Reading: Ephesians 6:10-19.
Now I want to spend a moment linking up with chapter three at its
last point, because we are in the same thing all the way through.
We were speaking about position and power and we took the two
passages at the commencement of this Ephesians letter, the one
from chapter 1:20 which speaks of the Lord having been raised to
the right hand of God, "far above all principalities and powers
and rule and dominion and every name that is named, not only in
this age but in that which is to come", and then Ephesians
2:6, "and hath made us to sit in the heavenlies in Christ".
We followed the stages of our Lord's life which have a spiritual
meaning for us, each of which in its spiritual meaning and good,
has to be appropriated by a definite act of faith. We went through
the seven stages, and then we came especially to this one: His
exaltation at the right hand of God in the place of power and
honour; a position to be appropriated by us in faith, for He has
made us to sit in the heavenlies in Christ. We are there in the
mind of God, in the thought of God, in the will of God. But it is
not a thing to which we come automatically. It is a position to
which we come by a definite transaction of faith, to take the
God-appointed position in Christ in that place of power. We can
never do that effectually with its right consequences until we
have taken all the other steps in the same way, by a definite act
of faith.
Those other steps are spiritual: our death union with Christ by
faith, our burial union with Christ by faith, and our resurrection
union with Christ by faith. These are great spiritual realities
with wonderful spiritual meaning - the death which destroys him
that had the power of death. The death which forever settles the
sin question and rules that out. The burial which puts the old
creation right away from the sight and the remembrance of God so
that never again, when we have taken position in Christ after
death and burial union, does God see us as sinners. He sees us in
Christ as righteous; not bad, but good. And it is something to
appropriate by faith, these stages of spiritual content and
meaning. And then the resurrection union which brings in a new
life altogether, a life which is not subject to death, cannot be
touched of death, a life which is beyond the power of death; it is
something altogether out of his range.
And then ascension exaltation union with the Lord is this thing
with which we are occupied: coming up into the throne, again to be
appropriated, apprehended by faith, which puts us out of this
world system into a new place because the Lord Jesus as Man puts
man into a new place. It is man occupying a new place. If we do
not see that, we do not see any real fulness of meaning in the
incarnation of the Lord Jesus. It is man coming right through the
whole course of this redemption work of God until God gets man
outside of this awful system, outside of this authority of
darkness, at His own side; Man after His own heart right at His
own side and His Man, the God-man, the Son of God. He, the Man at
the right hand of God, is man there in representation and He is
bringing many sons to that glory, to that position, to bring us
there; and His idea is to have man in that heavenly position. Now
by faith we take that position and apprehend that which is in
Christ: God's reality concerning us when we do take that faith
position. The point at the moment is that these stages, one by one, have to
be apprehended by faith, and God makes them good to us or brings
us into the good of them as we apprehend them by faith - what is
in Christ as ours and everything that is included in the position.
Now then, we have come by a definite act of faith's apprehension
of that position of ours in Christ, to our definite place
spiritually in Christ, "seated together with Him in the
heavenlies". When we get there, we find everything changes.
As we have said earlier, everything changes when we get
spiritually to that position. Our consciousness changes, we have
noticed. We have another spiritual consciousness and the main
feature of that changed spiritual consciousness is now meeting
spiritual forces, that our wrestling is not with mere flesh and
blood, that it is not merely the tangible things, the manifest
things, the sentient things of the earth that we are meeting as
our difficulties, but we are conscious now that we are meeting
spiritual elements, spiritual factors, spiritual forces though
they may be working through things seen, things here. There is
something else, there is something more than the things seen here
and handled; you come up against naked spiritual forces without a
man or woman on the scene. You are conscious of a new set of
conditions, of being now in a realm of spiritual forces - it is a
new consciousness. Our wrestling now is not with mere flesh and
blood, but with principalities and powers and so on, according to
the Word of God.
