Will you please turn to the letter to the Ephesians, Ephesians 6? We will read from verses 10 through 18.
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.
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.
Please turn also to Romans 8. We will read from verses 31 through 39.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth;
who is He that condemneth? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Even as it is written,For Thy sake we are killed all the day long;
We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Dear Lord, we do want to thank Thee for being with us throughout these days. Thou hast been good, merciful, gracious, and faithful to us. We thank Thee for bringing us to this last full day.
O dear Lord, Thou hast never done anything halfway. Whatever Thou dost, it is complete and perfect. So, Lord, we do commit ourselves to Thee for this time. We pray that whatever is still left to be done, may Thy Holy Spirit finish Thy good work in us.
O dear Lord, make us Thy corporate vessel, prepared for Thy imminent return. How we long to see Thee face to face. But Lord, enable us to be of some value, some use, in bringing back the King. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters, the Lord has gathered us for these days for one purpose: to prepare the way of the Lord.
I think, brothers and sisters, we all realize that the coming of the Lord is almost here. Even though we sometimes wonder, why is it that He who has promised to come back and receive us unto Himself has caused us to wait for twenty centuries? We are now already in the twenty-first century. Why has He delayed His coming?
I believe the answer is not in Him. The Ancient of Days is here with us. It is we who have delayed His return, because the vessel is not yet ready. The bride has not made herself ready, and the Bridegroom has waited patiently for the bride to be completed.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we do have a most serious responsibility. The Lord has entrusted us with so much, and we need to be faithful to Him. This is the reason why we gather together at this time: to prepare the way of the Lord.
When we come to this point, we all realize that the only way to prepare for the return of the Lord is by the way of the Lord Himself. He is the way.
We have to come into not only more understanding, but even more appropriation of our Lord Jesus in our lives. He said, “I will build My church upon this rock.” In these days He has been building His church.
He is building His church to be His counterpart, His life companion, to be His likeness. As long as we are not like Him, we cannot be joined to Him as one.
For these twenty centuries, the Holy Spirit has been diligently working for this reason: He is preparing us to be like our Lord Jesus. That is to say, we need to be delivered from everything in us that is not like Him—everything contrary to Him and hostile to Him. All these things have to be removed, that He may fill us with Himself.
When the church comes to the stature of the fullness of Christ, then the marriage day has come.
The Lord has been preparing and building His church for over twenty centuries already, and we are now at the very verge of the completion of that preparation. On the one hand, it is a great privilege; on the other hand, it is a serious responsibility.
That is the reason, as our brother mentioned, we have to surrender our whole being absolutely and totally to Christ, that He may be able to finish His blessed work.
As you look at the church around you today, what would be your estimation? Sometimes I feel that the more I look at the church today, and the more I look at myself today, the more I feel hopeless.
But thank God, He is the God of hope. He never gives up. Day and night, unseen by us, the Holy Spirit is still working today—double time, even this day—because the bride has to be ready.
Perhaps a word should be put in here. If we expect to see the whole church ready, we will probably have to wait eternally. According to the strategy of God, whenever the whole fails, the Lord raises up a remnant as representative of the whole.
You find this in the history of Israel. When Israel failed, both the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom were in captivity. God raised up a remnant who returned to Jerusalem: a barren land, surrounded by enemies, destroyed and in devastation.
But thank God, He raised up a remnant willing to leave everything behind and go back for one purpose: to rebuild the house of God, that God might have a name upon the earth.
When the remnant returned, they built the altar with twelve stones, representing the whole tribe of Israel. This remnant principle is carried over into the New Testament in the overcomers.
In other words, God will raise up a minority who are faithful to Him, who are willing to surrender their whole being to Him and allow Him to work to the fullest in their lives. They are the firstfruits.
Whenever you find firstfruits in the field, there is a guarantee that there will be a harvest. So thank God, He is fulfilling this matter of the firstfruits. He is completing the number of the overcomers.
One day, when the overcomers have reached the stature of Christ, representatively the Lord will return.
Dear brothers and sisters, what we are hoping for is not death. Century after century has gone by, and many who loved the Lord and waited for His return have passed away. Their waiting for the Lord in their time was not wrong, because the Lord could return at any time.
According to His heart, He could have returned in the first century, because He is anxious for His bride. But because we are unready, He has waited and waited and waited until today.
Brothers and sisters, we are the generation that has the hope of receiving the Lord back alive. We are not waiting for death. We are waiting to be raptured to the throne of God as the welcoming party for our Lord Jesus at His second return.
