Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world-forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Ephesians 6:10–13.
To be strong in the Lord and to put on the full armor of God are important keys. It is imperative that we meet all our battles and all our problems in God and not in our own strength. I know that a great deal of our own energy goes into a walk with the Lord and that much of our own emotional force becomes involved; it cannot be any other way. But the way we meet life, especially in the area of spiritual warfare, is not to exhaust our own resources, but to take on His strength. The way we meet the devil is with the full armor of God. We are strong in the Lord, and until we learn that place of invincibility in God, we do not really realize how vulnerable we are.
Proverbs 30 tells us about the four things which are little upon the earth, yet are exceeding wise: the ant, the cony, the locust, and the lizard. Each of these creatures has its own kind of wisdom. The Scripture says, The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks. Proverbs 30:26. A cony is a small and vulnerable animal, much like a rabbit. It is not able to stand up and fight against any of the more fierce animals, but it has learned to find a hole and to burrow down into the rock, and there it is just as strong as the rock is.
You and I may be very weak in ourselves. We may see that in our flesh dwells no good thing (Romans 7:18). We may find the inherent weakness in the old nature and then set about to bolster it up by becoming exceedingly religious, by disciplining our thinking, and by controlling our environment. But even if we do, Colossians 2:20–23 tells us that all the regulations we may follow—handle not, taste not, touch not, all referring to things that perish with the using—are of some advantage in the discipline of the flesh, but are of no use in checking fleshly indulgence. Disciplining ourselves in the flesh accomplishes nothing.
Most religions begin with discipline in an attempt to develop the flesh nature to its fullest potential. So when that nature, even with its psychic forces and other attributes, is finally brought to the peak of its evolvement, it is still only a very highly cultivated flesh nature. The Hindus have been able to do that, as well as those who follow self-realization and any of several other schools of thought. Many have asked, “Isn’t a walk in the Spirit a great deal like that?” No, it is not.
“But they practice certain things of waiting and meditation; we wait on the Lord. Isn’t there a close parallel?” No, although there appears to be one. You see, they work up to a highly developed state of the flesh nature; we begin with the birth of a new nature. They start with the flesh, and cultivate it; we do not cultivate the flesh, but we grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord in a completely new nature.
So our defenses are not in bolstering our own strength. Do not try to find your defense in building yourself up to your fullest potential; your fullest potential is no match for the devil. Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood; it is against the rulers and powers and the world-forces of this darkness. Therefore take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. When you have finished, when you have done everything you can, you still stand. It is often at this place that the flesh, having met as much as it can meet, is exhausted, and the devil moves in.
Remember that the devil does not grow weary as the human flesh does. The minute he can get even the most stubborn, highly developed individual in the world to pit his own will against him, he knows that he can wear that person down. Human strength, human reserve, and human will all have an ultimate end, and Satan knows that if he stays at it long enough, he can get you. So the answer, when you have done everything, is this: stand firm, because you stand not by exhausting yourself, but by expending divine energy. It is in the power of the Lord that you stand. … Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.
We don’t want that principle to be just words to us, so how do we apply it? It is as simple as breathing: if we draw in, we can give out. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Isaiah 40:31. That is the way it works. Do you want to win battles? Draw on the Lord. Come and submit yourself to the Lord; then resist the devil, and he will flee from you (James 4:7). Don’t think, “I’m going to resist the devil first. Then I’ll submit myself to the Lord—after I beat him.” You will never do it; you cannot beat the devil in your own strength. It is in your submission to the Lord that you are able to resist the devil and make him flee from you. The Scriptures are written with such inspiration. It is beautiful to see how they are put in the order they should be: first we submit to the Lord, then we resist the devil and he flees from us. The whole purpose of the armor is that you may be able to resist in the evil day. You are clothed with God so that when the devil encounters you, he meets God. He meets the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ over him.