What is the objective of this conflict from the side of the
enemy? It is to deprive us of our throne position; to get us down
from that position that is the object, that is God's purpose,
God's end, that is the fixed goal of the church which is Christ's
Body - and now from the enemy's side, all his efforts of every
kind are directed to prevent, to frustrate, to nullify that
purpose of God, and to bring us out if he cannot keep us out, to
bring us out of our throne position in the Lord Jesus. You see, it
is the throne position that is in view all the time. Now, not only
do we become possessed of a new consciousness because everything
changes in this realm, but the enemy's tactics all change when you
get there. You get an entirely new set of tactics in the
heavenlies from what you get on the earthlies. I mean this, that
the believer who has not come to the heavenly position by faith,
who is in those elementary stages of the Christian life, meets one
set of difficulties, temptations, trials, but the believer who
comes to the heavenly position meets another side. The tactics of
the enemy change simply because it is no use using the old tactics
with a believer who has got up there. It is no use the enemy
coming to you and me and offering us some worldly attraction. He
could not get us on that line - some bit of worldly pleasure, some
offer of worldly goods - and the young believer is very often
tempted along that line. The young Christian finds very often the
battle is in that realm. And there are other things, most of us
remember where our difficulties were when we were only just saved.
The trouble we had with Romans 7 for instance! We did wrong when
we did not want to, and so on.
I remember the very first weeks of my Christian life and Romans 7
was an awful trouble to me. But these are the measles of spiritual
infancy, children; the enemy no longer troubles you along those
lines. When you get up into the heavenlies he changes his tactics
and the thing now becomes far deeper. He does not come along the
line of open invitation and open temptation. He covers his steps,
he comes now robed as an angel of light, he comes now along the
line of very subtle presentation of evil dressed up as truth, and
much more which we shall see as we go on. But the point is that
here you come into an entirely new realm, a new kind of thing;
everything changes when you get into the heavenlies as to the
enemy's tactics. Here the word which governs his tactics is the
word "wiles", that is the word here in Ephesians: the wiles of the
devil. How are we going to meet these tactics? We shall see more
of what they are as we come to see the means of meeting them.
We go on with this whole armour of God and as we see what the
armour is, we shall see what it is for, what it is against, but we
want to recognise first of all, that this represents a position
arrived at. Now I have initially in my mind an Old Testament
illustration of this New Testament position.
You remember in Exodus 17 the people came to the place of the
open fountain, the breaking forth of the water, the gushing of the
water of life and they drank fully of that water which was life to
them and brought them into a living place. Now that represents the
receiving of the Spirit, the receiving of the Holy Spirit. We know
what the Lord said about the Holy Spirit as "rivers of living
water", but receiving of the Holy Spirit is typified in
Exodus 17 in these gushing waters. What happened immediately after
was that Amalek came out and fought with Israel. Israel did not
fight Amalek, but Amalek took the initiative and fought with
Israel. Ephesians 6 follows Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5 has at the
heart of it this: "Be filled with the Spirit." And
Ephesians 6 brings you to where this conflict comes into position
and that is always the order. When the Lord Jesus came up out of
the Jordan the heavens opened to Him and the Spirit lighted upon
Him. He received the Spirit. The next thing was conflict - the
enemy met Him.
Now, there are two ways of looking at that, or two sides to that
principle. One is this: that you have come into a heavenly
position where the Holy Spirit becomes the one and only governing,
dominating reality and power in your life (and you will never have
a heavenly position if there is any other ruling power in your
life) it is that the Holy Spirit is now sovereign in the life and
church. When you have come there, where the Holy Spirit becomes
the dominating factor in life, immediately the enemy comes out, he
takes the initiative. You know it quite well in experience, that
when you have taken a position by faith which implies that, it is
not long before you are assailed. You who bear your testimony with
the Lord Jesus in death, burial, resurrection and spiritual union
in the heavenlies, by baptism, how many of you have been that way
and not met the enemy very soon after? And if the thing is really
a spiritual testimony, if it is entered into intelligently with a
particular apprehension of its spiritual meaning, I think we could
say invariably there is a conflict before long, a time of intense
withstanding, an effort made to throw you down from the place that
you have taken.
