If you would turn with me to those Scriptures—not all of them, but the ones that I began to speak upon last night.
In the first letter of the Apostle Paul to Timothy, Chapter 1 and Verse 18:
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.
In the second letter of Paul to Timothy, Chapter 2, Verse 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.
The second letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, Chapter 10, from Verse 3:
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.
And then, last, in the New Testament—the last one—in Revelation, Chapter 12, from Verse 7:
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.
And then, if I may add one more to this: Ephesians, Chapter 6, from Verse 10:
Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.
Put on the whole armour of God,
that ye may be able to stand against the wiles 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 hosts of wicked spirits in the heavenlies.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.
Just a word of prayer.
Beloved Lord, we are so thankful that we are found in Your presence. We praise You, Lord, for being able in this free way to remember You and all that You have done for us.
We marvel every day that He who knew no sin was made our sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. We thank You for what You have done. We thank You for the way that You have laid all our sin, all our transgression, all our iniquity, and all our shortcomings upon Him; and You have declared us righteous in Your sight.
Not only have You declared us righteous, but You have said we are Your righteousness in Him. We can hardly take it in, Lord, but we bow before You in worship and praise.
And now, Lord, we come to the ministry of Your Word, and we need You. We need You, Lord, for the speaking of Your Word, and we need You for the hearing of it. We praise You for the provision You have made for such a time as this.
You have given us, through the finished work of our Lord Jesus, that anointing, grace, and power in fullness. Into it we stand by faith, that we might meet with You in this time, and that Your Holy Spirit may touch our hearts.
Do not let us be the same, Lord. Touch us, we pray, and build us up in the light of what is coming upon the face of the earth. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah. Amen.
The little phrase that I began to speak about last night is contained in the first Scripture that we read from the Apostle Paul’s letter to Timothy, and it is the phrase, “warring the good warfare.”
Last night, I began to open up a little of this subject. I believe we are in a tremendously dangerous phase in world history. It is my conviction—it is only a personal conviction—but it is my conviction that it may well be that a third world war has started. We are certainly in the prelude to something enormous.
Those whom I count very much in the Lord, who have served the Lord for many years and have the greatest discernment that I know in the church of God, all have the same sense: something enormous is in the wings. We do not quite know what it is. We hope it is the coming of the Lord and the rapture, but there is something enormous in the wings.
The whole of human society is going to change. Already, we are watching colossal changes taking place in society: in marriage, in the constitution of marriage, in the family, and in the constitution of the family.
Biblical principles, which have spawned so much of world society, are thrown on one side. They are looked upon as unclean—something that limits, something that binds and fetters.
They are being thrown on one side for a new pagan form of society. It is actually not new. There is nothing new under the sun. It is Hellenic. It is as simple as that. It is the old spirit of Hellenism that is back to take the world. If you want another word for it, it is humanism.
It seems to me that so many children of God have absolutely no idea where we are or what is happening. And when it happens, as again and again in the history of the church, there will be panic.
So I began to speak last night about warring the good warfare. If you are a baby in Christ, we thank God for it—as long as you really are a newborn babe. But if you are a babe twenty years old in the Lord, thirty years old in the Lord, forty years old in the Lord, you are an abnormality.
It is as simple as that. You should no longer be a child. You should be putting away childish things. You should be growing up in the Lord. You should be maturing to adulthood—what the Word of God calls perfection. The best word for it is maturity.
And above all, we have read the words, “Suffer hardship.” Where do you find this amongst Christians today? “Suffer hardship.” No, no, no—we want just celebration. We want just joy. We want to be carried on a bed of ease to heaven. We do not want this kind of word: suffer hardship.
Discipline. “Suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.”
You cannot be a soldier without some kind of training. You cannot be a soldier without some kind of discipline, some kind of hardship to the flesh. There is no way to become a soldier of the Lord without it. Where are the soldiers?
There are so few real spiritual warriors in the family of God. Instead, we have multitudes and multitudes of those who should be soldiers but who are carried in arms, swept along by others, somehow or other helped only by an atmosphere—a form of drug addiction, really.
