to bring us to a place where we are prepared to follow You whatever the cost.
Now, Lord, hear us in this. We thank You that You have made the provision necessary for this time—not only the blood of the Lamb that marks this whole evening and every one of us, but also the anointing that You have given us of grace and power, both for speaking Your Word and for hearing it.
Into that anointing, we want to stand by faith. Make our time together a meeting with Yourself. Lord, touch our hearts and enable us to hear what Your Spirit is saying to the church beyond the human voice. We ask it in the name of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
The word that has been on my heart for this evening and for tomorrow morning is the little phrase, “warring the good warfare.”
It may seem very strange to many Christians that, when the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy in these final letters, he again and again spoke to him about warring the good warfare: “Fight the good fight of faith.” He said, “Lay hold on the life eternal to which thou wast called.” He said that Timothy needed to be a good soldier of the Lord Jesus and not to get entangled with the affairs of this life.
That does not mean going out of this life like a monk or a nun, but rather that his priorities should be absolutely clear.
Now, I am pretty convinced that we are at a very serious point in the history of the age. I travel very much, and I meet God’s people all over the world. Jerusalem is a very good place, even when I am there, to meet God’s people, because so many come to Jerusalem.
One of the most extraordinary things at present is the almost unanimous verdict of God’s servants that something is happening in the spiritual atmosphere of this world. There is a deterioration. There is a very real collapse somewhere in the heavenlies. Something is happening.
Now, whether what we have read in Revelation is what is happening—that is, that the devil has come down and we are beginning to feel a pressure and a stress that we have never felt before—I do not know.
It may also be, of course, that the so-called Christian countries, which were once founded on biblical principles, and in which society, even if hypocritically, was at least fashioned by Judeo-Christian principles—it is all gone. It is a totally pagan world that is taking the place of what was once biblical principle.
I do not know. All I know is this: something is happening in the unseen. Whatever is happening in the unseen is having a detrimental effect upon the Church of God.
Everywhere one goes, one finds servants of the Lord at each other’s throats; people of God divided, factionalized, fighting over the most stupid things, when we should be absolutely together, absolutely one. We are charging one another with different things, accusing one another of different matters, and so on.
It is not speaking truth in love. It is falling prey to enemy propaganda.
The result is that, wherever you go, you find very great disunity on every level of Christian work and wherever there is the testimony of Jesus.
This, I do not believe, is just something by chance. I think it is an enormous attack of the powers of darkness upon the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
Exactly as we read in Revelation 1:9, where John says that he is in the Isle of Patmos for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. He was in a forced labour camp simply and only because he had been absolutely faithful to God’s Word and to the testimony of Jesus.
This is happening. It could be that there has been, and is, war in heaven, and that the enemy has come down to the earth and knows his time is short.
It is not depressing. Some people might be very depressed by what I am saying. In actual fact, it is tremendously uplifting and encouraging, because it simply means that we are a good deal nearer to the coming of the Lord than we realize.
The end of all this is the coming of the Lord and the catching up to be with Him of those who are ready. When He slays the Antichrist with the breath of His mouth—I love it—He does not need a nuclear device. He just breathes on the enemy, and he is gone: paralysed, vaporised, finished.
It is always a mystery as to why God allows evil to prosper, and why He allows it sometimes to get the upper hand and do the most terrible things. But when God’s time comes, it is finished in a moment.
Mao Zedong has gone. Stalin has gone. They are history. They are dust.
When I was in Beijing, I was asked if I wanted to see the body of Mao Zedong, and I said no. I had no interest in seeing his embalmed body. I consider him one of the great vandals of history.
The same with Lenin. Who wants to see the body of Lenin—a demonised man who brought darkness and death to so many millions of people?
I am so glad our Lord Jesus is not embalmed. He is at the right hand of God and is going to return.
Anyway, I have a sense—and that is what I want to get over to you as an introduction—that we are in a war. We need, as believers, to understand this war that we are in: why there is a war, what the purposes of it are, how we can war the good warfare, and how we can come to the place of victory.
One other thing I would like to say about this. This is a personal opinion, but I do not myself have any doubt that we are at the beginning of a third world war.