You see how important this hour is. In one sense, it is very thrilling. Brothers and sisters, are you waiting to see Him face to face in your lifetime?
If you are waiting, what is the way to wait for Him? The only way to wait for Him is to be like Him: to allow the Holy Spirit to work in our lives, getting rid of anything that is not of the Lord and adding into us all that is in Christ.
This is how urgent and how important this conference is.
As we have mentioned before, the enemy knows that he cannot touch God directly. The only way he is able to touch God is through God’s people. That is the reason why our Lord Jesus said:
I will build My church upon this rock, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
This shows us that the enemy will use all his strength, all his tricks, all his threatenings, and all his power in an attempt to swallow up God’s vessel. If he succeeds in this, he is able to prolong his own day.
As soon as we turn to Christ and belong to Christ, we become his target. So in our Christian life, do not expect easy, smooth sailing. You will find that there will be tribulation.
Our Lord Jesus said:
In the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
Our Christian life is not an easy one. If we try to live our Christian lives by ourselves, sooner or later we will discover that it is impossible. There is only one Person who can live the Christian life, and that is Christ Himself.
Unless He lives in us, we are not able to overcome the enemy. We are not able to overcome the world. We are not able to overcome sin. We are not even able to overcome ourselves.
This morning, we would like to consider together the way of overcoming. How can we overcome the enemy and all the enemy’s allies?
By now, we should realize that overcoming means two things.
The enemy is trying to pile upon us all his tricks and tactics. Sometimes he persuades; he cheats. At other times he threatens; he persecutes. He will use all kinds of devices to swallow us up.
But, brothers and sisters, by the grace of God we are able to endure all his attacks and all his temptations, because God wants to use us as His instrument to defeat the enemy.
There is also this positive meaning of overcoming: we are able to carry through and execute the purpose of God to which we are called. There is a negative side of overcoming and a positive side of overcoming: overcome the enemy and accomplish God’s mission. That is overcoming.
This is a spiritual battle. Our enemy is unseen. What we see is flesh and blood, and he may use flesh and blood, but flesh and blood are not our enemy. It is the enemy who hides behind flesh and blood.
He uses flesh and blood, the world, sin, and everything else. But our true enemy is the principalities, authorities, powers of darkness, and spiritual rulers of wickedness. There is the real enemy.
In this fight, you cannot fight by sight. If you try to fight by sight, you are misled by the enemy. You miss your target.
This is a fight of faith. As you find in 1 Timothy 6, it is “the good fight of the faith.”
What do we mean by faith? If it is faith, then it is not sight. That is to say, it is not something that you can see and fight according to what you see. Faith is concerned with the unseen.
Faith is not something in you or by your own strength. That is not faith; that is works, the labor of yourself. In this spiritual battle, it is a fight of faith. We can only do it by faith, not by sight.
Faith is like an anchor. You throw the anchor out of the ship and let it sink into the unseen depths, where it holds the ship firm.
The anchor of faith is our Lord Jesus. We believe what He has already done on Calvary’s cross. It happened more than two thousand years ago, and yet we believe it is the truth.
What our Lord Jesus did on Calvary’s cross is an eternal truth, an eternal fact—the finished work of Christ. He has destroyed the works of the devil. He has cast out the prince of this world. He has crushed the serpent’s head. He has gained a decisive victory over all the evil forces.
He has brought His enemies into captivity and made a show of them openly through the cross. In other words, the battle was already won. The decisive battle was already fought between Christ and the devil, and the devil was already defeated.
That is the fact upon which our faith rests.
What really is faith? In Hebrews 11:1, we read:
Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.
This is Darby’s translation: “Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
In other words, faith is the power of bringing something for which you hope, something that you do not see, into your experience—enabling you to see it and to receive it.
Suppose we have a beautiful picture here, and a blind man comes. We tell him, “Look at this picture. How beautiful it is.” He will say, “I see nothing.”
It is not because he cannot see that the picture does not exist. Yet this is what people do. They say there is no God because they do not see Him. But that is not the fault of the picture; it is their fault, because they do not have the eyesight.
They do not have the ability to receive what is outside of them and bring it within, so that it becomes their experience. Then they can see the picture and enjoy its beauty. It becomes something within them instead of merely something outside them. That is faith.
Faith is the power of substantiating. There is a substance there, but it is outside of you; it is not yet your experience. If you are not united to it, it is almost as though it did not exist.
But faith has the power to substantiate what the Lord has done on Calvary’s cross and make it your own. You see it within yourself.