I am all for worship. Do not get me wrong on this. I am all for genuine worship, when it is real worship—when it bubbles up by the Spirit of God from our hearts, when we are carried into the very presence of the Lord, when we lose sight of time and place and know that we are in the presence of the Lord. There is nothing more wonderful than such worship.
But when worship becomes entertainment, when it is manipulation, when it is somehow or other an atmosphere that is false and artificial—well, let me put it like this.
When I was in the chaplain’s branch many years ago, in Egypt, in the Royal Air Force—the British Royal Air Force—I had to make a survey of backsliders.
I found a very interesting thing. I found that the largest number of backsliders were either Salvation Army or Pentecostals. I puzzled and puzzled and puzzled why it should be, until I suddenly realised that they were somehow dependent upon a certain kind of atmosphere.
Not always—not when it was real Pentecostalism, nor when it was the Salvation Army in its beginnings—but as it progressed, there was an atmosphere that was pumped up.
I found, to my great surprise, that the people who stood were the brethren. That was a great surprise to me, but I came to the conclusion that it was because, first, they knew how to study the Word of God. They had studied it. It was in them. They memorised it. They obeyed the Word. I am talking now about fifty or sixty years ago.
The second thing that was remarkable was that they knew how to meet together. They did not have to have a pastor and a whole sort of hierarchy to meet together. They simply came together in the simplest way and built one another up.
We need to be soldiers of the Lord Jesus. We need to be done with all that belongs to childhood and all that belongs to the kindergarten.
There is a place for babyhood. It is wonderful when it is real, genuine babyhood. And there is a place for childhood. There is nothing more beautiful than a child—in his innocence and beauty.
But when a person at fifty is a child in his mind, it is something almost obscene. We are horrified when we meet people who should have grown up and have never grown up, and cannot grow up.
The church of God is filled with such abnormality. Therefore, it comes as something foreign to the ears of so many Christians when they hear a phrase like “warring the good warfare,” when they hear the Apostle saying, “Fight the good fight,” or when they hear the Apostle Paul saying, “I have fought the good fight.”
Again, when you hear the Apostle Paul saying:
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 speculations,
and bringing every thought into captivity to Christ.
So this matter of warfare is, I think, a very important one.
Every child of God, I said last night, is born into a war. They may not know it, and indeed, in babyhood we are preserved from it.
I was a child in the Second World War. I hardly knew it. I found it very exciting. I remember, as a five-year-old, watching the whole of Richmond in flames—with hundred-foot flames—and thinking it was wonderful. To me, it was like fireworks. I had no idea what was happening. My mother was weeping, but for me, I was hidden from it.
I remember watching dogfights and being so excited when I watched these British Spitfires chasing some German Junker and shooting it down. Of course, I never thought that someone was dying. I just thought it was very exciting. I had no idea what it was. I was not a soldier. I was a mere child.
When you are a child, you are preserved from this. But you are not meant to remain in childhood. You are meant to grow up to be a soldier in the army of the Lord Jesus.
He is the Lord of hosts, the Commander of the armies of heaven, and we are meant to be His soldiers. That simply means we have to be under command. We have to learn discipline. We have to be trained. We have to be hardened to endure, to suffer hardship.
We have sometimes to take command from people far down the ranks from the commander. That is the most difficult thing of all for many of us. To take it directly from the Commander-in-Chief is one thing, but to get it sometimes from someone lower down the ranks is not quite to our taste.
We spoke about being born to warfare: that every child of God is meant to be a soldier of the Lord Jesus. We spoke about overcoming as being intimately and directly related to this warfare.
Gaining the victory is the simple translation of the Greek word. “Winning through” is perhaps a very modern way of putting it, but overcoming—that is all it means. We are all meant to be overcomers.
That is why, when you come to the last book of the Bible, there is war right the way through it. There is tremendous turmoil, disorder, battle. You have that extraordinary thing about Michael and his angels warring with the dragon and his angels.
