CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 6
As seen yesterday, first there is the church circle, then the home circle. In this chapter we come to the opposition outside.
Why do we get relative duties referred to in Ephesians and Colossians, and not in Romans?
Because, having to do with Christ as Head, we must have to do with all the ordinances of God. In Romans and Hebrews there are no relative duties;
[p. 143] but here you touch the Head - hence relative duties. Our home circle is not strictly wilderness, because it is under divine order - under the Lord.
I do not go to Adam to learn my duties, but to the Lord. The relative circle is a sphere, it is not, properly, testing which took place in the wilderness. You get it referred to in Peter, but only as far as wives - not children. The Lord has been rejected from the earth, but does He rule in my house? I have read of Zacchaeus in Luke 19 in connection with Luke 15. In one scripture He comes to my house; in the other, I go to His house. Thus the home circle is not, properly, testing. What characterises the wilderness is testing, but it ought to be a pleasure to me to carry out the relationships referred to.
Romans is what you are on the earth - in the wilderness. All is individual. In our relative duties we have the Lord with us. He is rejected all round, but not in my house. ‘If you want to see what the church should be, come into my house’; that is what a bishop should say. You are in the sphere where He is rejected in Romans, so that, although not a citizen, you are a subject. I ought to be a good subject, a good neighbour, and looking for the Lord.
It is well to remember what the characteristic of a christian household is.
In Romans 12 it is not relative, it is what you are. Be “kindly affectioned towards one another” is my feeling to another; it is all personal. In Hebrews it is the religious man. What are you? I am here for God.
When we come to the Head, we must come out in everything according to God. The Head is the source of everything, as in Colossians: “In which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge”. It is not headship as sovereignty merely. Nothing would give us a better idea of the unity of the Spirit than the recollection that we have but one Head. In [p. 144] chapter 4 we have a fine field of practice, but when we come to chapter 6 we find what an amazing opposition there is against us. It is like a tree coming out in the spring, until a terrible frost and east wind come. It is said that a fruit tree has three classes of roots - the tap root, which keeps the tree steady; the root from which the branches receive their nourishment; and the fruit roots, or fibres. The first must not be touched; the second must be pruned - God prunes them; the third must be well supplied with nourishment.
People may read about the armour in this chapter very much like those who go to the Tower of London to see the old armour. What beautiful armour, they say. Yes, but have you ever been into battle with it? We do not want this kind of armour unless we are in the land.
If we treat our family as being ourselves on heavenly ground, we shall want the armour. The proof of a good father comes out when he has a bad son. You meet the opposition in the old sphere. Michal stood faithful to David in a crisis, but in the day of prosperity she reviled him. Satan uses all our relationships to oppose. He will not let your family have a heavenly colour. You may get on with them when they are young; but wait till they grow up - what then? We feel it then, if we have not brought them up to it.
The things done in Ephesians are done in heavenly power. The character of the love is, “Husbands, love your own wives, even as the Christ also loved the assembly”. The more we lose sight of the opposition, the more we lose sight of the power above it. You are going the right road, and Satan tempts you to give it up, to turn aside from it; and for this purpose he uses his wiles and artifices. If you move on the heavenly road, something will surely come in your way to hinder and nullify. Satan sees everything going on, and does all he can to circumvent us. He is God’s foe, and therefore [p. 145] opposes us. Satan could not believe in the existence of a good thing - this is proved by his temptations of our Lord; he thinks that everybody is of the same order as himself; he is opposed to Christ - God manifest in the flesh; he cannot understand goodness.
A bad man could not believe in a good man, he could not understand him. Satan wants to dishonour God by that which is the great consummation of God’s power. We are actually the members of an exalted Christ, and we are to be in this place, where He was rejected, for Him, the exalted One; hence, Satan opposes. Directly we attempt to take up our duties in heavenly power, he will oppose; allow them to remain simply on the old ground, and he will let you alone. He cannot prevent God’s people from being brought out of Egypt, but he will prevent their going on if he can. As Pharaoh he is gone, but not as Amalek. He does not object so much to a millennial gospel being preached, because it leaves man and his interests on the earth; but the question is, Are people saved for the earth? The elect must be brought in, but where are they put? They (that is, evangelists) cannot sit down and select them, if they do not know where to put them. Satan knows the gospel must be preached, but he seeks to qualify it. At Philippi he wanted to help in it, that he might hinder; he will fall in with our work if we will let him, if not, he will fall out with it. We must go on with the right thing and overcome the wrong by the power of Christ. Satan did not count upon the praises of Paul and Silas in the gaol. We ought to out-preach and out-pray him.
Satan will let you alone if the gospel you preach does not take people out of the world. The armour is not for the gifted only, but for every saint. The great point is that it is against the devil. At Jericho, Israel was armed and had rams’ horns.
What would you say to a wife or a child in a worldly [p. 146] family? - If I have on the armour, I am invulnerable. I do not join in their amusements, but I am ready to serve. You may restrict my liberty, but not control my conscience. Everybody may have the truth, but it is not everybody who keeps it. It is first defensive and then offensive. The sword is actually to smite. The loins girt about with the truth puts you into activity. In oriental countries the servants off duty ungird themselves, but if the master should appear, they hasten to put their girdles on, as it would be a shame for them to be seen ungirded. There are plenty who have the truth, who never gird themselves about with it; knowing the truth as revealing everything, so that a man is morally ordered by it, not our holding the truth, but the truth holding us. You have every part of the armour really, but the thing is to take it up. In the first three parts of the armour, your conscience is at work.