The events of September 11 were, in my view, the opening shots of an Islamic war, a war predicted in the Qur’an and anticipated by militant fundamentalist Muslims as part of the last days of world history. Their aim is that all Christians and Jews will be destroyed and everyone will become Muslim.
Now, that may seem to you like a fairy tale, except that in every single European country there is now a Trojan horse. There are huge Islamic communities. If you take Denmark, a little country of five million people, there are one million Muslim citizens. Holland has a huge Muslim community. Germany has four million. In France, one in five of the French citizens are now Muslim.
It is a tremendous thing that is happening in the world. The war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan—I do not want to get into politics—but, in my estimation, they are the beginning of a third world war.
I remember some years ago in Jerusalem, when we had the prayer conference and a preliminary time for Christian leaders. In that time, a man whom I respect very greatly, whose words have come true again and again, gave a prophetic utterance. He said there would be an ebb and a flow, and an ebb and a flow.
That is, in this war from September 11—it was just after September 11—he said, “It will go forward, pause, and ebb. It will go forward, pause, and ebb. And then it will go forward in the end.” He did not mean three times, but in the end it would go forward into a third world war.
Therefore, you and I need to understand that this is not just political, and it is not just a clash of cultures. This is something spiritual. It is the forces of darkness.
The Antichrist, in my estimation, cannot appear and cannot produce his world government until Islam is dealt with. Just as Marxism was a barrier to the coming of the Antichrist, although it was antichrist itself, so Islam is a barrier because they have an agenda.
The Antichrist will have a world federation and be acclaimed by the whole world as a great saviour and man of peace. He is the Antichrist.
I say these few things only as the beginning of what I really want to say this evening.
We need to learn how to war the good warfare—not to be at each other’s throats, not to be fighting all the time with one another, not to be fighting with other Christians in other assemblies, but to be able to move together in the purpose of God.
Now, it seems absolutely clear to me that wherever there has been greater understanding of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus, there the devil will use his most deceitful and intelligent tactics to snuff out any such testimony.
That is what I want to say in introduction.
Here is my first point: every child of God is born into war.
Thank God, when you are born again and you are a babe in Christ, you do not know it. Just like babies born in the Second World War: they did not know what was happening. They were nursed, looked after, carried in arms, and mollycoddled. They never knew that there was a war on.
For them, it was normal to hear sirens and to be taken into shelters. What else did they know? They knew nothing else.
But it does not in any way contradict the fact that every truly born-again child of God is born into war.
This war is nothing to do with them—in one sense. In another sense, it has something to do with you because you have been delivered from the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. That deliverance and that transference is something Satan cannot bear.
You may not know it, but you are marked with the mark of the Lord Jesus. You may not know it, you may not be conscious of it, but the fallen angels are conscious of it. They see it, and the angels of God see it.
You, without even knowing it, because you have been born of God and delivered from the authority of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God’s dear Son, are, to the powers of darkness, a traitor. Every one of us is evidence that those powers of darkness are losing, that they are unable to hold us, and that there is a superior sovereign power that can deliver a human being and transfer him into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.
Sometimes you are tempted by the powers of darkness to mollycoddle yourself, to compromise. “Well, why invite Satan? Why irritate him? Why not just go along with him? Do not be too devoted to the Lord. Do not be too one hundred per cent. Do not be too radical. Be moderate, and the enemy will be happy with you.”
The enemy will be happy with you for a while. He gets some people to go back into the world. He entices them back because they think it is too hard to be a Christian, and that all the tribulations that come to the child of God and to the Church of God can be avoided by going back into the world.
To begin with, Satan will mollycoddle you. He will give you everything you want, but the end is your destruction. He will destroy you. That is why he is called the destroyer.
Are you getting what I am saying? Let me put it another way. As Norman Grubb once wrote, “Once caught, no escape.”
Once the Lord has got you, once you have been born of God, once you have been delivered from the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God’s dear Son, do not think that by going back into the world you will avoid all the troubles. It may seem so to begin with. The end is destruction.
Once you are the Lord’s, there is only one thing: go on. Follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. There is no other course.
Why be half-hearted? If once you are the Lord’s, and once you are marked with the mark of the Lord, there is no going back. You might as well be radical.