Then we suddenly discover that believers are very much involved, for it says:
They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb,
and because of the word of their testimony;
and they loved not their lives, even unto death.
Well, we talked about that last night, and I had better not go over it again or we will never get to where we should this morning. I think I heard that it was on some kind of disc which you can either load down or download.
I am illiterate when it comes to computers, as the boys have found at home. I feel as if I live in another world with all these things. But you can hear it, if you can suffer it.
We talked about the reason for the war yesterday. Principally, it is the Lord Jesus, not you. You think this war is focused on you—you have made a big mistake.
It is focused on the Lord Jesus and the Father’s purpose for the Lord Jesus. That is where this war is focused. That is why you are in it, whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not.
If, by the grace of God, you have been delivered from the power and authority of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God’s dear Son, you are in this war. Therefore, you have to learn the rules: how to be safe and how to come through.
Then, of course, I spoke about the Lord Jesus as having already won this war. This is an enigma to many. How has the Lord Jesus won this war, and yet we are still in it?
How is it that we feel all the noise of battle, all the circumstances, situations, and problems of battle and war, if Jesus has won this? Jesus has sat down at the right hand of God. That is an amazing thing.
Very few Christians seem to recognise that He sat down. He is not fighting. He has actually sat down, and the Father has said, “Sit at My right hand. Do not get up except to greet some saint that is arriving. Sit at My right hand till I make Your enemies Your 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 holy array.
In other words, we as the church are meant to take these enemies of the Lord Jesus, through the finished work of the Lamb, by the blood of the Lamb, and put them where they belong: under the feet of the Lord Jesus. If we do not do that, they run amok amongst us, causing all kinds of problems.
Enough of yesterday. Let me take up the last point I made and dwell on it a little longer. How are we to experience this victory? How are we to experience this victory in reality?
Well, I find it tremendous. Listen: “Finally.”
You might have thought he was going to say, “Finally, evangelise. We must evangelise.” But he did not say that. You might have thought, “Finally, be filled with the Spirit.” He could have said that—it is essential—but he did not say that.
“Finally, let us go for the deepening of our spiritual life.” He could have said that. It is necessary and essential, but he did not say it. “Finally, let us have conferences where we consider all the deeper things, and where the Lord could touch us.” He never said it.
He said, “Finally, be strong in the Lord”—not in yourself, not in your knowledge, not in your own intelligence and power. “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 we wrestle not against flesh and blood,
but against the principalities, against the powers,
against the world-rulers of this darkness,
against hosts of wicked spirits in the heavenlies.
Wherefore take up the whole armour of God,
that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day.
Every work of the Lord has an evil day. Every true church has an evil day—not always only one.
In that evil day, it seems as if Satan has supreme power, and it seems as if everything is overflowed by darkness. Everybody is at sixes and sevens. Everybody accuses one another. Loyalty goes out of the door. We are factionalised and divided, and I do not know what else.
An evil day comes to every real work of God and to every true church.
I will tell you a very interesting thing that I have discovered in my little life: it is in the evil day that God does the most. For He shaves us of all that is superficial, and all that we thought was eternal but, in fact, was transient.
We are forced back to absolute reality in the evil day that comes to every work of God and to every true church.
“Stand.” Now, here is something I find amazing. Why stand? Why did he not say, “Put on the whole armour of God that you may be able to fight?” Is not armour for fighting?
I have never, ever heard of an army where all the armaments and weapons—everything—are for standing. That is the most extraordinary thing. Think about it, because it is the Word of God.
We say, “Oh yes, of course: stand, withstand, having done all, stand. Wonderful.” But nobody thinks about it. Here is the most extraordinary way to war the good warfare: you stand.
You do not go forward. You do not go backwards. You do not go sideways. You do not go up and you do not go down. You stand. Is that not the most amazing way to win a battle?
Put on the whole armour of God.
