"For
though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to
the flesh (for the weapons of our warfare are not of the
flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of
strongholds); casting down imaginations, and every high
thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and
bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of
Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)
We wish to consider the matter of mentality in relation
to our great spiritual warfare. The marginal alternative
to "casting down imaginations" is "casting
down reasonings" and William Barclay renders this
"destroying plausible fallacies". In any
warfare there are perils and threats to victory where
there is a wrong mentality. On the other hand, the
warrior has a tremendous advantage when he is of a right
mentality. What are the plausible fallacies which must be
destroyed if we are to share in Christ's victory?
A
WRONG MENTALITY AS TO THE HIGHER COMMAND
The first
consideration in warfare is that of the Supreme Command.
When we consider the Church as the fighting army we
realise how important it is that there should exist no
wrong mentality concerning the Lord Jesus who is the
Supreme Commander. One aspect of a wrong mentality
concerning Him is this: that He is One from whom we GET
everything, instead of the One to whom we GIVE
everything. There is a great danger of always thinking in
terms of what we are to get from Headquarters, of what
advantages are to accrue to us, of drawing toward
ourselves; in effect - although we would never admit this
- really putting ourselves, our interests, in the place
of those of the Supreme Command. That is how it works
out.
It is just at this point that "popular"
Christianity has done a great deal of harm. Christianity
has been put on a wrong basis, or perhaps to be a little
more charitable, upon an inadequate basis, and the
preaching is almost exclusively in terms of what we are
to GET. We are to get salvation; we are to get
eternal life, peace, joy and satisfaction - all this and
Heaven too! But the emphasis is so largely upon what we
are to get from the Lord Jesus, our Supreme Commander. It
is at least an inadequate mentality, if not an altogether
wrong one when it is made a principle; it is a
misinterpretation of the whole Christian life. The right
mentality - and the only one that is going to serve the
great purpose and to minister to the great objective - is
the mentality that is governed by the principle:
"Give everything to the Lord" and not "Get
everything from the Lord".
This is the governing principle of the Godhead, that to
give is the way of fulfilment. In the case of the Lord
Jesus, that is made very clear in one classic passage
where we are told that He "...emptied himself...
Wherefore also God highly exalted him..."
(Philippians 2:7-9). Fulfilment, the restoration of His
voluntarily laid aside fullness, came to Him along the
line of emptying, giving, pouring out. That is the
principle of the Godhead, and it should be the mentality
of all who are engaged in the great spiritual warfare. We
shall be knocked about, brought up short and defeated if
we are all the time thinking in terms of what should come
to us. The self-centred life is always the discontented
life.
But the out-going life is the life of abundant return -
it all comes back. "Give, and it shall be given unto
you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running
over" (Luke 6:38). Those are the words of the Lord
Jesus. Do you want eternal possessions? The way to
receive is to give. We must not think only of the Lord
Jesus in terms of receiving from Him, as though He were
only there for our benefit. Those who have this mentality
may feel that He is not giving as they expected, so they
lose interest and become paralysed in the battle, useless
as fighters and powerless as servants. The true mentality
about the Supreme Commander is that He should receive the
honour and the glory, the dominion and the power, and
everything. It is true that He will give and go on giving
eternally, our relationship must be not on the basis of
what WE can get but of how much He is going to get
from us.
A
WRONG MENTALITY AS TO THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
Secondly,
there are the perils of wrong ideas about the Christian
life. There is a prevalent idea that this is merely a
matter of being saved and blessed. For many, salvation
and personal blessing are the sum of the Christian life,
a mentality which is sometimes encouraged by preachers
and leaders. The Word of God makes it perfectly clear,
however, that this life is something far more. We need to
realise that the Christian life involves being actively
engaged in the great conflict of the elemental forces of
this universe.
That is the issue. Long, long ago, something tremendous
was set in motion; and ever since then, down through the
centuries, the great purpose of God has been challenged
and disputed. All through these generations the people of
God have given themselves in relation to that one great
battle in the universe; and it still goes on - the battle
is not over yet. The real nature of the Christian life is
that you and I, immediately we become related to the Lord
Jesus Christ, are called into this spiritual conflict. We
are involved in what I have called the ultimate elemental
forces of the universe in conflict. This means no less
than that the whole hosts of the kingdom of God and of
heaven are on one side, while on the other side is the
vast and vicious kingdom of Satan.