Be one hundred per cent devoted. Go the whole way with the Lord. That way, you will have all the grace that you need and all the power that you need.
This war into which you have been born by the grace of God is much greater than you and much greater than me. Do not think for a moment that you are the centre of this war. You are not.
This war is centred on God’s purpose for His Son. It is the Lord Jesus who is the focal point of this war, and Satan—Lucifer—cannot bear the Lord Jesus. He hates Him with unadulterated hatred.
He knows very well that the Father has purposed that the Lord Jesus will inherit this planet, and that out of every tongue, kindred, and ethnic group there will be a great multitude saved by the grace of God—and, I might say, a great number of Jews.
He knows it. This war into which you have been brought is a war between God and Satan, between light and darkness, between Christ and the spirit of Antichrist.
You cannot avoid it. There is no such thing as conscientious objection in God’s army.
You may think you can get out of it. You may think you can become a pacifist. You might even think, as some Christians do, that Satan himself will be saved in the end. I do not understand how they get that with the bottomless pit, but some do believe it.
But this war that you have been born into is of tremendous consequence. Principally, if I may put it this way, it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the Lord Jesus.
Now, that is not entirely true, because it has something to do with you since you belong to Him. You are not just saved. You are not just converted. By the grace of God, you have been positioned in Christ.
Because you are positioned in Christ, this war—which is all to do with the divine purpose for the Messiah—also concerns you. Because you are in the Messiah, you have been made one with God in Him. You come into this battle.
It is not long before a child of God discovers that he is in a warfare. There is somebody tripping him up, somebody arranging his circumstances, somebody destroying his peace, somebody causing every kind of problem. Have you not found it?
It is only when you are a babe that you are unaware. As soon as you start to go, the first thing you become conscious of is that you have an enemy.
Now, it is a good thing to remember that it is not you that the enemy is principally interested in. It is the One who has saved you, and the One in whom you are now positioned. That is a good point, because once you begin to see it like that, you know who is winning.
There is a lot more one could say on this whole matter, but when I think of these Scriptures that we have read: “The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God.”
I do not like this new translation, “divinely powerful.” The Greek is so simple. The weapons of our warfare operate only in the presence of the Lord. You cannot operate these things yourself. You have to be hearing the Lord, walking with the Lord, in touch with the Lord, and together in the Lord.
Then you can use the weapons of our warfare. Then those weapons are mighty to the hurling down, the casting down, of fortresses—things that seem invincible and immovable. They can be thrown down. Such are the weapons of our warfare.
The Lord is so interested in us growing up in this matter and becoming good soldiers that He lets us feel and hear something of the battle, so that in the end we learn to grow up.
I do not know. It seems that so few Christians become soldiers. Most of them want to be carried in the arms the whole way, on a kind of bed of ease, wheeled into heaven.
I often say that the wheels of a car are the extension of the American human being’s body. Some people want to have wheels that will just carry them in—no exercise, no having to use spiritual energy, grace, and power.
But the Bible does not talk about spiritual cars. It speaks about walking, running, and fighting.
I think it is interesting that the Apostle infers that every child of God ought to be a soldier. But many children of God are nowhere near being a soldier.
A soldier knows discipline. A soldier has to learn not to panic. A soldier has to hear commands and obey them. A soldier has to take commands, sometimes from officers he does not respect.
Anyone who has been in the army knows what I am talking about. You cannot just be in touch with the Commander-in-Chief.
This whole question of being a soldier brings into this matter everything to do with the Christian life, Christian service, and church life and service.
So I really only want to underline some of these things. Is it not interesting to note carefully how the Apostle Paul speaks to Timothy? He knows he is going. In his second letter he says, “The time for my departure has come.”
His one burden is that Timothy, who by nature apparently was rather timid—a gentle, sensitive type of person—would fulfil what God had spoken concerning him.
“There were prophecies about you. Let them lead you to warring the good warfare. Fight the good fight of faith.”
It is the same word in Greek. Interestingly, we get the word agonise from this Greek word. I am not suggesting that you should think of it as “agonise the good agony,” but in English we get the word agonise from it.
