By G.V. Wigram
Eph. 6: 15, 16; Luke 2: 34, 35.
No sooner does Mary know the sweetness of having this Babe, than it is told her, while she might well count herself blessed, "A sword shall pierce through thy own soul also." No sooner was He born into the world, than nothing but slaughter of babes is heard of. And so, in our hearts, no sooner is Christ there than Satan, who does not like to give up his power, brings in conflict. Some old suppressed habit will, perhaps, break out with new power. Do not be surprised if Christ has displaced Satan in you, that Satan should try to regain the mastery. We cannot stand without knowing this.
The first thought with a newly-saved soul often is: Now I have God; I have Christ for my peace; and now all will go on quietly. Instead of which we find that we have to do with a God who brings in death and resurrection on all that is in us, that we may know that the excellency of the power is of God and not of us. We are connected with the triumphant party -- with the One who has conquered; so there is peace, in spite of all that Satan can do, made good by God in the very field where Satan seemed to have triumphed.
"Your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." -- The shoe-sandal, not for strength, but for comfort. The heart uninstructed in God's ways is often tripped up, where, if it knew the ways of God -- if it understood His thoughts, it would find cause for thanksgiving.
God does not come off His own ground in dealing with us; He expects us to come on to His ground. Often when Christians get a quiet standing before the Lord, and look back on their past history, they sea how their restlessness arose from want of understanding God's way. They thought to get something for themselves; God's thought was to get something for Himself. God does indeed hold forth something good for us, but His thought is to train us to know that He has taken us up for Himself. He does not always care for us according to our own thoughts for ourselves, and then we are astonished. He told us before that it would be a desert -- a conflict -- but we have not taken in what He told us.
You know the position God has claimed for Himself. You know how He took up at Pentecost a people connected with the Lord Jesus Christ, and subject to the guidance of the Holy Ghost. You must not then make yourselves the centre of your system, but you must take in this God with whom you have to do.
"Taking the shield of faith" -- That by which all the counter movements of Satan are met. You have a wicked one to contend with. I, individually, have to compete with an enemy who has been well nigh six thousand years skilled and versed in the heart of man; an enemy who has tripped up every individual but One, because he has found in every other in the world something of which he could say: There is a tender spot in you, in which I can put a ring, and lead you captive. He has given servant of God after servant of God heavy falls, and has found but One who could bruise his head, and who will shortly bring it down bruised under our feet.
If you go into the battle thinking it is a fine scene, you will soon find out the solemn truth that Satan is against you, and will give you no quarter. He thoroughly hates Him who puts you forward in the battle; he abominates from the bottom of his soul the object God is making good through such poor worms as you or I are -- that he should have, through us, a witness for Himself on earth.
"Ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one." -- It is important to judge whence evil is. It is all in one sense from Satan; but, when in the presence of God, judging yourselves, you cannot always quietly put things off on Satan, for Christians often tempt Satan, instead of his tempting them; they often put themselves where they know there is temptation, even if Satan were out of the way. They lay the train, and invite Satan to put the spark to the tinder. They then bear the moral guilt of it before God.
We cannot calculate about fiery darts hurled by Satan. God will put up an object before a young Christian, and Satan will hang up another. You may set off thinking of God's object, and, on the way, Satan may get you off to another; and God will teach you by it. You did not know it; but perhaps you loved money -- a little bit of power -- something of that sort; and you have perhaps learned that you did by a fall. Or again: there may be some service God is going to launch a man in, and He may allow Satan to come in and try him with fiery darts, so that he may be humbled right down before Him at the first, and then may go into the work softly.
There need be no setting on fire, for the shield of faith is ours. And which is best? for God to teach us the evil of our hearts by fiery darts, or by falls which dishonour His name? Mark, I do not say it is necessary to learn your hearts in either of these ways, but you must learn them in some way, Peter learned something of his by his falls. Luther learned his, to an immense extent, by fiery darts from the enemy. The proper way is to learn them by that which comes from communion with God, and using the shield of faith. Satan stands plying his fiery darts, and the man of God stops, holds up the shield of faith, and shuts them out. The child of God in communion with his Father can say: I know what you are about. The Christian taught of God finds in God's presence what Christ is, and how Satan could not get one bit of dross out of Him, for there was none there.