Oftentimes, when you read the Scriptures, you see all the letters. You see what Christ has done for you, but it does not seem to have any power or operation in your life. The Word is the Word, and you are you. What Christ has done is done, but in you it seems empty; it seems nothing.
But one day the Holy Spirit enlightens you. Suddenly your inner eyes are opened, and you begin to see what is written. It is no longer merely letter; it becomes spirit to you. It becomes real to you, and it operates in your life. It works. That is faith.
In the conflict, the only way to fight the battle is by faith, not by sight. We cannot do it. We do not have the wisdom or the power to overcome our enemy. He is too tricky, too wise, and too strong for us.
Do not try to fight against him by yourself. But thank God, our Lord Jesus has already overcome, and He has given us His overcoming power—if only we appropriate it and make it ours. That is by faith.
By faith, it simply means that you are not fighting on your own. You are fighting by Christ in you.
The best illustration is probably found in the Old Testament, in the story of Goliath the Philistine challenging the nation of Israel.
Goliath represented the Philistine nation. He said, in effect, “Bring anyone out to fight with me. If you can kill me, the whole nation of the Philistines will be yours. But if I overcome you, then your whole country will become ours.”
Day after day he challenged Israel. When Saul and the people saw and heard him, they trembled with fear because Goliath was a giant, trained as a soldier from his youth.
Then David came—a youngster, a shepherd. He could not bear to see the enemy of God boasting against God’s nation. It was blasphemy.
Goliath was fully armed with spear, sword, shield, and armor. David was a shepherd.
David said:
Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin: but I come to thee in the name of Jehovah of hosts.
We all know the story from Sunday school. David used only his sling, and the stone struck the vulnerable place in Goliath’s helmet—between the eyes. Goliath fell.
Brothers and sisters, this is the way to fight the fight of faith. Never try to expose yourself and rely upon yourself to resist or overcome the enemy. The more you try, the more you fail. We cannot do it.
But thank God, there is One who has already overcome. By faith, by believing in Him, we are well able to overcome all our enemies. This is the secret of spiritual battle.
In Ephesians 6, the Apostle Paul is trying to tell us how to fight this fight. This battle is actually more defensive than offensive.
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 of the devil.
In this spiritual battle, this conflict, we say it is more defensive than offensive. Even though there is an offensive aspect, mainly it is a defensive battle. In a defensive battle, you have to stand on higher ground, because that is the privileged ground.
Here we find the word stand. Where do you stand? You stand on the ground of Christ. Never try to stand on any other ground. You cannot stand on another person’s ground, and you cannot stand on your own ground, because these are lower grounds.
The only higher ground is to stand in Christ Jesus. That is why verse 10 says, “Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.” That is our standing. As long as we stand on Christ, the enemy is not able to dislodge us.
What does it mean to stand in Christ? To put it another way, it simply means to abide in Christ.
You remember John 15, where the Lord Jesus said:
I am the vine, ye are the branches.
“I in you, and you in Me.” This is our spiritual position. But then the Lord said:
Abide in Me, and I in you.
He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit.
Abide in Me. There is a right ground, and the right ground upon which we stand is Christ. We need to continue to stay in Christ. That is the idea.
Abiding simply means making your home there. The tactic of the enemy is to try to remove us from that ground. As soon as he can remove us from the ground of Christ, then he can swallow us up.
But if we continue to stay on the ground of Christ, continue to abide in Christ, live in Christ, make our home there, and do not wander out, then the enemy cannot dislodge us. He cannot overcome us, because Christ is our victory.
Is it not true that in our experience the enemy is always trying to remove us from the ground of Christ? He will try to distract our attention—sometimes to other people, sometimes to situations, sometimes to friends, sometimes to family members, and sometimes to the world.
He tries all these things just to distract us and remove our attention from the true target. Then we are fooled by the enemy. We begin to make people our enemy. We begin to make situations our enemy. We even make family members our target.
As long as he is able to remove us from the ground of Christ, he has succeeded.
In following the Lord, you may find friends who try to show sympathy and tell you, “This is too much. Do not be too narrow. Do not be too strict. You do not need to do that.”
The enemy may be behind them, trying to remove you from seeing Christ in order that you may see only your friends. This is what you find throughout the Christian life.
I believe every one of us has had this experience. You want to follow the Lord, and your family thinks you are too narrow. They say, “Look at all the other Christians. They can do this; they can do that. Why is it that you cannot?”
