I would like to turn you to the passage that we looked at last night. It is a well-known passage, I think, to most of you here, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 6.
Chapter 6. I am going to read from verse 10.
Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.
Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles, or stratagems, of the devil.
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Wherefore take up the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.
Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one.
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
with all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints,
and on my behalf, that utterance may be given unto me in opening my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel,
for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
Could we just have a word of prayer?
Beloved Lord, we have enjoyed being here in Your presence and taking the wine and the bread, remembering You and all that You have done for us. We want to worship You, Lord, afresh.
We want to thank You that, when we come now to the ministry of Your word, You do not leave us to our own talents, gifts, or energies. You provide us with an anointing—an anointing not only for the speaking of Your word, but for the hearing of it.
We are living in a day when people do not hear, and when they do hear, they hear what they want to hear. We pray that anointing may be so upon our hearing that we hear, beyond the human voice, what You are trying to say.
Lord, take the poor vessel that will speak, and let Your voice be clear and loud through it. Hear us, Lord.
You have said in Your word, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.” Lord, we are living in a nation that is fast moving towards judgment, and only You can prepare Your people for these days that lie ahead.
Hear us, Lord. We are committing ourselves to You, and we shall be very careful to give You all the worship and praise of our hearts for answering this our prayer, which we ask in the name of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
That little phrase in Ephesians 6:11 is where we began last night:
Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles, or the stratagems, of the devil.
I will not go over everything I said last night, but I think it is quite remarkable—extraordinary—the way the apostle, by the Holy Spirit, concludes this letter.
Most theologians and Bible teachers who are not liberal will tell you that this is the high watermark of revelation. It is the very heart and mind of God articulated—verbalized, as you say in American English—put into words.
They are fathomless. If you just take Ephesians chapter 1, you will be lost within a very short few moments. Phrase after phrase falls out of the apostle’s heart and mind as he describes this summing up of all things in Messiah Jesus.
When he speaks of us as His heritage, when he speaks of the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, which He wrought in Christ, the Messiah Jesus, when He raised Him from the dead and made Him to sit at His right hand—it is just so incredible, this letter. Every part of it, wherever you look, is extraordinary.
In whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord;
in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
Whoever could have thought of such profound truth and put it in such simple words?
When he comes to conclude, he does not say that we need to be filled with the Spirit—of course, he had already said that in this letter. He does not say that we need to know the way of the cross, though again and again he has emphasized that we need to be living sacrifices.
He does not speak of the deepening of spiritual life or the producing of spiritual character, though these are absolutely essential. He does not even speak about evangelism, which is absolutely essential.
Instead, he says:
Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.
Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles, devices, or stratagems of the devil.
In other words, if you and I do not learn how to stand in the whole armor of God—if we do not understand and experience what it is to put on the whole armor of God and withstand in the evil day—we will lose much. We will be spoiled. We will be compromised. We shall end up with much less than we thought we should have.
The enemy will paralyze the building work of the house of God. He will do everything within his power to compromise the people of God: to sideline them, sidetrack them, divert them, tie them up in knots, divide them, factionalize them, and throw them at each other’s throats.
That is why he concludes, by the Spirit of God, in this extraordinary way. Four times he uses the word stand.
Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may stand against the wiles or devices of Satan.
Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may withstand in the evil day.
And, having done all, to stand.
Stand therefore.
It is almost as if he wants us to get this message: plain, simple, direct to the point. If you and I are not standing in what God has provided for us, if we are not in the place that God has given us, we stand to lose almost everything.
We shall end up singing hymns without the experience. We shall end up having Bible studies and not experiencing any of it in our corporate life, personal life, or family life. We shall simply become religious people—Christian people—who profess tremendous truth and experience hardly any of it in practice.
From the beginning, Satan has been a thief. He has been a deceiver. He has been a liar. He has been a spoiler. From the very beginning—and he is still at it, with thousands of years of experience.
No company of God’s children—I do not care who you are or what you are—can think that they are so wise that they can somehow, in their own strength and by their own knowledge of the Bible and understanding of God’s purpose, escape the interests of Satan. He is far too clever for all of us put together.
The history of the church is one long history of the Holy Spirit taking the initiative, and then men destroying what the Spirit has done, giving ground to Satan so that Satan himself comes in and, in some way or another, manages to defeat the purpose of God in that generation.