Satan's ways with us are threefold. "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life." The temptation will take the form of the mind, and of the position of the person addressed.
Where is the answer to each? Is it the lust of the eye? and is my answer to be: Oh, I am to please my eye? I am to admire what is beautiful? -- When I get to the scene God tells me to admire, I will admire it. -- Is it the lust of the flesh? -- I am no debtor to the flesh to minister to it, for it is because I have this bad flesh, that will lust, that Christ died.
If you cannot get to see that your portion is not here -- that you are passing through a world that crucified Christ -- I do. Something for myself, is it? and my Lord not glorified? Oh, the power of knowing that God has taken you up for Himself! Oh, the power of a single eye enabling you to meet all that Satan can do against you! What would trouble you in your troubles if you had this thought; God has sent me here, and He would have me here -- exactly here.
A cross on one shoulder, and a cross on the other, and is there not peace? "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" God says: take that weak body. And can you not take it from Him? Fiery darts coming in thicker than hailstones, and can you not say: I will bear them all for the sake of Him who has called me to be a soldier? Would they disturb your peace, if the sense of God's having put you there were fresh in your mind?
One thing to notice is, that Satan does not make a stand with a passing shot; he will keep to it. But God does not like to be constantly troubling the quiet walk; so He will sometimes let things accumulate, and then take the soul apart to learn it all at once. So the enemy may be allowed to ply his fiery darts a long time before God will come in about it. Evil suggestions -- a sort of whispering in the ear -- sometimes it is a heresy Satan-inspired, which none but God could meet. You cannot account for many things without seeing that they come direct from Satan into the minds and mouths of persons.
EPHESIANS 6: 17, 18.
Before entering on the helmet and the sword, I desire to recall what has been said on former occasions, as to the way in which the Spirit of God shows us in the context a certain position taken up on earth by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that He has a people whom He has placed in that position, which they have to make good against the power of the adversary.
The minds of people have often been confused about this passage, by their not seeing that it is not a question of aggressive warfare, such as the work of an evangelist; but that it is the saints of God standing fast in the camp -- holding the position in which He has set them.
"The helmet of salvation" is the next thing connected with the panoply. It is important to bear the principle I have spoken of in mind in connection with this, because, in another place, the fifth of the first of Thessalonians, we find the helmet spoken of in another way. There it is: "Putting on for an helmet, the hope of salvation." A soldier may have a helmet of one kind for one position, and another for a different kind of warfare; just as the different shields that are spoken of; if standing under the wall of a besieged town, he would need the large shield to cover him completely; while in active warfare the light small one would be used.
People want to reconcile the two expressions, but they do not need to be reconciled. If you do, you rub out the distinction. It would spoil the whole, if it were said here "the hope of salvation;" because God says: I have put you to stand in a certain position; if you do not stand in it, you will be driven back from off it. Therefore it is not "The hope of salvation," but "salvation" itself which is the helmet.
What is our helmet? Just as, in connection with the feet being shod, it is the gospel of peace, so now it is the helmet consisting of salvation. The head -- the vital part -- is protected by it. It is a finished salvation; you take your position as a saved man.
But there is more than this. Just as the breastplate is not only righteousness imputed individually -- a true view but defective -- but God's righteousness in Christ; so here it is the salvation that becomes the Saviour-God; it takes in God's work, and not only meets the contingencies of my walk here. The Saviour-God has done the work. I must look up there, and see Him the centre of a new system, in which my salvation is comparatively but a small part. My head is here encircled by a glory connected with all that God is. My salvation flows from this, that He is the Saviour-God.
I have no claim or title. God says; I reckon you perfectly guiltless, because I did reckon the guiltless One guilty for your sake. I can look down on you through Him, and cannot separate the feeblest member of His body from Himself. I look down on you as those on whom descends all that He has, all that He is, and all my delight is in Him.
Most blessed, but even this is not all. God did not set Himself in movement because of what we were -- for our individual salvation. He delights Himself in salvation; and He bids us look up, and see in Him the measure of this salvation -- a salvation for eternity -- for the earth -- for the heavens -- showing out the riches of His grace, according to His eternal character as the Saviour-God.