How easily we are persuaded. Yet we have to bear the cross and follow the Lord. The enemy tries every means to remove us from our standing.
But if we keep abiding in Christ, then Christ is the victory. In this battle, standing is very important. That is the preparation for the fight.
Then we find, “Put on the whole armor of God.” The word panoply, or complete armor, is used only twice in the New Testament.
One occurrence is in Ephesians 6. The other is in Luke 11:22, where the Lord speaks of entering a strong man’s house. You cannot take the things in his house unless you first disarm him.
Your enemy is fully armed, and as long as he is fully armed, you have no way to get into his house. He is able to protect it. First you have to disarm the armor of the enemy. When the enemy is disarmed, then the whole house is wide open and all the things in the house become your trophy.
Do you know that our enemy has already been disarmed? In our own understanding, we may think the enemy is fully armed. But thank God, our Lord Jesus on Calvary’s cross has disarmed him. He is now naked and fully exposed.
But we have the privilege of being fully armed. Yet what good is armor if you do not put it on? If you leave it at home and do not put it upon yourself, it does not help.
In the experiential sense, standing means putting on Christ as your armor. You put on Christ in all the different aspects of His Person, and these will protect you from every assault of the enemy.
Do not forget to put on the armor. Put on Christ. That is the same thing as standing on Christ. As long as you put on Christ, the enemy may try every trick he has, but he will fail.
Paul says:
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.
Here you find the double meaning. If you put on Christ as your armor, then you are well protected. You are able to withstand in the evil day. We are living in the evil day, but by putting Christ on, we are well able to withstand all the assaults, temptations, and distractions of the enemy.
Then, “having done all, to stand.” This is positive. Accomplishing all things simply means that we can carry through and put into execution the purpose of God to which we are called, and complete the task.
That is why we say overcoming is twofold: not only overcoming the enemy, but executing the purpose of God and bringing it to completion.
If we go into some detail concerning the armor, we find that it is sevenfold. First, verse 14:
Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth.
This is the first part of the armor. To gird your loins with truth means to be ready for the fight. In olden days, people wore long garments. Whenever they were going to work, they had to gird them up with a girdle so that the garment would not interfere with their work.
In spiritual battle, the first part of the armor is the girdle. It prepares you for the fight. We gird ourselves with truth.
Our brother has already explained what truth is. Truth is not merely something Christ accomplished on Calvary’s cross, though it is that. Truth is also that which Christ has accomplished on the cross becoming something you walk by and walk in.
In 2 John, the elder John says, “I rejoiced greatly that I have found certain of thy children walking in truth.” Whatever we know of Christ, we should not only believe; we should walk in it.
If we really walk in truth, if we are faithful to whatever the Lord has revealed to us, then we are girded and ready for the fight.
Why? Because if we do not believe the truth, we cannot fight. Secondly, even if we believe, if we have not been obedient to the truth and walked in it, then there is a foothold for the enemy. He will find that loophole and attack us.
It is very important that in this spiritual battle we begin with a conscience void of offense. All that we know of Christ, all that has been revealed to us in the Bible, we should obey.
If we are in that kind of condition, then we are in a position for battle. But if there is anything untrue in us, as the Apostle Paul says, we are like a ship that will be shipwrecked. There is a hole there; water comes in, the ship sinks, and we lose our footing.
That is the preparation for the fight.
The second thing mentioned is the breastplate of righteousness.
The breastplate protects your heart—your breast. In your heart there is righteousness. In other words, Christ is your righteousness. Not only is Christ your righteousness, but by the grace of God you practice righteousness.
When the prodigal son came back, he was clothed with the best robe. That is why we say Christ is our righteousness. We are clothed with Christ so that we can face our heavenly Father.
But that is not all. That is the objective side. There is also the subjective side. As you find in 1 John 2, we need to walk in righteousness—practical righteousness.
As far as we know what the Holy Spirit has revealed to us to be right in His sight and wrong in His sight, we should obey. That will protect our heart.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:8, we find “the breastplate of faith and love.” If we have the breastplate of righteousness, then subjectively we enter into the breastplate of faith and love. Having righteousness, your faith is strengthened and love begins to flow out. The love of God fills your heart.
Then, “having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.”
In battle, you have to have the right shoes so that you will not slip. You can stand firm. What are our shoes? They are the preparation, or readiness, of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
To put it another way, this means that we confess our Lord Jesus before the world. The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 10:
Every one therefore who shall confess Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father who is in heaven.
But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father who is in heaven.
