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Scripture Reading: Eph. 6:10-20; Ezek. 37:1-10
In this chapter we will see something concerning the spiritual warfare of the church. The creation of man was for two purposes. On the positive side, it was so that man would express God, and on the negative side, it was to deal with the enemy of God. This refers to the image of God and the authority of God. In the New Testament, especially in Ephesians, the book most related to the church, we can see the image and authority of God, that is, the way to express God corporately and fight the battle against the enemy of God in a corporate way. Nearly all the teachings in the New Testament are composed with the elements of the image of God to express God in Christ through the Spirit and the authority to fight the battle and deal with God’s enemy. These are the two main components of God’s eternal plan, and these are the two main items of the entire teaching of the Scriptures, especially in the New Testament.
In Ephesians we can see the image of God especially in 4:22-24, which tells us to put off the old man and put on the new man, the corporate new creation in Christ, which was created according to the image of the Creator, that is, of God Himself. The church as the new creation has the image of God in order to express God in Christ through the Holy Spirit. Then in the last chapter of Ephesians, there is the fighting, the wrestling, the spiritual warfare to deal with the evil forces in the kingdom of darkness, that is, to deal with the enemy of God. If we are the victorious church, if we realize the real church life, then the Lord will be expressed through us so that we may have His true image and the heavenly authority to fight the spiritual warfare to deal with the enemy of God.
The two aspects of the divine commission of the church are to express God in Christ through the Spirit and to deal with the enemy of God. The purpose of the messages in this book is not to help us merely to know some truths, doctrines, or teachings. Rather, it is to help us to realize the genuine life of a Christian, which is the real life of the church, the victorious, corporate life of the Body, in order to express Christ and to deal with the enemy of God. We must bring Christ to people, exhibit Christ, glorify Christ, and express Christ in the divine image. This is on the positive side. We also have to fight the battle, deal with the enemy, bind the strong man, and chase the forces of darkness. This is on the negative side. This is the divine commission committed by the Lord to the church. What are we here for? We are here for the exhibition and expression of Christ on the positive side, and the fighting of the spiritual warfare to deal with the enemy of God on the negative side.
If we read Ephesians again with this point of view, we will see that the entire book can be summarized by these two aspects. The church is the Body of Christ to express and exhibit Christ and to glorify Christ in the divine image, and the church also fights the battle to bring the coming kingdom, to deal with the enemy of God, and to chase away the evil forces of darkness.
Ephesians 6:10-20 is the clearest portion of the New Testament dealing with spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare is not an individual matter. Many of us received help from The Pilgrim’s Progress when we were young, but the author of that book, John Bunyan, made spiritual warfare to be an individual matter. This may cause people to believe that the warrior in Ephesians 6 is an individual believer. In actuality, the warrior here is a corporate warrior, just as the Body in chapter 1, the new man, the house of God, and the building in chapter 2, the church as the mystery of Christ in chapter 3, the Body and the new man in chapter 4, and the bride as the wife in chapter 5 are all corporate. All these are not individual persons but a corporate person, which is the church. The church is the corporate Body of Christ, the corporate new man, the corporate building, the corporate mystery, the corporate wife, and the corporate warrior. Therefore, spiritual warfare is not a matter of the individual saint; it is a matter of the church. If we do not have the church life, we have lost the ground for spiritual warfare. If we are not in the reality of the Body life, we have no ground to fight the battle; we have been defeated already. Without the church life, we are defeated, and it is impossible for a defeated person to fight the enemy.
The ground and standing for us to fight the enemy is the church, and the church is in Christ, in the Spirit, and in the heavenlies. On the one hand, as long as someone is saved, he is in Christ, even if he is a defeated Christian. However, if he is not in the reality of the Body life, he is not in Christ practically and according to experience. Therefore, in order to fight the spiritual warfare, we must realize the church life.
We may declare, “We are not on the earth; we are in the heavenlies!” Whenever we are even a little earthly, we are defeated. We need to keep our heavenly ground and standing, but we must realize that the heavenly ground is for the Body corporately, not the members separately.
In the military today it is foolish for a soldier to fight alone. In order to fight the battle, we must form an army. If there is no formation of the army, there is no possibility to fight the battle. In Ezekiel 37, when the dead bones were revived and made alive, they joined together. When they were dead, they were scattered in thorough, absolute death, but when they were made alive, they became members joined to be a living body. According to the context of the chapter, this living body is the house of Jehovah, the building, the dwelling place of God, and it is also the army. This body is the building and the army. This is a good picture of the Body life. Can separated and scattered bones fight the battle? This is ludicrous. We must realize that no matter how strong we feel, we are not adequate by ourselves to fight the battle. To fight the battle is a matter of the Body. We must be built together. We must be in oneness and harmony as the living Body, the living building, and the living house of God. Then we can be the army.