So the apostle speaks here of the helmet of salvation, as what I know as the answer to Satan -- the answer to the world -- the answer to my own soul, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ on the throne of God as my Saviour-God.
"And the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." -- Here again we find the importance of attending to the context. The sword is mentioned in different ways in the word. In Hebrews 4: 12, 15, we have the Lord Jesus as One who has "passed through the heavens," and is on the throne to sympathize. His sympathy is with God first; and next He sympathizes with what is of the Spirit in us, not with what is of the flesh. He will not strengthen the flesh, but the Spirit.
What do you want? Do you say God's glory in you? Then He may have to put you through discipline. There are many things in your heart that He may see have to be removed, for He will ever sever between the heart and the cherished idol, and the word will be like a lancet in the hand of a surgeon to us.
Mark that in the fourth of Hebrews there is no question of the adversary as there is in Ephesians. It is Christ dealing with His people for the glory of God, looking after the people He loves, and therefore judging hearts.
In the second of Revelation we find "the sharp sword with two edges." He comes out of His place to judge, on the one hand; He will go right down to discern the "thoughts and intents of the heart." On the other hand, He will not be deceived by false testimony. In Revelation it comes in, when failure was amongst the candlesticks, to see what light they were giving, He being One whom smoke would not deceive; but, at the same time, so used to handle the sword, as to be able to give deliverance by it to any in the evil having "ears to hear."
Here, in Revelation, it is Christ outside; in Hebrews, it is Christ within the veil, judging His people; in Ephesians, it is the saint standing in testimony -- that is, in a position he has to make good. What is the use of the sword there? Much. There is the adversary against you, and you have to withstand him.
In the fourth of Matthew, in our Lord's temptation, we have the brilliant illustration of this use of the sword of the Spirit. Mark, it is before the Lord begins His aggressive work that He goes through the fiery ordeal. What grace was there in this to us! In grace Christ stood in the wilderness to measure Satan, and well he could stand in that position against the enemy. There are three things connected with it. But first, always in connection with the right use of the sword, is the single eye. Christ being led up by the Spirit to be tempted, takes His stand as a servant to defend Himself with the sword; answering always from Deuteronomy, He takes the place of the humbled One.
First, it is the lust of the flesh: "Command that these stones be made bread." Does God like His people to hunger? Thou knowest His delight in Thee, put forth thy power. Mark the answer. Ah! if it is blessedly true that there is such a thing as Jehovah's loving to feed His people, there is something more blessed still than being fed; there is the being sustained by God without it. Man does not live by bread alone; man may be without bread, but not without the word of God. Thus Satan was foiled by Christ taking the place of perfect dependence.
Next it is "the lust of the eye," and such a promise brought to back it as that "angels shall bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." But Satan garbles it, as he did to Eve. He presses home on the Lord something that the eye can see. He had got Israel down in that way: they wanted a sign. Does he never get you down thus? Do you not want something to look at, or to feel, instead of the simple word of God? If Satan come to you, and ask you to give him some visible token of God's care for you, answer him with, "Thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God." Why ask for signs -- for feelings -- when God Himself is close at hand? The emphasis of "Thou shalt not tempt" is, thou shalt not challenge God for signs. Why do I want a sign? Because I cherish lust. He says: No; thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Then Satan makes another attempt with what belongs to him. There is no sense in asking whether Satan had the power to do this, for there is no use in asking if a liar can speak the truth; it might, or it might not, be; but assuredly Satan can do nothing but as God allows it. As with Balaam, he could not curse Israel.
Satan has no power over a saint of God unless he yield it to him; could he ever succeed with a child of God who is using the sword? Never! If he succeed, it is because you have betrayed yourself into his hands. It was thus with Eve; it was thus with Israel before the calf; it is thus with the church, unfaithful likewise; and the saint unfaithful to God puts himself into the enemy's hands.