Peter tells us that we must always be ready, whenever we are asked, to give a reason for the hope that is in us, with meekness and fear.
Dear brothers and sisters, we need to confess our Lord Jesus, ready to confess Him at any time. Do not be afraid, even to the point of denying Him. Be ready to confess Him, that we may stand on firm ground.
After that, we have the shield of faith, with which we are able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.
The enemy tries to throw fiery darts into our minds: sudden thoughts, accusations, false thoughts, and doubts.
Oftentimes the enemy tries to throw all these things into our minds. If we are not careful and think they are our own thoughts, we are caught.
I remember a time in my Christian life when I really wanted to follow the Lord and obey Him in all things. I even went so far as to search through the school book of discipline to see whether I had violated any of its rules.
The enemy tried to throw everything into my mind—things I did not want to think. I accepted these things as though they were mine, and they troubled me to the uttermost. I tried every means to throw away those thoughts, but I could not do it.
Finally, I was told, “You cannot forbid the birds to fly over your head, but you can forbid them to make their nest on your head.”
The enemy tries to attack our brain and our mind. Oh, how much I suffered because of that. Finally, I realized that these thoughts were not mine. These thoughts were not of God, so they were not mine. Why should I accept them as though they were mine? I was deceived.
The battle of the mind is a very real battle in our Christian life. I believe, brothers and sisters, you may already have experienced it, or you are going to experience it. But thank God, we have the helmet of salvation.
Then you have the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. This is the only part of the armor that is both offensive and defensive.
Thank God, we have the Word of God. But I am afraid we often make a mistake. We think of the Word of God as our sword, and we try to wield that sword against ourselves and against other people.
That is a big mistake, because the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit. It is not our sword. We are not experienced in using the Word of God. When we use it improperly, we cut people down, and sometimes we cut ourselves unnecessarily.
It is the sword of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the only One who knows how to wield the sword. When He uses the Word of God, it is living and operative. It penetrates, divides soul and spirit, and brings our thoughts and intents naked before God.
Thank God, we have the Word of God in us. When the Holy Spirit uses the Word, how it divides, how it penetrates, and how it delivers us.
When the Holy Spirit uses the Word against the enemy, the enemy is routed. That is why, in the temptation of our Lord Jesus in the wilderness, every time the enemy tried to remove Him from the right ground, the Lord Jesus used the Word of God to defeat him.
The enemy tried to remove the Lord Jesus from the ground of the Son of Man and tempt Him to act independently as the Son of God. Christ came to earth as the Son of Man. Though He remained the Son of God, He lived as the Son of Man, as one of us.
Every time the enemy tempted Him away from that ground, our Lord Jesus used the Word of God to defeat him. That is the way to use the Word of God.
Finally, prayer is also a weapon, part of the armor. Prayer protects us, and prayer also clears the way for the will of God and defeats all the devices of the enemy.
To put it in one word, it is very simple: abide in Christ.
Abiding in Christ is the only way to apply the victory of Christ to our enemies. On the other hand, as we abide in Him, our spiritual life increases. It matures us, disciplines us, and brings us into conformity to the image of Christ.
Then we become the vessel God uses not only to defeat the enemy, but also to become His bride. You see how wonderful the strategy of God is.
In Revelation 12:11, it says:
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.
That is the way of victory: the blood of the Lord Jesus, the word of testimony, and not loving our self-life even unto death.
We need the blood of the Lord Jesus every moment of our lives. It not only cleanses us from everything, and not only clears our way to God; it also shuts the mouth of the accuser.
We have a testimony: Jesus is Lord. It is a testimony not only that we believe, but a testimony that we confess and speak out.
When we speak out, “Jesus is Lord,” the enemy will flee from us. We need to have that attitude: we will not love our self-life, even unto death.
Brothers and sisters, this is the secret of victory. No wonder you find in Romans 8 that the Apostle Paul gives a shout of victory.
When the marriage feast is coming, there will be such a shout in heaven. Even today, we can shout the shout of victory: “Who can separate us from the love of Christ, who loved us and gave Himself for us?”
So, dear brothers and sisters, let us take heart. Press on. Let us go on.
Dear Lord, we want to praise and thank Thee because Thou art in charge over our lives. Thou art training us and building us up to be Thy church, Thy beloved bride.
Thou art using us as Thy instrument to defeat the enemy and to finish the work that is left for the church to do. O dear Lord, how Thou hast honored us with such honor.
We bow before Thee and worship Thee. We ask in Thy name. Amen.