If we read Ephesians from the first chapter to the sixth chapter, we will see that warfare is a matter of the Body of Christ, and the Body is a new creation in Christ, in the Spirit, and in the heavenlies. First we must have the Body life, and then we can have the spiritual warfare. If we do not have the Body life, we are simply not adequate to have the warfare. In order to fight the battle, we must be in the reality of the Body life. In order to fight for America, one must be in the American armed forces. He cannot go to the battlefield alone. No one would be so foolish as to do this. He must first join the army and be trained, built up, and formed with the army. It is exactly the same with the Body of Christ. Why is spiritual warfare in the last chapter of Ephesians and not in the first, the second, or even the fifth chapter? It is because warfare is something of the Body, which is in Christ, in the Spirit, and in the heavenly places.
We also must realize that spiritual warfare is not a fighting against humans, that is, against flesh and blood. Rather, we fight with the spiritual forces, the evil spirits. This is not a small matter. I still remember well how Brother Watchman Nee held a conference in 1928 in which he spoke about the spiritual warfare in a very practical and detailed way. He was very much attacked by the enemy for this. After a certain period of time he told me, “Brother, if we are going to talk about spiritual warfare and deal with it in a practical way, we need at least thirty brothers and sisters to pray for us day and night. Otherwise, there will be many attacks.” Therefore, may the Lord cover us with His blood! The evil spiritual forces are not merely a doctrine or a term. In the universe there is such an evil force, which is the kingdom of darkness, the evil spirits. Even today we may not realize how much the evil spirits are working to damage the kingdom of God in order to frustrate the fulfillment of God’s purpose. This is a real fighting. Therefore, we do not fight with flesh and blood. We fight with the evil spirits. Our enemy is not people; our enemy is the forces of darkness.
In the past years and even up until today, it is difficult to say how many rumors the enemy has been constantly spreading. In 2 Corinthians 6:8 the apostle Paul speaks of “evil report and good report.” Even the apostle suffered many evil reports. The evil reports are simply rumors. I do not have the time or the heart to speak in detail, but it is a fact that there has been rumor after rumor constantly against us. Whenever one is in the lead, he is exposed to attack to some degree, and the attack of the enemy is upon him. When we were in mainland China, Brother Nee was very exposed to attack because he was taking the lead. I was very close to him, and nearly day by day I saw many things. As early as 1934 I was brought into this fighting because from that time on I began to share the responsibility to deal with this warfare. I saw the wiles, the tactics, and the subtle ways of the enemy and how our brother was attacked very much. The most serious attacks were the rumors.
There is such a reality that in this universe there are the evil forces of darkness, the evil spirits, fighting, frustrating, and damaging the interests of the Lord’s kingdom and His testimony. What shall we do? Shall we consider those who have been utilized by the enemy to spread rumors as our enemy? If we do this, we are wrong. The real enemy is not the people. The real enemy is the evil forces behind the people. The people are merely the puppets of the enemy to be utilized by him. We should not fight the people; we should fight the evil forces behind them. The way to fight the evil forces is not by the flesh but by the Spirit, in the Spirit, and by prayer. The only way we can deal with the enemy who is working, fighting, behind certain people is to pray, to appeal to the throne in the heavens as the highest authority. Therefore, there is the need for real and prevailing corporate prayer. The church needs to come together to pray, not to deal with people. I have learned the lesson that whenever there is a rumor, we should not deal with it directly. When there is a rumor about the church, we should not talk to people or explain things to them. The more we explain, the more the rumors will come out. We should simply go to the Lord and appeal to the highest authority. Through the throne we deal with the evil forces which are behind the blood and flesh. We must learn this and practice this.
Most of the items of the divine armor of God in Ephesians 6 are for protection. First, we must gird our loins with truth (v. 14a). Truth here does not refer to the doctrine of the word of God, because the word is related to the sword in verse 17. Truth refers to faithfulness, sincerity, and reality. When we practice the church life, we must be real. I must be real to you, and you must be real to me. There must be no falsehood and no pretense. If we have pretense and falsehood, we do not have truth among us; that is, we are not real. A Chinese proverb says, “To have a pretense is to stand on melting ice.” In the church life, everything we do and speak must be real. Otherwise, we should not do it or speak it. If we love a brother, we should love in reality. If we do not love, we should not love in pretense. To pretend to love without real love is false. This causes us to lose the ground to fight the battle, because the evil spirits will attack our conscience. The evil spirits know where we are, what we are, and what is in our hearts. Therefore, we must be real, not only before God but also before the enemy. Then we will have the ground to fight the battle.