The third thing I would notice here is the "Get thee hence, Satan." He had not said this before. It is remarkably connected with the use of the sword of the Spirit. If you put yourself into a place of temptation, you have no right to say "get thee hence, Satan." If God lead you into it, as Christ was led of the Spirit, you have to bear it.
It was not when Satan was merely tempting Him that Christ uses this language, but also when God's honour was touched. When Peter took upon himself what belonged to God alone, it was: "Get thee behind me, Satan." And when Satan does this with me, then I am justified in saying the like. Satan will sometimes so turn things round, that he will go beyond himself; and then there is rescue for you; while before, you have had only to stand in the temptation -- to endure -- whilst having no power to put an end to it, at last a question comes up which does not in the least tempt your heart, that before may have been tempted; something that seeks openly to set aside God; and then without difficulty you can turn round and say: I have nothing to do with that; "get thee behind me, Satan."
All this teaches us forcibly the meaning of taking the sword of the Spirit. It is to be used in the active energy of service, but it is to be used also, if only standing on some corner of a rampart, utterly unable to go forward in anything. Even if a bedridden saint, you will not be able to make good your position, and Satan will betray you to yield, if you are not skilful in using the sword of the Spirit.
The temptation of our Lord gives us an immense amount of experience; it shows up the ways of Satan; he would throw us into a dilemma if he could. The Lord met him in the spirit of a servant -- as meaning to be a servant. Then Satan puts Him between the two horns of the dilemma; he tempts both as a servant and as God. Christ passes through and maintains both.
We are in a position to be tempted all day long to give up; and where he succeeds with us so often is through our not having a single eye -- so contrary to Christ's: "Lo, I come to do thy will."
Then, again, there is with us the want of understanding God. Some lust begins to move in our heart; we think of what we like, or of what we do not like, instead of delighting in God; and immediately we are in danger. Never so with Christ.
Closely connected with the armour is the spirit of the believer -- the spirit of dependence it must be, for with the soldier there must be prayer -- hanging upon God. Not only getting this feeding supply hourly from God to meet his need individually, and to meet that of all the church militant, but also that all his springs are in God.
"Praying always." God often puts His people into new paths -- paths unsought and unthought of by you. Why are you there? -- God would see whether you have the spirit of prayer there or not. The Red Sea is before you; the enemy behind you; then a waste howling wilderness beyond, but it is no waste howling wilderness to God. He can go through it. We learn in these new scenes how little we know of these feeding-springs in Him for us, and He would have us learn them. The question is, not as to the springs being there, but as to whether we know how to draw water from them. Sometimes, when the saint has learned the lesson, he is taken home. God says: Why should I leave him there any longer? he may go home.
"Supplication for all saints." The spirit of the camp is to be the spirit of dependence; each saint looking for -- drawing for -- all the rest, the consciousness of God's supplies being all full for every heart.
Ah, beloved friends! you cannot do without the camp. And whatever your outside position, remember you must have the spirit of dependence. You had far better be a living saint, walking in dependence on the living God, though very ignorant, than one who knows a great deal about position, and so on, but who is meanwhile double-minded and lukewarm, knowing little or nothing of this praying always" -- of the springs that are in God.
Oh, that our souls may know them to His glory!
Ephesians 6: 18-24.
The closing portion of this chapter divides itself into three parts. Prayer; interest in the details of the work in prayer; and the benediction. The great subject in which the Ephesians ought to have been interested was the glory of God; and their prayers would have flowed forth about it, in the intelligence of renewed hearts that know what to pray for.
There is such a thing as drawing near to God, conscious that there is something He has got to give. I cannot tell what, but He that searcheth the hearts knoweth.
If I am a soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is a happy thing to see the special need of the work, so as to be able to present it definitely. As to prayer, much is often passed heedlessly by; whilst in others, there is often more correctness in the heart than in the understanding.
There was no such thing as prayer in Eden; prayer is the expression of want. Directly I find a person praying, I am sure there must have been sin connected -- either with himself, or with the place he is in. The blessed Lord, when He prayed, was in the place where sin was. Paul prayed when he found out there was a God in heaven whom he knew nothing about.