There is that, but there is the other way to look at it, beloved.
The Holy Spirit is given for conflict. While the Holy Spirit given
may be the occasion of the conflict, the Holy Spirit in the
goodness of God is given for the conflict and is the guarantee of
the triumph because He is the Spirit of the triumphant Man, Christ
Jesus. So that while there is the side which may seem more gloomy,
there is the other side of assurance, that we are not going to
have to meet the enemy in the heavenlies out of our own resources.
The Lord in us, the Spirit, is going to meet that position of the
enemy. So you come to Ephesians 6 through Ephesians 5, "Be
filled with the Spirit" and then into the conflict.
Moses said to Joshua in Exodus 17, "Choose us out men to go
against Amalek" (v.9). The implication spiritually is that
this represents a company of elect ones, chosen ones, "chosen
in Him"; that is Ephesians, elect ones who are going into
the battle in the Lord's Name to cleave a way through for the
rest. We have always maintained this position, and I think we
ought to keep it in mind, that at the moment (not immediately in
line with our consideration) that is what the Lord is seeking; a
company of overcomers to cleave a way through for the others. That
this is a relative work. They are not the only ones who are going
through, they are going to break through for others and others
will follow by the way that they have broken through. Moses said "Choose
us out men" and they clave a way through Amalek for the rest
to follow. That is the position here. That is the first thing; not
how we are going to meet the forces of evil in the energy of the
Holy Spirit. Before ever you can approach the other means of
triumphant warfare, you have got to recognise the absolute
necessity for being filled with the Spirit, and it is a
tremendously important thing.
You remember that Paul had to deal with one whom he called "a
child of the devil". It says he was filled with the Spirit.
"And Paul, filled with the Spirit said...". When you have
to deal with a child of the devil you need to be filled with the
Holy Spirit. You cannot go against principalities and powers and
the rest of that host unless you are filled with the Spirit. And
we ought to remember that every time we enter into spiritual
conflict, if ever we take the aggressive, or even a triumphant
stand on any position taken, to stand therefore and hold ground,
it can only be in the mighty energy of the Holy Spirit. And we
must seek the Lord in the conflict whether in the aggressive or
standing; we need to be filled with the Spirit, and we must ask
Him for that filling of the Spirit for this conflict. That is
basic to everything else. It is not that we get down on our knees
and try to hammer at demons or principalities and powers, and hurl
phrases at them, even Scripture. It is not the loudness of our
voice, or the kind of phraseology we use. It is first of all being
filled with the Spirit, doing it in the Holy Spirit. "Be filled
with the Spirit." Let us recognise the necessity for that,
the primary importance of that, and always keep that in view.
We need to be filled every time. Every time the enemy rises up,
to successfully meet him we need to be filled with the Spirit. It
must be so. Well then, when that is so, we come onto the other
provisions that the Lord has made for this warfare, and we come to
this that is called, "the whole armour of God". The phrase
is a good one: the whole armour of God. It is what God has
provided for us, what God has secured for us and provided for us.
God Himself has procured for us this armour and placed it at our
disposal. In that alone is contained something very magnificent.
When you think of the spiritual realities lying behind this thing
of breastplate and helmet and so on, you think of what they stand
for; that is, spiritually. The helmet of salvation, the
breastplate of righteousness - God has secured those things for us
and God has put those things at our disposal. Well, the whole
armour of God. In another place the apostle speaks of it as the
armour of light. That carries its own significance. We will not
stay with it now, you can look it up yourself, but here it is "the
whole armour of God".
Now we shall not get very far with this armour, but we might look
at one or two, if possible, of these provisions. We may not take
them in the order in which they occur here, but I think we might
take the first one.
The Girdle of Truth
"Having girded your loins with truth" (v.14). The girdle
of truth is a symbol of strength. It is that which carries great
responsibility, it holds other things together, it carries the
weight of weapons. It in itself has to be the very embodiment of
strength, and the Apostle speaks of the loins being girt with
truth. Peter speaks like this, "Gird up the loins of your mind."
