Transcribed from a message given in 1955.
The fourth chapter of the gospel by Luke, the gospel by Luke,
chapter 4:
"And Jesus,
full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led
by the Spirit into the wilderness during forty days, being tempted
of the devil. And he did eat nothing in those days: and when
they were completed, he hungered. And the devil said unto him,
If thou art the Son of God, command this stone that it become a
loaf. And Jesus answered unto him, It is written, Man shall not
live by bread alone. And he led him up, and showed him all the
kingdoms of the
world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him,
To thee will I give all this authority, and the glory of them:
for it hath been delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I
give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, it shall all be
thine. And Jesus
answered and said unto him, It is written, Thou shalt worship
the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. And he led
him to Jerusalem, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and
said unto him, If thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down
from hence: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge
concerning thee, to guard thee: and, On their hands they
shall bear thee up, Lest haply thou dash thy foot against a
stone. And
Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt
the Lord thy God. When the devil had completed every temptation,
he
departed from him for a season."
In the
letter to Timothy, the first letter, chapter 1 and verse 18:
"This charge I commit unto thee, my child Timothy, according
to the prophecies which went before on thee, that by them thou
mayest war a good warfare."
Chapter 6, verse 12:
"Fight the good fight of the faith."
And in the second letter, chapter 2, verses 3 and 4:
"Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No
soldier on service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life;
that he may please him who enrolled him as a soldier."
It is not necessary to inform you that the Christian life is a
warfare, but it is a matter concerning which we need to have a
realisation. There is a great deal of difference between knowing a
thing by way of information and realising what that thing
really means. It is a matter, therefore, for our remembrance and
for our realisation, that the Christian life is a warfare.
Moreover, the New Testament makes it perfectly clear that this
warfare is an age-long thing; it goes right on to the end of the
age. It is shown right through the New Testament to be such, and
the New Testament points on to the very end of this age, and shows
that it is characterised by spiritual warfare all the way through.
Now, the enemy, with whom we have to contend, has a very
elaborate and comprehensive and detailed tactical plan for getting
his advantage. And one of the major tactics of the enemy is to
eliminate from Christians the very element of warfare itself. That
is, to make Christians non-warring people; really to take the
element of warfare out of them, or in some way to bring them to a
state where that is completely eliminated. There are far more
spiritual casualties by not fighting than there are by
fighting. There are many who get bruised and wounded, and knocked
down temporarily in the fight, and they may be casualties for the
time being, but they get up and fight again. But the very land is
strewn with casualties who are casualties because they didn't
fight; and I say there are many more such.
To change the metaphor; I was impressed again yesterday, as I
have very often been when flying, with this fact: that when the
plane is climbing, and when it is at its altitude, and has all its
power in action, it is most steady. It goes on steadily and meets
the adverse forces in a triumphant way. But immediately the plane
is thrown into the descending position and the acceleration is
retarded, and the power is reduced the thing becomes the plaything
of the wind. You rock about and are shaken all over the place,
because this driving force has been lessened. And it is very like
that - we become the playthings of the devil; we get knocked all
over the place; yes, we become casualties when we cease to be
positive, or when something of the fighting, warring spirit is
reduced in us. That is the perilous moment in the Christian life.
And I repeat that the warring spirit in a Christian is a
great protection, and to be without it is a great peril. If we let
go fighting, satan will do the same, but he will get us in other
ways.
Of course, that's the temptation: we would not be so positive if
we could have an easier time, in a way, from the enemy. He will
let down if we do in that particular form, but he will work in
quieter and more subtle ways, and catch us; he is not giving us
up. If you want to have an easier time, and yet a no less
perilous time, stop fighting the devil! You will find that he will
follow suit. But it is, as I say, the peril of becoming a casualty
of not fighting.
If we go to Christ's temptations, these three temptations of
which we have just read, we note that the line was crossed at
Jordan, the battle was set and begun when He committed Himself to
the Cross, as symbolized in the Jordan. And when the anointing
Spirit came upon Him, that was the beginning of the battle.
Now note the nature of the warfare, as indicated by those
temptations. First of all, the attack, the assault was upon:
His Relationship with the Father.