This is the Lord Jesus—that armour. I used to know a preacher who told us, “I stand every day before a mirror, and I put on the helmet of salvation, and I put on the breastplate, and then I gird my loins with truth, and then I put on my feet.”
I thought to myself that he was pretty neurotic, because he was so afraid that he might forget to put on some piece of the armour. I am not sure the Lord wants us to become neurotic. There are enough neuroses in the church without us all becoming neurotic over this matter.
It seems to me very simple: Jesus—our Lord Jesus—is the armour. He is the helmet of salvation. He is the breastplate of faith. He is the girding of our loins with truth. He is the gospel.
Do you understand what I am saying? It is the sword of the Spirit—the only offensive weapon described here—which is the Word of God.
It is amazing to me. Think for a moment. This is so. Once you see this, it will transform everything.
You say, “Why does he have to talk about war? Have we not got enough trouble at present every time we turn the television on? War, war, war, war—somewhere in Iraq or Afghanistan, or being threatened here. We do not want to hear about that. We do not come to church to hear that kind of thing. We come to hear nice things, peaceful things.”
But the Apostle Paul says that we should war the good warfare. We should fight the good fight of faith. We fight it by standing.
Wherefore take up the whole armour of God,
that ye may be able to stand.
Now it is in this little word standing that the whole secret lies. Where do you stand? I will tell you: in Christ.
That is why the whole Old Testament is filled with pictures and imagery of fortresses, high towers, shelters, coverts, and covered places. Everywhere you turn in the Psalms, you will see: the Lord is your fortress; the Lord is your stronghold; the Lord is your shelter; the Lord is your high tower.
Listen: if you are a child of God and you are growing up in the Lord, you are becoming a soldier of the Lord Jesus. Your position is in Christ. Do not let the enemy get you out of that position.
He can. If he cannot draw you out by sin, by immorality, or by worldliness, he will do it by spiritual means. He will help you study the Bible, and through your knowledge you will become big-headed—and he has got you.
Do you understand what I am saying? Here you have it again: stand, stand, withstand, having done all, stand.
In the evil day, do not let the enemy tempt you to move out. Stay where you have been placed. Where? In Christ.
Do you not find this amazing? Do you not now begin to see why the Apostle ends this tremendous revelation contained in this Ephesian letter with this matter of standing in Christ?
What he is saying is this: evangelism is important; being filled with the Holy Spirit is central; every other matter we have talked about is absolutely vital. But if you do not learn to stand in Christ and abide in Christ, you will lose everything.
You will lose the church. You will have the vision of it and none of the practice. It will all be up here, and no function.
Listen again to the words of the Lord Jesus:
I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman.
That is one of the most extraordinary things Jesus ever said, for the vine was always the symbol of the covenant people of God.
There was, according to Josephus, one of the wonders of the ancient world: a filigree gold vine in the Court of Israel, in the actual porch of the temple as you went in to the holy place. There was this great vine in filigree gold, with grapes, leaves, tendrils, and everything.
Jesus said, “I am the true vine,” as if He were saying, “I am the covenant people. I am the church. I am the house of God. I am the temple of God.” It is almost hard to take it in.
Now listen to it:
Abide in Me, and I in you.
Got it? Abide. Dwell. Remain. Stay. In Me.
You cannot get into Christ; God has to put you there. If you have had the gift of saving faith, God has positioned you in Christ. Now stay there, and He will be everything you need.
You do not have to go here, there, and everywhere trying to find the Lord. If you abide in Christ, Christ will be everything you need.
Do you need love? Do you need grace? Do you need power? Do you need fullness? Do you need wisdom? Do you need knowledge? It is all there, but you must be in Him.
The first thing is to abide in Him. Then He becomes to you everything you need. It is the same with the church. When believers abide together in Christ, Jesus becomes everything to them.
Then the Spirit of God takes everything that is ours in Him and makes it a living reality. So this question of standing is tremendous. Paul uses the term standing; Jesus said abide. It is the same idea.
If you abide in Him, you will bear much fruit. If you get out, you bear no real fruit.