Nor will we escape unless we learn this simple little lesson. Why did the apostle Paul not take all these other essentials? Why did he just take this one thing: stand?
Last night I spoke about, “In what do we stand?” and, “On what do we stand?” Really, we should say, “In Whom do we stand?” This armor is not things. It is not just truths. It is a Person. The armor is the Lord Jesus.
In the succeeding verses, he describes the different parts of the armor, all of which are to do with the Lord Jesus. Whether it is the breastplate of righteousness or the loins girded with truth, it is the truth as it is in Jesus.
It is the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me, born in my heart by the Holy Spirit. That is the gift of God. Whether it is the helmet of salvation—His very name, Yeshua, means salvation in Hebrew—or the gospel of peace, whose gospel is it? It is the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
Everywhere you look, this armor is the Lord Jesus. So when he says, “Stand,” he means: stand where God has placed you. Do not let the enemy draw you out. Do not let him push you back so that you retreat. Stand where He has placed you.
Even if the storm is colossal and powerful, do not run.
It reminds me of when I was in Greece this summer, during the terrible fires. Is it not amazing what is happening in the world? Four hundred fires at the same time in Greece. No one was able to cope with them. Whole great areas were destroyed.
I thought of this dear mother who panicked. She took her car, put her four little children into it, and went for what she thought was safety. But a great flaming tree fell in front of the car, and when she backed up, another tree fell behind it.
She took the four children out and fled, and they found her dead, with her arms around the four children. Amazing.
That is what Satan would do with you. He will bring such a storm that you panic and flee. The tragedy was that the home she had left was left unscathed. If she had stayed in her home, she and her children would have survived.
We must learn this lesson. Satan is so clever. He draws pictures in front of our minds and is a past master at it. He uses our imagination and inflames it until we become panic-stricken. Then we retreat, or run this way, or that way, or any way.
Do not. This is not the key. The key is: stand. Stand in the place which God has given you.
What is the place God has given you? The Lord Jesus. Here is our fortress. Here is our high tower. Here is our deep shelter. Every single picture of the Lord Jesus is one of covering, one of protection. The very word atonement in Hebrew means covering.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
What is the secret place of the Most High? The Lord Jesus. Where has God placed you, if you have been born of God? He has delivered you from the power of darkness and transferred you into the kingdom of His dear Son. You have a new position. That position is in Christ.
That is why the Lord Jesus said, “Abide in Me.” Remain. He did not say, “Strive to get in” or “Fight to get in.” He said, “Abide. Dwell. Remain where God has positioned you.”
That is why this extraordinary letter ends with standing in the whole armor of God and, having done all, standing.
It is not only the Lord Jesus; it is the Lord Jesus and His finished work. We have been considering that this morning at the Lord’s table. It is the finished work of the Lord Jesus—complete, absolute.
When the Lord Jesus finished that work on Calvary, He took the powers of darkness and tied them up in knots. He bound them. He paralyzed them.
You do not believe me? Remember the wonderful word in Hebrews 2:14: through death He has brought to naught him that has the power of death, that is, the devil. Is that not a wonderful word? Do you believe it? Do you really believe it?
The Lord Jesus, through death, has brought to nothing the one who has the power, or authority, of death. That is the devil. I find this tremendous. I am not a mathematician, but I do know this: zero is zero; naught is naught. It does not matter how many times you multiply naught—it equals naught.
Do you really believe that Satan, all his power, every weapon that he has, every possibility of defeating you—everything in his armory—is paralyzed and neutralized by the finished work of the Lord Jesus? Do you believe the Book?
It is easy to sing about it. Easy to pray. But it is another thing when we come into problems, when it looks as if all hell is let loose, when it seems as if everything we touch is demonic.
These are the scriptures we were talking about last night concerning the sword of the Spirit. When Satan is roaring around you like a lion—hungry, famished, waiting for a meal—here is a wonderful word. Do not taunt him, but here is your absolute safety.
You can say, “Lord Jesus, I am in You, and through Your finished work You have brought to naught this lion that is roaring around me, waiting for a meal.”
Sometimes people say to me, “He is toothless.” I do not think so. I think he has plenty of teeth and plenty of hunger, but he is neutralized. He cannot do it.