"If
thou be the Son..." His relationship to the Father. The whole
question of 'sonship' - that's an objective of satanic assault. You
notice how the end of the account is given, "Then the devil
leaveth Him..." our version says: "for a season", but the
margin says: "until a season". He is coming back on that
again and he did come back on that, right at the end. At the hour
of greatest weakness, he came right back on that again: the whole
question of His relationship with the Father. I have no time this
morning to speak about what that relationship really means, of Son
to the Father, but I can just indicate this, that 'sonship',
by its very meaning, the very meaning of the word means that the
whole honour of the Father is involved. True sonship means the
taking up of the honour of the father. The most terrible thing
about failure in sonship, whether it be in Christ or in the
ordinary relations of life, is that it dishonours the father; it
brings reproach upon the father; it is shame heaped upon the
father - the father suffers shame by the failure of the son. And
so it was with Christ - the whole matter of the Father's honour
and the Father's satisfaction was involved, and so the enemy
focused his assault, in the first place, on that: the relationship
with the Father. Remember that is always the nature of the
warfare, of this warfare. You know it well, our relationship with
God is a focal point of constant attack and assault by the enemy,
and it will be to the end, because so much is at stake and bound
up with that relationship. The enemy is always trying to
drive a wedge between us and the Father.
And then, in the next place:
Relationship to the World.
Relationship to the world, offering Him the kingdoms of the
world, the glory and the authority, on his terms, satan's terms.
And so it became a question as to whether Christ would let go this
world as it is, and all that it had to offer, all that it had to
offer of position, of rewards, of influence, and everything that
this world could offer Him; whether He would let that go, in its
present form, to have it only on God's terms, and to win it in
God's way. You can see that that is a very real issue in spiritual
warfare, especially for young Christians. You come up against that
at once, immediately almost, you become a Christian, you are up
against this: now then, the world, or the Lord? Whether you are
going to have the world, or whether you are going to have the
Lord. It very often becomes a very clearly divided question when
you become a Christian, and you are right up against that. In very
many practical ways that presses, it presses and becomes a
warfare right on to the end. It is never, to the end of our lives,
a pleasant thing... a pleasant thing to our natures, to be
shunned by the world, discounted by the world, and to have the
world holding back its favour and its prizes, because... because we
are Christians. It has got to be settled; it comes into the
battle.
You see how hurriedly I'm passing over these things, only hinting
at them... and then, in the third place, the battle was focussed
upon:
The Relationship with the Church.
"He took Him to the pinnacle of the temple". The temple...
why didn't he take Him to the palace? Well, that is the world;
that is in another realm, or to some other place? No, it is to the
temple. The Lord Jesus had come with the object of securing His
church. And here is the issue: it is a religious one now! It's a
religious one; not the world now, it is a religious one; it's not
God now, immediately. This is something else, and here you have,
represented by the temple, the popular religion; the established
religion, the traditional religion, the formal religion - yes, and
the dead religion (but the devil doesn't say so).
And now the suggestion is made that He can
capture the religious world if only He will do this thing,
He can capture the religious world and a place in the
religious world, He can capture a reputation; He can capture
influence in that world; He can make a name for Himself in
that world; He can get applause in that world, acceptance and a
following in the religious world. But Jesus always in His life
drew a distinct line between traditional, cold, dead, formal
religion, and the living church. He committed Himself to the
church; He said: "I will build My church"; "Christ loved
the church and gave Himself for it".
Now the devil knows... he has a keen, keen sense of things;
he has an intuitive knowledge of things; he knows what that church
is destined to mean in his undoing. And so, if he could just turn
Christ away from that specific object of the church on to
something religious, as an alternative, he has scored a tremendous
victory! The relationship to the church; no Christ is not being
put off that, and don't forget dear friends, the enemy is always
trying to get us to accept something that is less than God's full thought concerning the church: to be religious, to become, yes,
formal, professional Christians; to drop down on to that
level, and to be robbed, deprived of the tremendous
significance of the Body of Christ and its destiny
in the counsels of God.
Again, I hint at this, but I want to come to another threefold
application of this. But these are three realms of the battle: in
our relationship to God, our relationship to this world, and our
relationship to the church - the battle rages on those three
points. You have got to fight it through.
But then look as to Christ personally, in Himself. First:
His Body.