We have to get away from the physical, from the merely
metaphorical, to the spiritual. What are the spiritual loins? The
loins of your mind - "Gird up the loins of your mind." "Having
girded your loins with truth." It is the same Holy Spirit
who speaks through Paul, as Peter. The mind of the believer is to
be in the strength of truth to be able to stand against the wiles
of the devil. Now, truth here does not mean systematised doctrine
merely, it does not mean a whole system of teaching which is
called "the truth". It may have some connection with that, but it is
the truth about God, the truth about the things of God, the truth
about the Lord Jesus, the truth about the Lord's people, the truth
about one another.
The Mind
If the enemy can get into the mind something which is not the
truth, he has undermined the strength of the whole position. If he
can get a lie in, if he can get a half-truth in, if he can wrap up
in a very great deal of pious platitude something that is not
absolutely true, if he can get anything false into the mind, it is
not long before the position of the throne is lost. Position and
power of the heavenly position is destroyed along that line. The
primary strength of the believer against the enemy is that he is
absolutely girded in his mind with truth.
Now, I said a little while ago that when touching the weapons or
the armour piece by piece, you begin to see the nature of the
changed tactics of the enemy. Here you find Satan masking himself
and what he is after is to get at the will of the believer. Do not
forget that is the citadel: the will of the believer. Once he can
get his way into the will, capture the will, get the will on his
side, acting in his favour, he has captured the citadel and the
battle is his. How will he do it? He will seek to get at the will
first of all through the conscience, for nothing will carry the
will more effectively than the conscience. How will he get the
conscience? Through the reason. How will he get the reason?
Through the semi-truth, partial knowledge. He will give you
something that is truth as far as it goes, but it is only
half-truth.
Now, I do not want to get you into the realm of abstractions, but
I take it that most of you have had enough experience to recognise
the truth of what I am saying, that great disasters which have
occurred in the church, in the Body of Christ to destroy its
fighting force, to divide it so that it does not stand as a great
whole against the enemy, and every dividing of the Lord's people
is in the enemy's mind to destroy the fighting force, to rob it of
its power, to take from him the heavenlies. And is it not true
that most of the successes of the enemy in dividing, in splitting
up and in setting believers over against believers and so
weakening the fighting force by scattering - these things have
been brought about not by an absolute lie, but by a half-truth.
The thing was right, up to a point. But beyond that point it was a
lie. There was something in it that, well, you could not get away
from, but it was not enough, the rest of it was a lie. It was only
true up to a point, but he has got in his lie by putting his
finger upon just that little bit which was so obviously wrong;
everybody would agree that that was not right, but he has a lie on
top of that, has pushed that thing a long way beyond what is the
truth. He got that into the reason and it became a sort of
complication in the mind, and the reason played upon it and the
mind worked upon it until it was added to and until the lie
blotted out everything else.
And what is the next thing? That through that reason captured,
conscience is carried; and so, conscientiously you have to act
according to your reason. You must take a certain course because
you have come to certain conclusions which are absolutely patent.
Reason has been captured by seventy-five percent lie and
twenty-five percent truth. Reason has captured conscience and when
the conscience is captured, of course the will is captured. You
act according to your conscience, you see, your volition agreed to
your conscience. That is a wile of the devil getting right through
to the citadel by this wile. First of all introducing a half-truth
or a part truth and making believe that it is wholly the truth.
You will have it, if you have not had it, you come into the realm
of the Lord's highest interests and sooner or later you will come
into a place like that, and the thing is to get right down and
say, "How much of this is true and how much is a lie?" And it is
only as you are girded in the loins of your mind with truth that
you will be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. You see
how his tactics change, how deeply laid are his plots. And then
when you have got to that position where the reason is allied to
the conscience, and the conscience to the will, and you have acted
volitionally, your will has gone over on that side of your
conscience, there is set up such a beautiful state of things, a
state of mimic virtue - of love and gentleness and sense of
justice and fair reasoning, and sanctimoniousness and pride of
humility. The grace-pride of humility. These are the deep things
of Satan. Very often a deceived one regards himself as the most
open, sincere, honest and humble one walking the earth - a false
virtue.