We know what we are struggling against (Ephesians 6:12), but if we want to know how to war, we must understand that we fight a good fight of faith (1 Timothy 6:12). The battle is entirely one of faith. It is not a matter of human resistance; it is a matter of our resisting in the Spirit because we believe in our victory. We believe in the victory that the Lord has given us, and we stand in it no matter what Satan seems to do. You might say, “I rebuked the devil and he didn’t leave me.” Stand and worship the Lord and submit to Him with all of your heart. Let Satan hit as hard as he wants to—it will not be long before a strange peace and calm will come over you, because he has had one more encounter with the Lord toward the day of the abyss, and he has fled from it. But one day he will not be able to flee from it. One day he will be slain with the brightness of His coming (2 Thessalonians 2:8), and he dreads that day.
Even the demons anticipate that day. When the demons who entered the herd of swine encountered the Lord, they said, “We know who Thou art. Art Thou come to torment us before the time?” (Matthew 8:29). And if they say that to you now, you can tell them, “It is the time.” We need to write songs and psalms that speak of the overcoming of the wicked one and the things that are to take place in this time of the Parousia. We should constantly have in mind that it is not a thing afar off, hut that the victory of Jesus Christ is to have its application in our lives right now. Believe that. This is the way it works: “Lord, I give You my defeat and I take Your victory.” He died on the cross for your defeats, that He might transfer to you His victories. He made an open show of principalities and powers; the handwriting of ordinances that was against us He took out of the way, nailing it to His cross (Colossians 2:14–15). It is all a finished, accomplished thing.
It is fascinating to think of all the things that really do belong to us, and yet it is human nature to revert to trying to do battle in your own strength and exhausting yourself completely. The Lord intended for you to be a bright and a shining light in the new world. The King James Version says that the churches are likened to seven golden candlesticks (Revelation 1:20), but in other translations that is corrected to “lampstands.” The lampstand is filled with oil and it is lit with a wick. The oil furnishes the fuel and the flame burns, but the little lamp doesn’t burn; a candle consumes itself, but the lamp is not self-consumed. There is an old saying, “I’d rather wear out than rust out,” that may have some truth in it, as old cliches sometimes do. But God does not intend for you to wear out.
It impresses me—in fact, it disturbs me—to read about some of the men of God who were filled with the Holy Spirit: Moses, whose eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated (Deuteronomy 34:5), up to the hour that he died in the arms of the Lord; Joshua, passing through the years; and Caleb, saying when he was eighty-five years old, “I am able to go out and come in as I did when I was forty” (Joshua 14:11). It seems as if these men would never have died, unless the Lord had finally blown the whistle and said, “All right. Time!” The Word does say that each of them had a ripe old age. But Psalms 91:16 says of the one who makes the Lord his refuge, “With long life will I satisfy him, and show him My salvation,” meaning that the Lord becomes the source of his strength. As the years progressed, those men learned to so draw upon the Lord, so stand in His presence, and so draw of His multiple provision for every need that they did not give out of their natural force until they finally collapsed. A nervous breakdown, a mental institution, or broken health does not have to be the end of the child of God. I don’t think God wants us to do that; I think He wants us to learn how to draw upon Him every day.
It is a dangerous thing for us to live our lives feeling that the will of God is the voice of the people. Anyone can become caught in that trap.
“Well, this is expected of me; all these people are asking me to do it.” But did the Lord ask you to do it? You serve the people best when you serve the Lord. Paul said, “If I were a servant of men, I would not be a servant of God” (Galatians 1:10).
The difference between the old-order ministry that and the denominational world is that we serve the people on God’s terms. In old order a pastor had been a taxi for the old ladies whenever they had to go shopping; they are everything you could think of, running here and there, always on call, and with surprisingly little time to spend at the things that really counted for the ministry.
If someone asks me to do something for him, I say, “I’ll help you, but I’ll help you on God’s terms. If God says to do it and He gives the leading, we’ll do it. But just because you say it does not mean it is the will of God for me to do it for you.”
That may be revolutionary thinking, but I think it prevails throughout the whole Body to the point that many people will not do anything at their own initiative, but will wait to get a word from the Lord. When you have a word from the Lord, you set about to do something and to do it unto the Lord. Although you may be serving the people only as a deacon or deaconess or simply as a bondservant of the Lord, and are fulfilling a very subservient role, you are doing what the Lord wants you to do, and you are doing it unto the Lord.