When I was a boy, I became the patron saint of blackbirds in the home where I lived in Richmond, England. These naughty blackbirds brought up family after family, and they looked upon me as their guardian saint.
The mothers would come and sit on my bedroom window and scream blue murder until I got up and went out. There would be a cat asleep under the tree, with one eye open, waiting for a baby bird to fall down for a nice meal. So I used to rescue the babies all the time.
I never forgot one wicked cat. My mother called it Willem. It was a big black-and-white long-haired cat with a ferocious appetite. One day it came up into my bedroom and sat in the window while I was trying to read.
I heard what I can only explain as a chattering. The bird was outside the window, and the cat wanted a meal, but he could not get at the bird because there was glass between the bird and the cat. His teeth were actually chattering in hunger at the thought of a meal so near and yet so far.
This is exactly how Satan is when he comes to you—if you remain where God has placed you. It is the grace of the Lord that comes between you and Satan. When you remember the finished and complete work of the Lord Jesus, every work of darkness has been neutralized.
What a position. No wonder Paul said this is the key. If the church at Ephesus does not learn how to stand in the whole armor of God, it will lose everything. If it does not learn how to withstand in the evil day, it will lose so much.
We know the story of Ephesus. We know they left their first love. We know that it became more outward. We know the story of these churches, recorded in the word—tremendous works of God, planted by the Lord Himself, built up by the Holy Spirit—and they lost everything.
The best example, of course, is Laodicea. Most people think of the church at Laodicea as some kind of nominal, institutional, traditional, denominational church. It was nothing of the kind.
It was a marvelous church in one of the medical centers of that whole region—affluent, sophisticated, educated. They had the Lord’s table. They had Bible studies, I have no doubt. They had evangelistic meetings, I have no doubt. They believed their Bible. They sang the psalms and songs.
They had no idea that the Lord Jesus was outside the whole thing. An evangelical church—true, honest. They thought they were clothed, rich, and had need of nothing, and the Lord described them as wretched, blind, and naked.
He was actually outside, knocking on the door. The most plaintive word, I think, ever recorded in the Bible from the Lord Jesus is this: “If any man hear My voice.”
I cannot believe it: a church of converted, born-again people, and the Lord says, “If any man hear My voice.” Do you think that could happen to you?
If we take the history of the church, it has happened again and again and again. This is why the apostle said:
Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.
Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
I find it really wonderful that you have these scriptures which become the sword of the Spirit, which you can use. It does not matter what the situation is. Once the Holy Spirit takes His word and applies it to a given situation—personal, family, business, workaday life, church, or the work of the Lord—it is something tremendous.
Here is another one that I often stand on: Colossians 2:15.
Having despoiled the principalities and the powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
I like Conybeare and Howson’s translation: “He stripped naked the principalities and powers, making a show of them openly, triumphing over them in His cross.” I love it.
That means that through the cross of the Lord Jesus, through the finished work of the Savior, He has stripped principalities and powers naked.
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Is it a fairy tale, or is it truth? Does it mean that we, although creatures of time and sense, actually live in a spiritual world—that the invisible world all around us, which thank God we cannot see, is filled with spiritual beings?
This is exactly what the apostle Paul says. Where is there a prayer meeting that has some understanding of this kind of thing? I do not want you to start taunting the devil, hurling abuse at him, or making light of him. I have seen it again and again, and I have seen what happens to people who do it.
You cannot do that. Your safety lies in testimony, not in trying to make Satan look small. It does not work.
Your victory lies in the word of your testimony. When you say, “Lord, You saved me, and I am absolutely safe in You,” Satan knows it is true. That glass has come between you and the enemy.
His teeth can chatter. He can hurl abuse at you and tell you what he will do with you, one way or another, but he cannot even touch you without permission from God.
What I am saying about withstanding, taking the sword of the Spirit, and praying in the Spirit does not just mean tongues. I do not have any problem with tongues myself—none whatsoever. I do not believe it went out with the canon of Scripture; it has reappeared at many points in the history of the church.
But praying in the Spirit at all seasons does not merely mean speaking in tongues. It means praying under the government of the Holy Spirit, in the power of the Holy Spirit, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and with the enduring grace of the Holy Spirit, until the thing is settled.