How are you going to meet it? Having girded your loins with
truth. I suggest to you that it is always a wholesome thing to
follow your reason out to its logical conclusion. Sit down with
the suggestion that is put into your mind if it gets in - we will
learn by bitter experience that it is as well to shut the head to
suggestions and immediately they begin to come say, 'I am having
none of that.' It is a good thing to sit down with anything like
that that gets into your mind and follow it out to its logical
conclusion. Where will that lead to if I follow it out? Where is
it going to take me? Supposing you get injected into your mind
something about another child of God, not to their good, but to
their detriment; a question about them. It looks like the truth,
yes, there is a good deal to justify and verify it. Are you going
to take it on because it looks so true? And come to swift
conclusions that all the evidences bear it out? I suggest that you
sit down and allow that suggestion to carry you through to its
ultimate conclusion. What is going to be the result finally? If
that is followed through, there is going to be a serious breach
that is going to be a most serious situation that is set up, and
if these are going to be the consequences, does it not require
that before I follow out that thing, I make sure that there is not
another side to this? Can that be justified? Is it true right up
to the hilt or is it only partly true and there is another part
which can be set over against it? That is a good thing to do. If
you are in real practical business it is a good thing to do,
follow out these suggestions to their logical conclusion and see
where they are going to lead. It is practical. I often have to do
it. Certain things are intimated to me in some way or other which
affects others and my relationship to others, and I have to get
down before the Lord and say, "Where will that lead to? That will
inevitably lead to this, and I am not prepared for that, that will
not be for Your glory, that will be to the injury of the Body of
Christ, there can be nothing but disillusion and shame out of
that..." therefore I put it back and do not take it on. That is
shutting your head to something that is quite right! But I take
risks along that line. It is better to take risks than get into a
state of unnecessary unlove. But there are some things which it
would be quite easy to accept, which would lead to most disastrous
consequences in the Lord's interests, which we have to definitely
refuse to accept. But when all is said and done, there is another
way and that is with every opening day and every closing day, and
constantly at all seasons and every season, praying that the Lord
will keep us girt with truth, the loins of our minds girt with
truth.
Start the day with, "Lord, today do not let anything that is
false and wrong and not according to the truth gain access, get
in; do not let any of those wiles of the devil by which, with a
false show of truth, he would seek to destroy the fellowship of
God's people and the fighting force of a combined front. Do not
let anything like that get a lodgement; keep it out". Gird up the
loins of the mind with truth. That is very important. If the
Lord's people would follow a line of this kind it would save a
very great deal and it would deprive the enemy of much of his
success. We do not take these matters seriously enough, and we
cannot get away from the fact that these things are happening.
What I have said has only been in one direction. There are many
other directions in which this same principle may be applied as to
the truth. There is, for instance, the girding of the loins of our
mind with the truth of God as in the Word of God. It is a very
important thing therefore, to know the Word of God because it is
the Word of truth, it is the Word and the revelation of truth. And
to be girded with the knowledge of the truth on all these matters
as contained in God's word, the revelation of God's mind, to be
girt with that is to be in a very strong, protective and defensive
position. So many of the Lord's children are overthrown and
defeated because they do not know how to meet the enemy with the
facts. Was it not a great thing for Martin Luther to have that one
little bit of truth, when the enemy wrote on the wall that whole
file of accusations against him, that Luther knew: "The blood
of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanses us from all sin", and he
could hurl that against all the accusations of the accuser. He was
girt with truth and he won. We need to be girt with the whole
truth, to meet the enemy on every point at which he tries to break
in.
Truth is a strong thing, beloved. You cannot get past the truth.