The opening of the subject of prayer in Scripture is in the case of Cain. There was in him no dependence whatever upon God; but when God had pronounced his judgment, then he says: "My punishment is greater than I can bear;" he makes an appeal to God; and God takes care that nothing of what he dreaded should take place. What does Cain do with the gift he gets in answer to his appeal? He settles down quietly to make himself as happy as possible without God's presence on earth. A solemn thing this in connection with prayer; the fallen heart may appeal to God, and God give an answer, and, as the result, the heart, being unrenewed, only makes itself as happy as possible out of God's way.
Persons constantly say: I am safe, because I pray. Take care. If God says of you: "Behold he prayeth," it is well, but not otherwise. It is not a question whether God gives you gifts, but what you do with them. Is it for yourself that you use them, or for the glory of God?
Our blessed Lord took the place of one who had put in abeyance all His power -- who held Himself in abeyance! He took the place of a servant. His being able to do this proved who He was. Man cannot hold himself in abeyance, for his character is too strong for him. Sin is in, and sin will come out. Look at the Lord's prayer in Gethsemane -- the only instance of the kind, and replete with instruction for us. He goes into Gethsemane, to pass through, in solitude with God, all that was upon the threshold -- all that was coming upon Him. And what is it? "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me! nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." The Lord, holding the place of the perfect Son of man, could not forget what rested on His bearing that name -- even the question of guilt. But how was it possible, if He were perfect, for Him to think it an unimportant thing for God to hide His face from Him? He would not have been perfect if He had not shrunk from only this one thing. He did not shrink from the temptation in the wilderness; God led Him into it. But there was in this what was anguish to His soul in the very measure in which He was perfect.
Human nature, in all its perfection, may present desires before God which will not be received. On the other hand, there is such a thing as man entering into God's counsels. This comes out in Paul, where he says: "Most gladly, therefore, will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." Now, as a good man, could He do otherwise than abhor Satan's messenger? God says: I will not take it away. I give you my light to show you my reason, and leave it there to throw you upon Me. Better rudely to strand your vessel on the shore, if it make my strength perfect in your weakness; you will then pour out your heart before Me.
There never was a case like that of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul did not stand in the light of the divine counsels; that was why he did not like the thorn in the flesh. But Christ stood in the full light of the thoughts of God, and, therefore, He could not but hate that cup.
There is the flowing-out of grace through human hearts down here. It may be felt that some Christian is so walking with God as to have the ear of God. And this is a blessed thing, but there is something above it, and that is a person so walking with God that you can go to him to know what God's mind is. It is a blessed thing to have the ear of God; but how much better to feel that the sympathies of Christ are flowing through my heart, and that I can know what He is going to do.
There is none with whom the power of prayer is more remarkable than with the weakest members. A babe will get an immediate answer, whilst a father may have to wait, because he has, or ought to have, learned to trust.
If it be not on our hearts in the present day that there is a testimony to go out for God, we shall sink down into some little local interest. The apostle wanted them to care for the work going on then, not merely out of love and friendship for him, but that he wanted their souls to bear part in the work by bearing it on their hearts before God. There is an immense burden on us before the Lord, connected with this want of sympathy with what God is doing.
God, in dealing with the souls of His people, traces in His word the path for their feet, and marks out the proper subject for prayer. There may be in prayer a great deal of affection and thoughtfulness, and yet it may be all human. Persons might think God would say: Go; you pray for a wrong thing. But no; He often gives the answer, and then lets us learn by bitter experience how, if we had left it a little more to Him, He would have done far better for us. Often one is plaiting a scourge for one's own back, before one learns to place oneself as a child, and say: Take thou the lead, and I will follow. There will be pressing desires before God, and He will grant them, and let us see how we have been planning -- not for God -- but planning difficulties for ourselves. You cannot dictate to God. The blessed Lord only once said: "I will;" and then it was His Father's will.
Do you feel that there is this war going on between God and Satan, and that you are connected with it? And that your heart is out and abroad in connection with it? If it be so, it is surely a special time for prayer. There are countries all the world over that need a testimony which none but God can render, but which we, if we are like men that wait for their Lord, may have laid on our hearts to pray for them.
"Selections from the Writings and Ministry of G. V. Wigram."