Do not have any illusions about the Christian life. The
Lord Jesus did not allow His disciples to harbour any
illusions: "Whosoever doth not bear his own cross,
and come after me, cannot be my disciple" (Luke
14:27). "Whosoever would save his life shall lose
it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, the
same shall save it" (Luke 9:24). That is frank and
straight-forward. This is what we are in! It is a great
privilege to be in it, but we should have no wrong
mentality about the costliness of the honour. There IS
joy and there IS peace. Thank God for all the
blessings. We need, though, to recognise and adjust to
the fact that we are in a battle, a fierce and
unrelenting battle; a warfare from which there is no
discharge in this life.
A
WRONG MENTALITY AS TO THE CHURCH
Thirdly,
there can be wrong ideas about the army itself, that is
the Church. The Church is the army, but it would be a
wrong mentality to imagine that the Church is the end and
object of everything. We are accustomed to say much about
the greatness of the Church and we do not exaggerate when
we do so. We speak of it in superlative terms as,
"God's masterpiece" and we are right to do so.
We are encouraged by the Word of God to think of the
Church of Christ as something great and wonderful, even
magnificent. It is a wonderful conception in the mind of
God from all eternity; it has a very large place in the
divine counsels; and it is to be at last presented to the
Lord Jesus as a glorious Church. All this is true.
But when it has all been said, it must still be affirmed
that the Church is not God's ultimate objective and end;
it is, after all, no more than the instrument. It is but
the vessel, the agent for God's purposes. There is
something far beyond. It is perhaps the greatness of the
Church that it plays such a part in the
"super-greatness" of that object which it lives
to serve. We must not think that we have to live only and
utterly for the Church. We have to remember that, just as
the army does not exist for itself, nor campaign in the
field for itself, but in the interests of its sovereign
and his kingdom, so the Church exists and engages in
warfare solely for the glory of the Lord on the throne,
and for His kingdom. If we have faulty ideas in this
matter, we will find that they constitute a weakness. If
we put the Church in the place of Jesus Christ, we will
find ourselves in trouble with the Holy Spirit. That is
not in any way to displace or to belittle the Church, but
only to insist that the Church exists for Christ. All our
Church conceptions and procedures should be governed by
the fact that everything must be for Christ's sake. We
must never regard these as being ends in themselves, but
only to minister to the satisfaction of our Supreme
Commander.
A
WRONG MENTALITY AS TO MINISTRIES
We next
come to the matter of functioning in God's army, which is
the way in which we may well describe the ministries
within the Church. It is important to correct any wrong
mentality concerning the real meaning and value of
ministries. Is ministry just a question of imparting
knowledge and information? No, true ministry is something
more than mere teaching. We are an army in the field, and
what is needed in a day of battle is not lectures but
provision for the actual need in which we are found.
Do you see the point? Here is the background of conflict.
From time to time the Supreme Commander visits the
various positions, gathers the staff together and reviews
the situation. He assembles all his men and talks to
them. But the scene is a scene of battle. It is a time of
war and not of peace. The conditions prevailing are war
conditions; the scene and circumstances are those of
actual war. Why does he gather the men around? To give
them lectures on the theory of military life? Not a bit
of it! He calls them together in order to give help and
instruction on how to meet the existing and immediate
situation; to direct as to how to cope with that which
confronts them at that moment.
That should be the nature of all our meetings and our
ministry. We ought all the time to be a people on a war
footing, ready to face emergencies, perils and dangers.
If we had that mentality, that we really are in the thick
of the battle, our meetings would serve much greater
purposes, our ministry would be of far greater value. Our
meetings must at all costs be redeemed from being just
sessions of theory. We can reach saturation point as to
doctrine and be unable to absorb any more. But if we are
conscious of being right up against things and needing
help, then we will find the help we seek. We ought to be
at our meetings on this footing: "I need it; I
cannot do without it; my situation demands it". If
there is no demand, then the supply will be valueless.
Our meetings and our ministry must represent a provision
for actual need.
And if we are in earnest, the Lord will see to it that we
are in need. He will make things very practical, very
real. He will see to it that our Christian lives are
constantly brought up against new needs. Do not worry or
think that things have gone wrong, if you find yourself
up against a situation for which you have no answer. Our
progress can only be on the basis of growing need.
Immediately that stops, we stop. We go no further than
our sense of need - our very acute sense of need. Blessed
be God! He only allows this ever pressing sense of need
in order that the need may be supplied.