I do not know any other way to make it clearer. To abide in Christ, to stand in Him, means you are standing in the purpose of the Father for the Son, and you are not allowing anything to remove you.
What else does it mean? Simply this: it means you are abiding on the basis of a finished work.
Every single thing you and I need for spiritual growth is given to us through the finished work of the Lord Jesus. Everything we need for the church to be built up is given to us through the finished work of the Lord Jesus.
Everything we need for the work of God and for the service of God is given to us through the finished work of the Lord Jesus. That is how we are filled with the Holy Spirit. That is how we are anointed with the Holy Spirit.
It is through the finished work of the Lord Jesus. It is not something additional, something extra. It is something won in that moment when He cried out, “Finished,” and the veil in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
So, dear child of God, this is so tremendous. You want to look at it another way? Look at it in Revelation:
They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb,
and because of the word of their testimony;
and they loved not their lives even unto death.
Now it is the same thing. How did they overcome Satan? By the blood of the Lamb. What do we mean by the blood of the Lamb?
I sometimes hear people saying they are taking the blood and putting it on the doors, putting it on the roofs, putting it over them, and putting it on situations. There is nothing particularly wrong with it, but theologically it is not correct.
The blood of the Lamb means the death of the Lamb. It means the finished work of the Lord Jesus. How did they overcome when Satan was accusing them day and night? Only by the finished work of the Lord Jesus. Only by that death which He died. That was the way they overcame Satan.
Then comes this second thing: the word of their testimony.
I think it simply means that when you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” then you know the salvation of God. That is the simple initial thing.
When you say, “I hope I am going to heaven,” you will never feel any power or any touch of glory.
When you say, “Thank You, Lord, You have saved me, and I am on my way to glory,” there is a touch in your spirit. Do you understand what I am trying to say?
In other words, the Holy Spirit witnesses with your words that it is absolutely true.
That is why it is so wonderful when we worship the Lord and we sing songs. We sing these wonderful songs and hymns. They are not, “Maybe, we hope, perhaps this will be.” We sing things like, “Jesus is Lord.”
When we sing, “Jesus is Lord,” something goes right through the atmosphere. It is almost as if the enemy is paralysed. He is not paralysed by our tears, our zeal, or our knowledge; but the moment we confess the finished work of the Lord Jesus with our lips, in that moment he is paralysed, neutralised, nullified. He is disarmed.
Such a secret. Most Christians do not know how to war the good warfare. They do not realise that the simple declaration of truth in their mouths is all that is required.
You do not have to work yourself up into a sweat. You do not have to get into a great tizzy, sort of stirring yourself up to a point where somehow or other something can happen. All you have to do is declare with your lips the truth.
Well, is that too much for you? I do not think so.
If you look at Psalm 149, there is the most wonderful passage. Is the old covenant not amazing when you really look at it? It has everything within it.
Psalm 149, from Verse 5:
Let the saints exult in glory:
let them sing for joy upon their beds.
Let the high praises of God be in their mouth,
and a two-edged sword in their hand.
That is the most extraordinary battle I have ever heard of. They are on their beds with a two-edged sword in their hand. Is that not an extraordinary thing?
You say, “Well, it is the Old Testament, you know. I mean, we cannot be absolutely sure about the Old Testament.” But I think it is a revelation.
What it means is this: you do not have to make a great war dance. You do not have to make a great noise. You can lie on your bed with a two-edged sword in your hand, and the enemy is finished.
What is the two-edged sword? It is the Word of God. At once the Lord gives you His Word and you proclaim it as fact—not “maybe,” “perhaps,” or “Well, I hope, Lord, You are going to do this.”
But when you say, “Lord, You will do this,” and you say the Word, it is done.
Let me read it again:
Let the saints exult in glory:
let them sing for joy upon their beds.
Let the high praises of God be in their mouth,
and a two-edged sword in their hand;
to execute vengeance upon the nations,
and punishments upon the peoples;
to bind their kings with chains,
and their nobles with fetters of iron;
to execute upon them the judgment written:
this honour have all His saints.