What he means is that there is a bit of pain here. You cannot be a soldier without pain. You cannot know real discipline without pain.
So here you have something tremendous in this warfare. I do hope that what I am saying sinks into you a little, because we are in a growing battle.
All through the ages, believers have been born into war. It has never stopped. But we know that toward the end of this age, it will become infinitely worse.
My feeling is that we are very near today, if we have not already passed, the point.
Overcoming is a word used so much in this last book of the Bible. Overcoming is literally winning through. That is another way we could put it, or gaining the victory.
Overcoming is related to this warfare. Those who learn how to be good soldiers of the Lord Jesus are overcomers.
It is interesting in Revelation 12, when it says, “There was war in heaven,” and then it says that they—the believers—overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of their testimony, and because they loved not their lives—the word is soul-life, self-life—even unto death.
So, that is the first thing I want to underline. I hope you have got it: if you are a child of God, you have been born into war. It is not something you choose; you are born into it.
Some of you were born into families and might wish you had been born into other families. You did not choose it; you were born into it. That is your family. Maybe you would have preferred to be in another family, but you were born in that family.
You have been born into war. You cannot get out of it. You have to recognise it. The best thing is to be a soldier.
It is not a question of thinking, “How can one opt out of this?” The easiest thing in war is to be a soldier.
Here is the second thing I want to underline. I watch myself on time. The reasons for this war—it is good for us just to understand what they are.
I have already said that it is supremely focused on the divine purpose for the Lord Jesus. That is the first thing. It means Satan has lost. I will come to that in a moment. It is focused on the Lord Jesus.
Here is the second thing: it is focused on the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. That is why you get this phrase again and again in the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, the summing up of everything.
Now, this is interesting. The Word of God—that is exactly what this war is over. Satan hates the Word of God. And I will tell you something else: he hates those who obey the Word of God.
He is the father of lies. As the Lord Jesus put it, he is a liar from the beginning.
The Word of God—oh, to know the Word of God! How few Christians, especially you young people, are really studying the Word of God? Do you just come to meetings, sit and listen, and then go and meet your friends?
You have very little time, and in that time, if you would only get to know the Word of God.
I am so thankful that I was taught to memorise the Word from the beginning. I was saved when I was thirteen. I came from a completely non-Christian, non-religious background, and I am so glad that I was taught right from the beginning to memorise.
There was an old Swedish aunt we had, and she used to give me fifty pence—in those days, ten shillings—if I could repeat a verse word-perfect every Saturday morning in her lounge. Well, of course, for fifty pence I would do anything.
So I went every Saturday morning. She was a clever woman. She knew I was Jewish; the family was Jewish. I made sure I was word-perfect and got my fifty pence. But I am so thankful that it started me on a way of learning the Word.
The Lord had His own other ways of getting it into me. When I was at the School of Oriental and African Studies, I had to study classical Chinese. When I used to write the characters each day, I would lose at least two-thirds of them. You know what I mean: you memorise them, and the next morning they are gone. I forgot two-thirds of them; only one-third stayed with me.
But it gave me a photographic mind. I never had one; I had a lazy mind. I did not bother. I did it the easy way. But that produced for me a photographic mind, so that to this day I can tell you where things are in the Word, even which page they are on—whole passages. I cannot say I am word-perfect, but I am so thankful for it.
I am so thankful that I started with the Gospel of John until it fell to pieces, because I did not have a Bible. Nobody thought in those days that people did not have Bibles. But I read it until it fell to pieces.
But listen, young people: you need to get to know the Bible. If you think it is boring, it is not boring once you get into it.
Sometimes we used to have, in Richmond, Surrey, England, fellows who had only ever read comics. I mean, they had never read anything else, never read a book in their life. Then they got saved. We did not know what to do with them.
They would say to me, “I cannot understand the King James. It is the language.” We did not know what to do until I found The Living Bible. Then I began to say to them, “Get a copy of The Living Bible and start to read that.”
These boys would come afterwards and say, “I read the whole of Job. This is like a newspaper.” They loved those things where it said, you know, “Abraham threw a party.” The old version says, “They made merry,” but “Abraham threw a party”—that was wonderful to them.