Verse 14 speaks of being girded with truth. To be girded is to be strengthened. If we do not have truth, but rather everything in the church is false, we lose our girding up, and we can never be strengthened. A soldier must be girded up in order to be strong to fight. If we do not have truth but are pretending and false, not speaking real things or doing real things, we are finished; we cannot fight the battle.
In order to maintain truth, sincerity, faithfulness, and reality among the saints, we must do everything in a real way. We must do nothing in a pretending way. We must hate pretense. I am sorry for the situation among many Christians today. Even some of the spiritual persons play politics. They may speak well to a brother, but an hour later they may speak evilly about him to someone else. This is politics. If we want to realize the church by the grace and mercy of God, we must speak truthfully and faithfully to the brothers. We may say to one, “Brother, in this matter I do not agree with you. I feel that you are wrong.” However, we must say this in the spirit and not in the flesh. If we are not able to say it in the spirit, we should not say it at all, but we should not pretend. We should not tell a brother that nothing is wrong and then turn around and say something different to someone else. This is falsehood. It makes the church false and not real. Then the church loses the ground to fight the battle.
We are defeated already if we speak lies to one another. If you pretend to love me, and I pretend to be nice to you, we have already been defeated by the enemy. How then can we fight the battle? We must be sincere to the saints. If we realize that a brother is unable to receive a word from us at the present time, or if we do not feel that we are fully in the spirit, we should not say anything. Do not play politics; do not be political among the Lord’s children. Of course, we should not lose our temper. We should not be angry with people, but we should be genuine.
We also need the breastplate of righteousness (v. 14b). We must be righteous; we cannot be unrighteous. If we lose our righteousness, we lose the ground to fight the spiritual battle. If we lie to one another, for example, there is falsehood and unrighteousness among us. Righteousness must be maintained among the saints in the church. Otherwise, the enemy will take the unrighteousness in the church as the weak point to attack. This is why we must deal with all unrighteous things in order to maintain the righteousness in the church. If we do not have righteousness, we do not have protection for our breast. This has much to do with the conscience. We need righteousness as a breastplate to protect our conscience. If we do not have righteousness as a covering, there will be attacks on our conscience.
Verse 15 speaks of having our feet shod with the firm foundation of the gospel of peace. Here the gospel is likened to a pair of shoes. When we walk, we touch the earth, and there are many things that can make our feet dirty or hurt them. Therefore, we need a pair of good shoes to protect our feet from being dirtied and hurt by the touch with the earth. What are the Christian’s shoes? The Christian’s shoes are the preaching of the gospel. The gospel is a good pair of shoes to protect our Christian “feet” from being dirtied and hurt by the earthly touch. Therefore, we need to preach the gospel. Wherever we go, we should tell people that we are Christians and that they must believe into Christ Jesus as the Lord. If we do this, we will be protected. We must have some outreach through gospel preaching. This is a protection to us.
The shield of faith quenches all the flaming darts of the evil one (v. 16). Most of these darts are doubts. We should give up all our doubts, not only about God but even about the believers, the brothers and sisters. The enemy constantly sends darts to make us doubt others. If we accept the darts of doubting, we will have problems with the brothers. We must always keep faith as our protection from the attack of the enemy’s darts.
The helmet of salvation is for our head (v. 17a). As we realize the church life and fight the battle, we always need to pray that the Lord will cover our head. The Lord must cover our head with His precious and victorious blood. Our head needs the covering because the head has much to do with the mind, the way of thinking. There are always the openings for the enemy to come in to attack us through the mind, the mentality. If the saints come together for only a few weeks, they will feel good toward one another, but gradually over the months and years suspicions may grow between them. We cannot say why, but the saints become suspicious without any reason. This is one example of the attack from the enemy. Other kinds of thoughts also come as darts from the enemy. Therefore, we need our head covered. We must pray that the Lord will cover our head, our mentality, our thinking, our mind. We need the helmet of salvation.
In addition to the above items, there are two weapons. The first is to exercise to contact the word by the Spirit (v. 17b). We must read the word prayerfully so it may be living, powerful, and prevailing to us. We should take the word not in dead letters but in living power. We can exercise the word as the living sword to attack the enemy. This is our offensive weapon.