All ministry must have a practical background, both for
giving and receiving. May God save those of us who
minister from ministering just theories or sermon
material. That which is ministered must be born out of
experience and actuality in life. The ministry must not
consist in searching out subject matter, putting it
together and then retailing it as addresses. It must be
born out of life, right up to date. And there must be an
active exercise on both sides - in those who minister and
in those who receive the ministry. There must be action
about it. There must be, on the part of all, a very
serious quest, the seriousness of which is born of the
desperateness of the situation; the realisation that
unless we have this knowledge from the Lord, unless we
have new life from Him, we will go under in the battle
and cede victory to the enemy. That is the nature of
those "councils of war", those meetings with
the Supreme Commander, to which we sometimes gather. They
are just that we may be equipped for our job - and our
job is fighting. Whenever we meet it should be to get
equipment for our very life work which is now on hand.
A
WRONG MENTALITY AS TO OTHERS
Lastly we
come to wrong ideas concerning the other personnel in the
army - the other people in the Church. We have many wrong
ideas about one another. You know how easy it is to be
selective, to look at the other man or woman and to write
them off as not counting for much. That is very
dangerous. Our kind of selectiveness, our judgment of
people, may sabotage the whole movement. And what about
ourselves? Where would you be, where would I be, if the
Lord had been very particular that we should be exactly
of the right stature and have full qualifications for His
work? I know where I would be if He were so particular; I
would be disqualified from any part in the ministry or
warfare.
We must be very careful, too, that we do not contemplate
others as competitors or rivals who are seeking to get an
advantage over us. We must not be "touchy"
about our own position and our own rights, becoming
explosive if someone else is put before us, or seems to
have been given favourable treatment instead of us. It is
a horrible thing to think of such an attitude among
Christians, but it happens only too easily. By taking
personal offence, because of something that has been done
that seems to be placing us at a disadvantage, we can be
put out of the fight altogether and count for nothing in
the battle. In such a situation, whether we judge
ourselves to be in the right or wrong, our attitude must
be this: "Lord, I am YOURS, I am YOUR
man, I am in this just for YOU. Men can do what
they like - put me out, put others over my head, whatever
they like. That is between You and me, Lord, and between
You and them." If you allow yourself to take offence
and harbour a grievance, then the enemy can gain an
advantage and you will become a casualty. You may as well
be carried off on a stretcher straight away!
We need to remind ourselves that a favourite manoeuvre of
our enemy is to get amongst us and make us look at one
another and misjudge one another. What is the use of an
army like that - with its men suspecting and mistrusting
one another? What a sad state of affairs! The word is:
"Casting down imaginations" - and if we only
knew the truth we should discover that our grievances are
not real but based on imaginations. This is the clever
manoeuvre of the enemy. The counter to it is found in the
passage which speaks of casting down such imaginations,
"and bringing every thought into captivity... to
Christ". Failure to do this may affect the whole
issue of the battle. Lay hold of those thoughts about
other fellow soldiers and bring them into captivity to
Christ. Make sure that you are right, and even if you are
right, be prepared to forgive, to be charitable, and
above all not to make a personal issue of it.
A
WRONG MENTALITY AS TO OURSELVES
How prone
we are to have wrong ideas about ourselves. Paul said:
"I say... to every man that is among you, not to
think of himself more highly than he ought to think"
(Romans 12:3). What ought we to think of ourselves? In
the light of God's grace, mercy and love and in the light
of God's holiness, what ought we to think of ourselves?
Paul continues: "so to think as to think soberly,
according as God hath dealt to each man a measure of
faith". That is, if we may take another saying of
Paul's out of its context, "according to the measure
of the gift of Christ" (Ephesians 4:7). The measure
of our self-esteem will be in inverse proportion to the
measure of Christ that we have. How much of Christ have
we received? Well, if we have a super-abundance of
Christ, if we have more of Christ than anyone else, we
shall not think highly of ourselves at all. The more we
have of Christ, the less we shall think of ourselves or
want to talk about ourselves. The less we shall want to
be in the limelight.
What ravages such a wrong mentality could make in an
army. Just imagine what would happen if its men thought
more highly of themselves than was right and despised
their fellows. It would play right into the hands of the
enemy. Our safety lies in "thinking soberly".
In this great battle it matters very much that we think
of ourselves as we ought to do, and that is, in a related
way. An army depends upon its units. The whole can suffer
through the weakness of the individual. We can
overestimate our personal importance or we can
underestimate our related significance. To think of
ourselves as we ought to think will mean not to err in
either direction.
From
"Toward The Mark" Jul-Aug 1978, Vol. 7-4.