Get to know the Bible. Start with something very modern if you have to, and then from there go back to a good study version. Some of these modern versions, I do not think you can study at all.
But if Satan is so angry about the Word of God, and you are saved—you are a child of God—wake up. It means the Word of God is tremendously important. That is why he hates it.
Therefore, you need to be immersed in the Word of God. Oh, you say to me, “What about Leviticus? I will die in Leviticus. I never understand Leviticus.” Well, that is absolutely true; you probably will not. Why begin in Leviticus?
Start in Genesis. It is much easier—and Exodus. Skip Leviticus to start with, until you are a little older in the Lord. Then the Book of Leviticus is one of the most wonderful books in the Bible, full of the Lord Jesus, full of what He did on the cross for us.
Immerse yourself in the Word of God. If Satan hates it so much, why are you treating it as if it is not important?
We are so familiar with the Word of God that we forget it cost thousands of human lives to give the Word of God in our own mother tongue.
And the testimony of Jesus. It is not just the Word of God; it is the testimony of Jesus. What is the testimony of Jesus? Not just the gospel.
It has something to do with being saved and the goal of your salvation. The testimony of Jesus is that you are in Christ.
I do not want to put it wrongly, because I am fearful that it will lead to wrong emphasis, but you are part of Christ. You have become members of Christ. The word in Greek is limbs. How can you be a limb of Christ? Yet the Book says it so beautifully.
If you are a child of God, you are in the Lord Jesus. Not only are you in the Lord Jesus, you have become part of Him. You are His body—the means by which He expresses Himself, the means by which He reveals Himself, and the means by which He touches the unsaved world. It is His body.
The testimony of Jesus. Satan does not merely hate the Word of God; he hates the testimony of Jesus.
That is why, if you look at the history of the church, you will see that every time the Holy Spirit has moved again—like a mini-Pentecost in a new way—taking the initiative again and doing something like the early church once again, within a generation or two it is institutionalised, crystallised, denominationalised, and dies.
Satan hates the testimony of Jesus. It is only in the first and second generation of every move of the Holy Spirit that you see the body of Christ functioning—even in the Reformation amongst the Anabaptists, amongst the Quakers, amongst the early Methodists, in the Second Great Evangelical Awakening, and in the early Moravians. I could go on and on.
Satan hates the testimony of Jesus so much that he makes sure Christian flesh takes over, and the thing dies, until the Holy Spirit takes the initiative again.
The most encouraging thing about all of this is that the Holy Spirit does take the initiative, because this has something to do with the divine purpose—the Father’s purpose for the Son.
Because it has something to do with the divine purpose for the Lord Jesus and those He saves—or let me put it another way, those whom the Father gives to the Son as His inheritance—Satan hates it, especially if there should be an expression of it on the earth.
It is one thing to have an organised congregation. It is another thing to have the functioning of the body of Christ. Even if there are imperfections, faults, and failings, it is something tremendous when, in all our weakness and sin, the body of Christ is functioning: the testimony of Jesus.
So the reasons for this war are the divine purpose for the Lord Jesus, the Word of God, and the testimony of Jesus. Then I would add another: the calling out of the church.
It is the testimony of Jesus, but ekklesia simply means “the called-out ones.” Tremendous, is it not?
This which began with the Jewish people has now ended with every tongue and ethnic group in the world.
So the reason for this war is that Satan cannot bear the gospel’s work. He cannot bear the fact that there are people being saved in every single corner of this earth. Praise the Lord.
And let me say something else. This wonderful Book, three chapters before it concludes, says these wonderful words:
Hallelujah: for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigneth.
Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad,
and let us give the glory unto Him:
for the marriage of the Lamb is come,
and His wife hath made herself ready.
Is that not amazing? That is it. That is what Satan is fighting to stop. That is why we are in this war. He will do everything in his power and use every weapon in his armoury to stop this bride from making herself ready.
There is another reason. I am not going to spend long on this, but I need to mention it. There is another reason for this war: it is Israel.
Do not think for a moment that God has finished with the Jewish people. It began with them, and God made promises to them. He keeps His promises. The covenants He made with our forefathers—He is absolutely faithful to those covenants. That is what all the fuss is about.