Now, does that make any sense to some of you? What is the Holy Spirit saying? He is saying simply this: you cannot wreak vengeance upon the powers of darkness, upon the enemies of God, in your flesh. Only what is written.
In other words, you must have an understanding from the Word of God of what His purpose is. Then you can speak it.
Is the purpose of God to build the church? Then let us rise up and say to the Lord, “You Yourself have said, ‘I will build My church.’”
Let us say it. Let us cut through all the babble and all the talk. Let us simply say in the presence of God, “The Lord Jesus is building His church, and the Holy Spirit is here as the manager, the supervisor, till this work is completed.”
Think again. Wonderful—in Revelation 19:
The bride hath made herself ready.
What a wonderful word to stand on. It is revealed to us that the bride is going to make herself ready. Well, maybe only in a remnant, but still we can take it from the Lord.
Why should we take it lying down? “Oh dear, dear, dear, everything is going wrong. Everything is collapsing all around us.” Not at all.
It may be that a lot is collapsing, and maybe some of it should collapse. But the wonderful thing is this: God is going to fulfil His work. The top stone is going to be brought forth with shouts of “Grace, grace to it.”
The mountain that is in front of us, that seems so insoluble, immovable, invincible, will become a plain. The top stone will be brought forth with shouts of what? Grace. Grace.
It was the grace of God that began the work, the grace of God that developed the work, the grace of God that kept the work alive, and it will be the grace of God that completes it. Why should we throw in the glove?
Do we really believe that Satan is all-powerful? He may have great power, but thanks be to God, it is the Almighty who has sovereign power and authority.
I find this, as I say, of great help: the declaration of eternal facts. That is what I always call them—the declaration of eternal facts.
What are the facts? The facts are these: Jesus is the Son of the living God, the Messiah. He is building His church.
From every kindred, every ethnic group, the Spirit of God is calling out a people for the Lord Jesus. They are His inheritance. Israel was His inheritance, and is still; but it is the nations beyond Israel that the Father said to the Son, “Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations—the Gentiles—for Thine inheritance.” It is happening. Thank God.
What other facts? The facts are these: whatever you feel, the Lord Jesus is seated at the right hand of God. He is enthroned in power.
Whatever may be down here, whatever we may feel in our bones and in our hearts—somehow or other, the darkness and power of the enemy—the fact remains that at this moment Jesus is seated at the right hand of God, and the Holy Spirit is here to supervise the fulfilment of the purpose of God.
The declaration of eternal facts. I hardly like to leave the matter, and yet I do not want to kill it. Let it sink in.
How do you war the good warfare? By declaring eternal facts. That is how you do it. Once you have the Word of God in your mouth, Satan can do nothing.
Remember this:
Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God;
with all prayer and supplication, praying at all seasons in the Spirit.
I believe there is a connection between the Word of God and prayer, in this sense: this is the declaration of eternal fact.
You take what the Word of God says—it is the sword of the Spirit. That means the Holy Spirit takes something from the Book and applies it to a situation. We can take it in prayer and stand before God by declaring it.
When that happens, no matter what the circumstances are, the purpose of God is fulfilled.
Now, I have seen that myself, and our time is nearly gone, but I could give you all kinds of experiences we have had.
I remember, in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when it looked as if Israel was lost. She had already lost three thousand men over a few days. That is a colossal number for a small nation to lose in just a few days.
The Syrian armies were already near Tiberias in the north, and the Egyptian armies were near Beersheba in the south. It looked dreadful.
I personally knew Moshe Dayan, because I knew his mother, and he was in pieces. He was our defence minister. I wish we had Moshe Dayan now instead of our person—but that is another matter. He was in pieces.
I remember when we got together in prayer in the Garden Tomb, just a group of us. All the missionaries had fled, so it left us—the really good ones, the faithful ones, what I call the soldiers of the Lord.
We met in the bunker right in the Garden Tomb—some believe in Golgotha, Gordon’s Golgotha—and we prayed.