The Lord Jesus is revealed finally in glory as, "The Faithful and
True Witness". That is the place of power for Him. The place of
power is for us to be girt with truth. I only suggest these things
to you as principles, as laws of spiritual life. I would not claim
for a moment to have reached the point where I am anywhere near
perfection on this matter, but I do see the working value of it,
and up to a point have proved the value of it. And here we are in
this heavenly realm where things are so subtle, where we get
things so much like the Divine you know. You can get visions and
you can get voices, and you can get mysterious impressions, and
you can get what looks like a wonderful revelation unveiling up
there - all these things are possible from the enemy - the
consequences of them are sometimes most disastrous. They lead
people off in their own visions and they detach themselves from
everybody else; that is proof that it is wrong. They hear voices
and because they hear voices they have gone somewhere beyond
everybody else, and you find they are a law unto themselves. You
fall into these things unless you have the whole armour of God.
We are in a realm of very many evil possibilities when we come
into the heavenlies, but blessed be God, He has provided for that
position, He has provided for a peculiar situation and what we
have to do is not to be constantly fretted and worried about the
enemy, but to take God's provision. If I, at the beginning of the
day, stand in God's provision and say, "I do for today, by faith,
definitely take this girdle of truth, You provided it; this
breastplate of righteousness and what You mean by it; and this
helmet of salvation; and this big shield of faith. I take in faith
all these things, appropriate, stand in them, and count on You to
make over to me the good of Your own provision" if we do this,
then in the hour of the testing and ordeal, we turn and say, "It
all looks so right and so true, but I must not take it until I
have come to You about it, and again appropriating Your provision
to protect me from anything of the devil. It looks like truth, a
Divine revelation, but is the enemy trying to deceive me and bring
about trouble, disaster? I take Your provision and stand to be
protected from the enemy in this". The Lord will see to it that we
do come into the good of that. It is a practical business and here
in this world no one would think of going into a war against a
wily and well-trained and long-experienced foe without definitely
knowing something about their weapons, and taking them with them.
And should we do less in a warfare of this kind? It is not the
warfare of our salvation; that is not the point. We are not in
Romans now; we are not there where the whole business of our
salvation is in view. This is the heavenly vocation of the church;
this is the ultimate purpose of God which is, (shall I say) at
stake. These are the eternal counsels of God which are being
wrought out. It is vocational. It is not just something imposed
upon us. It is the privilege of being together with God in the
outworking of the ultimate things in His plan.
Now, in this thing we must be businesslike. We must make a
business of it. Soldiering is not a sport, not a sort of thing
that you can play at in wartime. It is a grim business and first
of all you have to know the value of your weapons, and you have to
use those weapons. And then when you have got to know the value of
them and how to use them, you have to take them; not leave them
behind as if they did not matter. If it is so down here in this
much-less business, how much more ought it to be so in this
eternal business that we know what our weapons are, the value of
those weapons, how to use those weapons, and that we definitely
take them and do not go out without them.
And this first girding of truth, the strength of the truth, the
strength of truth as truth, and the strength of the truth as the
truth - and let me remind you that it is the truth as it is in
Jesus; I could not understand that phrase, but I see something now
in that of great value. It is not as it is in me, or in someone
else, it is not the truth as it is in my brother, or in any
company of believers, it is the truth as it is in Jesus; that is,
in Him the thing is absolute and settled. The truth of my
perfection is not true in me, it is true in Him; of absolute
victory, it is not true in me, but in Him. The truth of being
really in the heavenlies, is not in me, but in Him. I am in the
heavenlies in Christ; everything is true in Him, and I have it in
Him when I have not got it in myself. And the enemy comes along
and says, "You are not much of a specimen you know,
you call yourself an overcomer!" But it is true in Him, I have
overcome in Him. It is the truth as it is in Jesus, not as it is
in me. And when you take that position, you are cutting the ground
from the enemy.
If you are looking to find this true in yourself, you will find
discouragement, but when you hold on to your position as it is in
Christ, that it is the truth as it is in Him, you are in a strong
position. That is the strength of the truth as it is in Him.