This dividing of the land into two sovereign nations, living side by side in peace, is a dream. It is stupidity. It is an insult to God, because He made a covenant with Abraham over this land, and He never spoke about two nations dwelling in it.
He made a covenant with Ishmael, and He has been absolutely faithful in keeping that covenant to the letter. He said they would become great nations, wealthy, and possess much, and He has done it. Most of the oil is in their hands.
But to the Jewish people God has made certain promises. When we come near to the end of the fullness of the Gentiles coming in, God will turn back to the Jewish people and will save them.
Then Jacob will become Israel. It is very interesting that in that extraordinary picture we have in Genesis 32, Jacob was alone with the Lord when the Lord appeared to him and wrestled with him. That was when he became Israel—Israel, prince with God.
It is interesting to note that in Romans 11 you have, “And so all Israel shall be saved, even as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer; He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” Israel, Jacob; Jacob, Israel—it is there.
That is all I am going to say. Is there any wonder there is a war over this nation? No other people? Is there any wonder that every attempt has been made to eradicate this nation, to liquidate this people, again and again and again through history? Why, unless it has something to do with the purposes of God?
As touching the gospel, they are enemies for your sake:
but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake.
For the gifts and the calling of God are not repented of.
Those words were said of a people disobedient, cast away, fallen, lost, blind. Amazing.
Well, dear folks, this is the battle, the reason for the battle. Shall I tell you one other reason? You will find it in Ephesians 4: spiritual character and spiritual maturity.
This war is to stop believers from ever growing up—to keep them dwarfs, keep them as pygmies, keep them somehow or other unable to function.
What does it say in Ephesians 4? Perhaps we should just read the words.
Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith,
and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a fullgrown man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
that we may be no longer children,
tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine.
Is that not interesting? If Satan cannot stop you getting saved, he will stop you from growing up.
He will use every single thing. He will get you to marry the wrong person through your own self-will. He will get you into the wrong kind of circumstance through your own stupidity. He will tie you with a thousand bonds that will stop you from growing.
Well, I do not know how much more time we have. What time did we begin? An hour? I think it is enough. No—but nevertheless, I think I will give one last point, and then I will continue tomorrow.
We do not end on a depressed note. The Lord Jesus has already won this war.
It is not in question as to whether Satan and God are equally matched, and whether it is a question of who is going to win. Maybe Satan is going to get the upper hand? There is no question about it. Jesus has won.
The way He won was by humbling Himself, and humbling Himself to the death of the cross. In that moment in which even the sun hid its light, in that moment of absolute desolation and forsakenness, He won the battle.
One word in Hebrew and one word in Greek: “Finished.” He had done it.
I think the whole of heaven was on its face in worship. Who could believe that through the cross Jesus could win the battle?
Now, you quite likely say to me, “It does not look as if He has won. Look what is happening. Look what is happening in the church. Look what is happening amongst believers. Look what is happening in the world. It does not look as if Jesus has won to me.”
No, that is quite true. You may well question it. But we behold Jesus, crowned with glory and honour.
Where is He? At the right hand of God. What is He doing? Fighting? No. Standing? No. Only receiving believers? No. What is He doing? Seated.
Now, when you sit down normally, that is a position of rest. I will not say these chairs are the most comfortable in the whole world to rest in, but when you sit, your weight is being taken by the chair.
You mean that the Lord Jesus seemingly is unconcerned? He is seated at the right hand of God? Yes.
Listen to that most quoted of all the psalms:
The Lord saith unto my Lord,
Sit Thou at My right hand,
until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.
The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out of Zion:
Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.
Is that not amazing? He has won. Let it sink in.
“Well,” you say, “how does that affect us? I do not feel He has won. I feel the battle whirling all around.” Yes, absolutely right. We are in the kind of mopping-up operations, if you could so describe them. We are in the aftermath of the battle, but He has won.
Did you notice another thing about Psalm 110? Listen again: “Sit Thou at My right hand till I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet.” Who said that? The Father. To whom did He say it? To the Son. “Sit Thou at My right hand.” Where is Jesus? At the right hand of the Father, seated.