They might have said to Peter, You have denied the Lord. Yes; but I am not doing it now. Then, he had the breastplate of righteousness. I need the breastplate of righteousness; practical righteousness. I saw you out of temper. Yes; but I have judged it. Many are knocked overboard because they have not the breastplate. We see in Samson’s case how wonderfully he was up again. The moment he recovered divine power, he gets up and uses it. Truth - loins girt. Righteousness - breastplate. Peace - feet shod. Someone who did not lose his temper remarked, I kept the shoes of peace; it is not a new thing, it is there, but you have to walk in it. It is not preaching. This armour is for use against Satan. The only way you can meet this unrelenting foe is in this panoply. The point is to be in the reality of these things, to be practically formed in the peace I am in before God; taking up the armour in faith. It is not doing anything here, it is what you are - your state; what I am, not what I do. The great point is that we should learn to [p. 147] walk in peace, and it relates to every one, not only to preachers.
The Lord said to His disciples, “I give my peace to you” - what the Lord walked in down here - walking in the gospel of peace in every emergency, and in reference to opposition here. We should learn to walk in peace in order to give effect to what we say or do. “The preparation” is the walking in the reality of the gospel, going on in it. War is the object, but my state is peace. When we are out of communion, the first thing that we expose ourselves in is that we lose our temper, get ruffled; and thus we are hindered from the enjoyment of the heavenly peace. We must have all the panoply, we cannot have one part and not the other, we must put on the whole, it is all in one piece. “He takes away his panoply in which he trusted”. In Romans we are told, “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly”. Satan’s approach is met by the “shield of faith”; and although invulnerable and invincible, there is nothing we are more liable to than for Satan to upset our faith; we fail in the sense of what Christ is. As I have often said, the man who has the deepest sense of Christ’s power is most conscious of Satan’s; he becomes conscious that there is a power against him, as he is here for Christ. “The surpassing greatness of his power”, is toward us (chapter 1). “Strengthened with power by his Spirit” is the power in us (chapter 3). “The might of his strength” in chapter 6, is from us.
The words used in chapter 1: 19, are, in the original, the same as those used in chapter 6: 10. I am using the power I have got from the Lord now against Satan - you see it beautifully in the case of Stephen. We have confidence in the Lord that He will bring down all the power of evil. The power of evil is brought down to faith, as seen in the walls of Jericho. “Be of good courage: I have overcome the world”. I do not think that anyone gets rooted and grounded in faith until he is well tested about it. The enemy is powerless whilst there is confidence in God, but you are conscious of his fiery darts. The shield of faith is the only thing that can quench them. Paul had more courage in 2 Timothy than ever. Truth, righteousness and peace come first, because if anything is wanting in these, faith is not in activity. If we have confidence in God, our hearts condemn us not. God does not carry us by His Spirit beyond our conscience. You are everything to God in Christ, but you demonstrate Christ as you conscientiously accept what God has given you in Christ. When a man’s progress is hindered, his conscience has been untouched, and he must go back to the point of departure.
All God’s dealings are in reference to the point of departure. In Hosea, God takes Israel back in a similar way. In this chapter I am maintaining, practically, my heavenly ground - come out from heaven to describe the heavenly man on earth; and nothing could exasperate Satan more than this, to see the heavenly man perpetuated in thousands. A man’s conscience is his measure. It is a man who is dead, who is able to withstand any opponent. A dead man can do wonderful things. If Satan had not a bit of flesh to oppose, we should be in the power of God, and he would soon lose the day.
Samson came before Samuel, but Samuel surpassed him, for he was in confessed weakness, and found in prayer - “far be it from me that I should sin against Jehovah in ceasing to pray for you”. There is nothing like this for power; our power is dependence upon God - ‘praying always’.
In Thessalonians we get the attack of Amalek. In 1 Corinthians we get Balaam. In Ephesians, the seven nations are to be resisted - the complete power of evil, spiritual wickedness in the world. In Romans,
[p. 149] the armour is christian grace rather. Mr. Wigram used to say that Romans was parade armour. Prayer is not part of the armour, but condition of soul rather. Prayer is unto God; armour is for Satan. We do not seek the enemy, but we are attacked and must defend, in order to make way.
I could not wield a sword in defence without being aggressive. We get the Lord using it against Satan, when tempted by him. The sword of the Spirit is the testimony of God. Satan rushes against us, assails us; prayer is calling upon God, calling Him to remembrance. Israel going round Jericho with rams’ horns corresponds to verse 18. In contrast to them, we do not fight for territory - it is our own - but we have to fight for the enjoyment of it, the practical realisation of possession.
If I am not in the end of chapter 3, I cannot be in chapter 6. It is not simply title, we are in possession. We have to remember that we are in the One who has gone up above all adverse power, above everything. The Philistines originally came up from Egypt, and were in the land with Israel. Israel was like a man besieged in his own house. Sometimes we see a man who knows heavenly truth besieged in his own house, besieged by the Philistines, and a very pitiable sight it is; like a bird with a broken wing, he could fly, and he knows it, but now he cannot - like the Israelites, so overpowered by adverse forces that they cannot even sharpen their tools. The only place I have is over Jordan.
“The helmet of salvation” fully furnishes you; your head is erect, you have the victory assured before you go into battle. As Paul says, “I know that this shall turn out for me to salvation”. The whole thing is settled. We must remember that the prayer was to end in the mystery of the gospel being made known. This is not the gospel, but the mystery. Someone might say, Paul is dead, and we cannot pray for that [p. 150] now. That is the reason we should pray for this all the more. There should be more prayer that the truth as to this mystery should be brought out. People say that it does not apply now; but it does, all the more. If the general of an army and his chief officers were slain, and you were only a subordinate officer, what would you say? I am only a subaltern, I cannot take the general’s place, but I am going to carry on the fight, anyhow.