The last item of the armor is the most important. This is prayer (vv. 18-19). This is not merely to pray for our small personal matters. Many good saints pray day by day only for their small matters, such as their house and pets. A certain elderly sister in my hometown prayed much for the chickens she raised. She prayed that the Lord would protect the chickens and the things that she needed to raise them. We should forget all such matters related to our family and our living. The Lord told us that our Father knows everything that we need. Rather, we should pray for the kingdom, the gospel, the church, and the Lord’s interest.
Verse 18 says, “By means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this in all perseverance and petition concerning all the saints.” Prayer is a general term, and petition is prayer in a specific way with a certain purpose. Verses 19 and 20 continue, “And for me, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known in boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in a chain, that in it I would speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” Me in verse 19 refers to the apostle, the sent one. Utterance here is the Greek word logos, meaning “word.” Our utterance is the proper, expressive word. These verses indicate that the things we must pray for are the kingdom of God, the saints of God, the gospel of the Lord, and the Lord’s interest. If, for example, we see certain things in the church, we should not talk to one another as if reporting news, providing material to gossip about. To gossip about church affairs opens the door for the enemy to come in and attack the church. The more we know something about the church, the more we need to bring it to the Lord, to touch the throne by our prevailing prayer. This is the right way to pray. If we are properly realizing the church life, we will stop all gossiping and be prevailing, living, active, and positive in prayer. We will go to the Lord to pray, to touch the throne, and to bring all problems to the throne.
We intend to practice the real church life, but there are many things involved with this. Therefore, we must give up gossiping and common talking and be positive and active in prayer. We should go to the Lord and pray by ourselves and with two or more others. We must take the ground and standing of the church, identify with the heavenly Head, and pray in a prevailing way for the church. If we see a weakness with someone, we must not talk. If we see that some of the leading ones are not adequate or qualified, we must not criticize. Rather, we should go to the Head on the throne and pray. Then the Lord will solve the problem or remove it.
We must not point to someone and say, “What kind of a leading one or elder is that?” When we criticize in this way, we damage the church life and open the way for the enemy to come in and attack the church and bring death into the Body. We are defeated by the enemy already. We lose our ground, and we damage the church very much. The only thing we must do is to bring this matter to the Head and pray, “Lord, be merciful to us and be merciful to that brother. Lord, we leave it to You what You must do.” The Lord will honor our prayer. By praying in this way, we will be those standing in the opening to shut the way for the enemy to come in to attack and damage the Body. We must simply go to the Lord and pray. If someone else has the same realization that we have, we should be one to go to the Lord to pray. Our weapon is our prayer for the matters we see and for the Lord’s servants.
We must take the ground of being in the church, in Christ, in the Spirit, and in the heavenlies. Moreover, we are not dealing with mere humans; we are dealing with the evil forces of darkness, the kingdom of the enemy. This is our real enemy. We must also remember our defenses: being girded with truth, having the breastplate of righteousness, being shod with the gospel, having the shield of faith, and putting on the helmet of salvation. We must also learn how to exercise to receive the Spirit in the word in a living way, and we must learn how to pray and petition. Many times we must pray with all kinds of prayer and petition.
The church life is a prayer life. I especially ask the leading ones among the saints to realize a real prayer life. The leading brothers must come together to pray often and pray more. Then they will help all the saints to learn to have a prayer life. To simply have a prayer meeting in the church once a week is not sufficient. The church must have a prayer life, and the leading ones must take the lead in this prayer life. All these items are the armor that we need to fight the battle. In these days the battle is not a small matter. It is not a small matter to speak about the eternal purpose and central thought of God, the church life, the testimony, and the recovery of the testimony. We cannot succeed merely by speaking or preaching. We must realize these matters by fighting and by praying.
Here are many lessons for us to learn. If the Lord is gracious to us that we may learn the lessons of realizing the Body life and the real spiritual warfare, there is no need for other teachings. This is sufficient. By this we will be exercised, disciplined, ruled, and controlled by the Lord in the spirit. We will learn all the lessons spontaneously, and there will be no need for others to teach and direct us; we will be directed already. This is the only way for us to realize the church life and have a real recovery of the Lord’s testimony on this earth, especially in this country, in these last days. This is why I am so burdened for these matters, and this is why I have kept these matters for the end of these messages.
I am waiting to see what will come of these lessons. Let us pray and look to the Lord that He will make them so real to us, so that each one of us may realize the church life and realize the real spiritual warfare for the kingdom of the Lord.