The attack upon His body, and what seemed to be its claimant
need. And there is a direction, dear friends, in which the great
issue arises in the very bodily realm: whether the dictates of our
bodily, I say our physical life, are going to be paramount, or
whether the will of God is going to be paramount. Sometimes that
issue arises. That is why the apostle says: "I beseech you
to present your bodies a living sacrifice." Your
bodies a living sacrifice... because so often the body is the
thing that rises up and dictates our course; what we need for our
very physical life, it seems what is demanded; what is 'good for
us' bodily, physically. Sometimes it is a matter of the point of
rest. Oh yes, these bodies need rest, and God knows that. And
Christ took account of that with His disciples, and He knew
the need of physical rest. But there are points, I say, and times
when this whole question has got to become a spiritual one, and
not just a bodily one; where some physical weakness or some
indisposition can become the dictating thing, and we lie down
under it, accept it, and are put out of the battle. Whereas, even
then at times, not always, but at times, we are called upon to
say: "Yes, I don't feel very fit, I don't feel very well; the body
seems to say I ought to do this, that, and the other, but
there is some spiritual issue at question, and therefore I lay
hold on Life." I lay hold on Life! And it's so often,
is it not true, that when we stand on our feet, and gird ourselves
to that very physical battle, the Life comes in, and we do what we
would not have done if we had given way to the body. You see the
point; it was a question then, at that time, as to whether
the body was going to dictate or the Spirit, or the Lord, the
Father.
The realm of the body... then, in the realm of:
The Soul.
As I pointed out, this offering of the kingdoms of the world, was
an appeal to His soul. Ambition! Ambition... oh the terrible
tragedies of ambitiousness in this world! Parent's for their
children... parent's ambition for their children has so often
devastated the spiritual life of children. And our
ambition in this world to get somewhere; to get to the top of the
ladder, to be something, to make a name, and every other form of
our own 'natural' life, our selfhood. And this was an
appeal to selfhood, you see, selfhood in this world - reputation,
name, position, influence, fame, success, prosperity, getting on -
all that was involved in this. Well, there is nothing wrong,
nothing wrong with doing a good job of work in this world, and of
getting on, but if it is at the cost of doing the Father's will,
and if it is at the suggestion of the devil, and the drawing out
of our own soul or self-life, there is an infinite peril bound up with that and we have got to fight this
thing out; get really to this and fight out this issue. What is it
that really is dictating? Is it my own selfhood? Is it my own
soul, or really is that all subject to what God wants for my life?
And that is very often a very keen battle, isn't it?
And then as to His Spirit... His Body, His Soul,
His Spirit.
The whole question of worship governs this whole temptation
doesn't it? Worship, in spirit... the spirit is that part of us
where God gets worship. "God seeketh true worshippers who worship
Him in spirit", not the body, not the soul, but the
spirit. Paul said: "Whom I serve in my spirit".
The enemy will do anything to get us off the ground of that
essential and ultimate relationship with God in
our spirit; anything to draw us away from that. You and I
have got to learn more and more, keenly and clearly, what it means
to walk in the spirit, and to have our life with God by
our spirits - not by our feelings, our emotions, our own desires,
our own reasonings, and not by the governing influences of this
world at all; but with God, in the innermost part of our
being with God.
Now, you see how from that very moment that was a primary issue
in the life of the Lord Jesus Himself. All the way through, from
this committal at Jordan, and from this battle, this fundamental
and inclusive battle in the wilderness, His life was based upon
this: Would He be influenced by other considerations, or would He
walk with the Father in an internal way, in His heart? See how
that arose again and again; the enemy was trying to cut in there,
to get His life upon some other basis than upon the basis of His
inner fellowship with the Father. Much could be said could it not... what we realise about the battle that rages there to get us off
this ground.
But all this raises one big question: what is going to prevail?
The enemy comes along physical lines, he comes along emotional
lines, he comes in all these different ways, but there is one
issue in it all. It is a battle: who is going to prevail, and what
is going to prevail? The Lord Jesus came back every time to the
devil with what the Father had made known as to His will. After
all "It is written". He was saying in other words: "God has
said..." "God has said..." "God has said!" "I know what God
has said." And that's the thing, that is the final word in this
battle. That's the argument; not the argument even of my physical
needs and conditions; not the argument of my well-being in this
world at all; but... the argument of my inward life with God.
That's the battle ground!