I remember, as we prayed, an old military brother was there. He had a wonderful moustache that curled right up here. He was old Wingate’s cousin. He was not given to emotion. He was fifth-generation army, and British. You only had to look at him to see that.
Suddenly, in the time of prayer, when we all felt the enemy so near and such darkness, we felt as if it was an evil day. Israel was on the point of being destroyed. You know, it only takes one big mistake for Israel to be destroyed. She is so small. One major defeat.
Suddenly, this dear brother said, in his wonderful voice, “Would you all test this, whether it is from the Lord? You have all been praying. I have had a vision. It came and receded, and it came and receded, and it came and receded.”
He said, “I think the Lord is trying to say something, but I cannot understand it. It is the mountains of Moab, which are Jordan, in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the other side of the city. I see them clear, and then suddenly all these clouds roll down and block it out.”
Then one of the brothers piped up and said, “I think we should pray that King Hussein of Jordan should be confused. I think that is what the Lord is saying.”
Now Egypt and Syria came in, and they wanted Jordan to come. If Jordan had come in, Israel would have been finished. It was the longest border Israel had.
So we went to pray, and we had an amazing time. We called on the Lord: “Confuse the king. Confuse him. Do not let him join in this war. Keep him out of it. Do everything necessary to put them in turmoil.”
They never did come into the war.
Months later, I was visiting my mother in London in the old family home. I cannot remember what I was doing, but I was doing something upstairs in my bedroom. I heard my mother saying, “Lance, Lance, come down immediately. King Hussein is on the television.”
He was talking with Robin Day, a famous interviewer. I stumbled quickly down the stairs. I just got in to hear Robin Day saying, “But, Your Majesty, you must know that Egypt and Syria are so angry with you. If you had come in, Israel would have lost.”
I heard with my own ears the king say, “Well, we were going to, but then we became confused.”
Robin Day said, “Well, what were you confused over?” He said, “To do with the Air Force. We did not believe that we had sufficient air cover.”
That is spiritual warfare to do with a nation on the national level. But do you begin to understand? When you really seek the Lord and He gives you His Word—
I cannot remember the word, but I remember very clearly that it was a Scripture that someone had, and we all felt it was the sword of the Spirit for that particular thing. We took that Scripture, declared it, and praised the Lord.
In the end, we ended up with a time of worship, praise, and glory, and yet people were dying all around. Within days, the battle had turned.
I could tell you many stories. That was one I was involved in. I remember very well being with two wonderful old sisters who had been with Rees Howells all the way through the war years, in that great prayer meeting that determined the course of the Second World War.
Those two wonderful old sisters told me—and Dr. Pritchard later confirmed it—that Rees Howells was a tiny man. He was a Welsh miner with no education, but he knew the Lord.
When they were praying about the thrust of the German army into Russia, God revealed to some of them that it was not Moscow they were going for, but Israel. Now Israel was not in existence.
But the Lord said, “My enemy is going to bring them up the North African coast, and then south from Moscow, and they are going to meet in the Holy Land. They will destroy the whole Jewish settlement.”
So dear Rees Howells had a very clear understanding of God’s purpose for the Jewish people. He told them, “Let us get to the Lord. There is no way they can do this.”
They had days and days of prayer. Rees Howells, in the end, stood on a table. This little man stood on the table, and these ladies said, “We never heard anything like it.”
He said, “Stalingrad, in the name of the Lord, Stalingrad shall not fall.” Three times he said it: “In the name of the Lord, Stalingrad shall not fall.”
It never did. And the Nazis lost three divisions at Stalingrad. It was the turning point of the Second World War.
Now, if things like that can be done on a national level, what about the church level? Surely we can get to the Lord, get from Him clear instructions, and know the words that we should use in warring the good warfare—declaring them.
Well, my time is gone. This is such an important matter.
Do you believe the United States is sacrosanct? I do not. I believe that the United States is very near to losing superpower status, and that will affect everybody in this place.