“The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength.” That is the sceptre. “Rule in the midst of Thine enemies.”
Now listen carefully: “Thy people shall offer themselves willingly in the day of Thy power.” The Hebrew is “freewill offerings.” Or, in my version, it says, “will offer themselves freely.” Freewill offerings, not under compulsion.
In the day of His power, when He sits at the right hand of God, those whom He saves will be freewill offerings. What does this mean? It means that the Lord will use us to put the enemies where they belong: under the feet of the Lord Jesus.
Does this make any sense? I hope so.
The Lord Jesus has won this war. It is an absolute victory, a complete victory, a total victory.
How are you and I to be related to this? I will leave this until tomorrow. All I will say is this: I am just going to quote from memory a Scripture you all know very well.
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 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.
This is the strangest way to win: you stand, withstand, and stand.
Now, is that not extraordinary? Surely we think it should be that we must go for it. How do we war this good warfare? By standing. That is the most extraordinary way to win a battle: by standing.
What does standing mean? It means in Christ. He has every means of security, safety, and protection. Stand in Him. Do not move out. Do not let the enemy entice you forwards or backwards or any other way. Stand.
What does it mean? Stand within the revealed Word of God. Stand in the promises of God. Stand in the statements of God’s Word.
I will say more about this tomorrow. I find it exciting because it says that through death He brought to nought the one who has the power of death and has held people in bondage all their lifetime.
Now, is that not a wonderful statement? Think of it. I am not a mathematician, but I do know that nought is nought. However much you multiply nought, it equals nought. God has brought Satan to nought. He has neutralised him, nullified him, disarmed him. He has completely defeated him through death.
Or again, think of this in Colossians:
Having despoiled the principalities and the powers,
He made a show of them openly,
triumphing over them in it.
What a statement. Stand on it. Stand.
That means when the enemy is doing a war dance all around you, when he is like a lion—only like a lion; he is not the Lion—seeking whom he may devour, you can worship the Lord. He cannot touch you.
Stand. Withstand. And having done all, stand.
I finish by telling you a story. Some of you will remember it; I have told it before. But I always love it because it puts it so simply.
We had a fellow who was an alcoholic, a womaniser, a drug addict, and I do not know what else. Then he got saved. He got saved in the most wonderful way—delivered and changed.
Then he became quite a character in the fellowship. He had his own original experience of the Lord, and whenever he spoke it was so original. He always had something to give.
I remember one Sunday morning at the Lord’s Table, he stood up and said, “Yesterday I was very depressed.” We all understood why, because it was one of those dreadful English days where it was not only grey above, but grey below as well—dripping with water and very English.
He said, “I was so depressed. I had troubles with the boys, trouble at work, and I went out depressed. I walked in the rain, and I became more depressed. So I thought I would go back home.”
Now, this man was a gambler. I should have said that—not only a drug addict and an alcoholic, but a womaniser and a gambler as well. They often go together, these things.
He came back, and the boys had the television on. He heard the commentator saying, “Such-and-such a horse is coming round the bend.” His old instincts rose up; he could not help it. He thought, “Oh my, how exciting!”
So he peered over the boys’ heads to look at it. He saw the horse coming round the bend and heard the commentator say, “I believe it is going to win.” He got more and more excited, and finally it went over the line with the others.
The commentator said, “They are having to replay this to see whose nose went over the winning post first.” They waited for a while, and then the commentator said, “They have just announced that such-and-such a horse won.”
I should not be telling you this. I do not want you all gambling on horses, but it is such a wonderful illustration. The commentator said, “Such-and-such a horse,” giving the name, “has won by a nose.”
Then the Lord said to Fred, “Fred, you see, when the nose goes over the winning line, the last hairs in the tail of the horse have won.”
Suddenly he saw it: “Why am I depressed? The Lord Jesus has gone over the winning line, and I am, as it were, at the back. But I have won because He has won.”
You got it? Is that not exciting? When the Lord Jesus went over the winning line and beat the enemy, you won.
In the world ye have tribulation:
but be of good cheer;
I have overcome the world.
That is where your victory lies. May the Lord bless us all and give us understanding in our personal experiences of warfare and how we can relate to this. Thank you very much.