If you do not do it that way, if you find yourself serving the people, then one day when the people fail to show appreciation (which they invariably do), you will be disillusioned.
What difference does it make whether anyone is appreciative? Noah preached for 120 years and no one thanked him. They ridiculed him, but he did it unto the Lord.
Sometimes we look for evidences of success that will feed our ego in order to help us to do a spiritual thing. If it takes feeding the ego for you to do a spiritual work, you are on the wrong track. This message should provoke you to ask yourself, “Who am I serving? Why am I serving? What will be the rewards? What shall I have therefore?” (Matthew 19:27). And when you have all the answers settled and you can say you are serving the Lord, it is beautiful.
It is imperative, then, that we meet our problems in God, not in our own strength. It is important that we serve the Lord and build our lives in Him like the cony building a little hole in the rock. There may be vicious animals outside, but the cony is as strong and impregnable as the rock is; and when we build in God, we are as strong as God is. There is a security in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that place of security must be understood.
We also must realize that God, teaching as He does the inadequacy of the flesh, cannot allow you for a single, second to build your spiritual life on a fleshly ego and a fleshly will. Several times I have seen people who start to serve God—and I know God is in their conversion—but who somehow take the whole matter as a special challenge to themselves; they use their own willpower to overcome problems. They develop certain mental hang-ups as a result, and when difficult days come, they lapse back into the old life, because their overcoming was something they did through their own willpower rather than something the Spirit accomplished in them.
Here is an example. A man becomes a Christian, and because he has a rather strong will, he is able to lop off habits with no problem whatsoever. He has pity for another poor man who is having a terrible struggle with smoking, drinking, and his other habits. The first man seems to be completely in control, but something happens to him along the way. Because he is doing so much in the flesh and in his own abilities, he expects gratification and a reward to come. Soon someone says something that throws him for a loop, he becomes discouraged, and he heads for the nearest liquor store. The deliverance was not wrought in his spirit, but accomplished through his flesh, so he is ready to fall immediately back into his old habits.
Now look at the other man. He struggles along, finally gives up, and says, “Lord, I know I don’t have any willpower. I don’t have anything. I’m completely dependent upon Your grace.” God does the work in him, and he never again has a problem with it as long as he lives. You see, his deliverance was wrought in God; the other was a product of the flesh. What is born of the flesh is flesh; what is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6). When you do anything in God, there is one way that you should begin it: with deep-rooted repentance, a deep sense of human inadequacy and failure, and a sense of divine provision. Appropriate that provision for yourself. Then you will have something that will last through the years—that will last through eternity. This does not sound the way some people believe Christianity should be, that is, that you shake the preacher’s hand and turn over a new leaf. I do not think that is quite enough, do you? It must be wrought in God. Be strong in the Lord.
If there are problems you have tried to solve in yourself, this may be a key to help you get them solved in God once and for all. You say, “Well, I quit that habit, but I’m being tempted all the time.” If you are still being tempted, the root of the habit is still there; all you have done is chop it off at the surface of the ground. But that little root can grow again, and that is what is bothering you. So just as though you never had a deliverance, seek the Lord until He lays the axe to the root of the tree. Then you will have a deliverance.
“Lord, I’m just gritting my teeth and holding on, praying that I won’t yield to that temptation.” You have a root bothering you. You will be able to resist in the evil day when you put on the full armor of God. Just clothe yourself in the Lord.
Satan pushes us constantly into that old drive, into feeling, “Oh, boy, I’ve got to get with it.” Under pressure we invariably revert to the old college try, but we need more than that: we must learn how to meet the thing in God.
Lord, we know it is imperative that we learn to meet everything in You. We know that nothing we face can be faced in the flesh, and that nothing that is wrought in us can be a product of the flesh, or it will only pass away soon. It must be a result of what You do in us. Lord, Thou hast wrought all our works in us, and we glorify Thee for it. Amen.