But far more important than the physical level, the national level, is God’s purpose for the church—for the completion of the house of God. Why should we throw in the glove?
Well, I must finish, but I finish like this: are we small enough for God to use us?
Are we broken enough for God to use us? That is the key.
God cut Gideon’s men down to three hundred. Do you know how they won the battle? With clay jars, torches, and a banged-up old trumpet.
They broke the jars, the torches flared into light, and they blew their old trumpets. The poor old Philistines thought a whole army had come upon them, and they lost.
When David went out to Goliath, he went out in Saul’s armour and he could not even move. He said to the king, “Please, you keep the armour.”
You cannot win a battle with second-hand armour and second-hand weapons. They may be used by others, but you have to have your own.
When David went out, he said to King Saul, “If I die, I die. But who is this man that he should speak about the living God in the way that he speaks?” You know the story. He did not even have to use the five stones—only one.
The Apostle Paul, I think, was one of the greatest servants of God in the whole long history of God’s servants.
The Lord got so bothered, if I may so put it, with Paul—that he might get big-headed. Now Paul was a choleric, and there was every possibility of his being big-headed. Cholerics tend to be big-headed. They are people who push everything, get things done, have initiative, and drive everything. You know the kind of people.
The Lord said—I do not know whether it was to Satan—but He said, “You can do this and this to Paul.” Paul felt it was the end of his ministry.
Three times he sought the Lord that He would remove this thing from him. Each time the Lord said:
My grace is sufficient for thee.
Poor Paul. Apparently, he did not feel it really was the Lord, because he went back to the Lord three times in all. He thought, “I wonder where this word is coming from. It cannot be the Lord. He does not understand this situation. This must be the enemy trying to fool me.”
But then the Lord said to him:
My power is made perfect in weakness.
When Paul was most paralysed, he was most powerful.
Now, dear child of God, we have total armour for total victory. There is not a piece of the armour that is missing. It is all there. It is the Lord Jesus.
Is this not amazing? By the Spirit of God, the One who is seated at the right hand of God—we are in Him. We are abiding in Him.
Therefore, in this battle, since He has already won, we can declare the fact and see the purpose of God fulfilled.
May the Lord help us. If you feel, after hearing me this morning and yesterday evening, “Where are we? We are not soldiers. We are in disarray. We are all over the place,” why do you not simply have it out with the Lord?
Speak with Him. Say that you are totally unworthy, unprofitable. I do not know if you feel that; if you do not, you cannot say it. I have no problem.
Say that you are unworthy, that you are unprofitable, that you are a mess, that you are all over the place because you have not grown in the way you should have grown. And let Him deal.
It is amazing who overcomes. A little David overcame. Gideon with his three hundred men overcame.
King Jehoshaphat felt he was so hopeless and said, “What are we to do, Lord? Here are all our little ones—the children, the toddlers—and now we are all here. We are going to be massacred.”
Then the word of the Lord came, and Jehoshaphat had the sense to trust the Lord. He did the most extraordinary thing. He said, “Very well, we will go out to battle, and we will put the choir in the front.”
Many people would love to have done that with the choir, but he put the choir in the front. Can you imagine that?
Do you know what they sang? Not some wonderful song like, “The Lord is a mighty warrior. The battle is ours.” No, they sang like a little Sunday-school ditty:
The mercy of the Lord endureth for ever.
First one sang, “The mercy of the Lord endures”; then another sang, “The mercy of the Lord endures.” The word mercy, chesed in Hebrew, is the word used in our Hebrew New Testament for grace—for the Greek word charis.
The grace of the Lord endures forever. Is that not a strange way to win a battle?
When they went out, the whole lot had gone. They had all disappeared, slaying one another. Some phantom thing went through them, and they all thought they were being chased and ended up killing one another.
Are we small enough to overcome? Are we broken enough to overcome?
The one thing you need is not strength of arm in the flesh. The one thing you need is a hearing ear.
If you hear the Spirit, you will overcome.
May God help us. Thank you.