That is praying in the Spirit. Tongues may come into it, but that is neither here nor there in one sense. What is essential in this kind of prayer is being under the government of the Holy Spirit and following the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
When you get a group of people who can follow the anointing of the Spirit of God in a prayer time, you will get somewhere.
So often in prayer meetings, I hear some dear person—very often a sister—stand up before we have hardly started and rebuke Satan. I do not know whether it is my imagination, but I feel I hear a kind of satanic cackle: “Who does she think she is?”
When you deal with these kinds of things, it is church prayer. The keys of the kingdom, which so importantly represent authority, are not given to Peter or to the pope; they are given to the church.
But you cannot just have anyone taking keys and unlocking and locking like that. You get into trouble. It has to come through prayer together, where we learn and come to a certain place where brothers among us come together for the whole church and lock up something.
I remember very well a prayer and Bible week in Jerusalem, years ago—at least twenty-seven years ago. At that time, there was one Messianic Hebrew-speaking fellowship in Jerusalem.
In that time of prayer, dear brother Dennis Clark came across to me and said, “Brother, do you think we could take action against Islam?” We had all been saying that Islam in Jerusalem was like a brazen cover over the whole city.
The prayer times had been absolutely marvelous—people moving together under the anointing, not shooting things all over the place, but really together. Dennis said, “I think we might be there.”
Eventually, the brothers said to the assembled crowd—about two hundred people—“Let us all stand up. The first thing we will do is hide ourselves in the Lord and make absolutely sure we are there. Then let us pray together. We will turn the key on Islam in Jerusalem.”
And we did. Something happened in the atmosphere. A dear sister later said to me, “That was the day that something happened.” Today there are fourteen Hebrew-speaking assemblies in Jerusalem.
No matter what missionaries or anybody else did, nothing happened until the key was turned. When the key was turned, something broke. As dear Sister Florence said to me, “It was as if the heavens opened.”
That is another kind of prayer warfare. What is the end of it? The end is not just that we are saved or converted. The end is that the house of God be built, that the bride make herself ready. The end of all this is to do with the purpose of God.
It is tremendous.
No individual believer can take on these principalities and powers, these world-rulers of darkness, or even hosts of wicked spirits in the heavenly places. You have to have church prayer for that. We have to learn how to be together.
Sometimes people say to me, “Teach us to pray.” You cannot teach people to pray. Prayer is a disease—you catch it.
When you are in the presence of people who know how to pray, almost spontaneously you are infected.
I learned that the first time I saw the pastor of my Baptist church, a great big rugby player, kneeling on the wooden floor every Monday evening for one and a half hours. Something infected me: the devotion of the brother, his single-mindedness, and his understanding that prayer changes things.
Then there were others in that same Baptist church—very denominational, I might say—but they had an effect on me. But it was in Egypt that I really met people who knew how to pray: Auntie Kathleen and Auntie Lillian Smith. They were incredible.
I listened to them pray. I was never taught; I just got it. They used the Bible so spontaneously and naturally in prayer. To me it was amazing that the whole Middle East seemed to be governed by this funny little apartment on the high street in Port Said.
One day they asked me to join them. They got down on their knees in prayer, and one said to the other, “Shall we tell Lance what the problem is?” They told me something concerning Algiers, and then said, “Now what shall we do? Have you any scripture?”
Auntie Kathleen looked at Auntie Lillian and said, “Yes, I have a verse in Obadiah.” I was flabbergasted. I thought, “I do not think I have ever read Obadiah. How can a verse in Obadiah have anything to do with Algiers?”
But the two of them said, “That is it.” To me, they were like people on a gun, swinging it around and firing. Then one would say, “Do you think we are there?” The other would say, “Not yet.” Back again they would go.
Then suddenly one of them started praising the Lord, then the other praised, and that evening a phone call came from Algiers: “It is all settled.” “Yes,” they said, “we knew. We knew it this morning.”
So I thought, “Was I in that?” That is where I got the infection. I have never been the same since.
Prayer cannot be taught. It is caught.
May the Lord bless us. May He teach us how to stand in the whole armor of God, put on that whole armor of God, and withstand in the evil day; and, having done all, stand.
May the Lord really speak to us, teach us, and, in whatever lies ahead of this country and state, may the Lord teach us how to touch it for His name’s sake.
Thank you.