An Impressive Word

"We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Ephesians 6:12).

Reading the above verse, I was made to realize that this conflict is a far more serious affair than we generally think it to be. It is not a matter of individual conflict with Satan only, but that the powers of darkness are marshalled to oppose the whole Church of God on earth — the "all saints," of verse 18. The Christian who is alive to this cannot have a lesser circle of interest than the whole Church, for the Church is one; and if the enemy makes a breach anywhere, he has been victorious just there.

Suppose I should stand and my brother should fall, is that nothing to me? It surely ought to be, even though I may be so limited in my affections that I am unmoved by it. If I am unmoved, it only proves that I do not know the character of the conflict, and that I am taking but little part in it.

It is by his wiles that the devil works: he allures the saints of God by what is popular. He entices them from their stand for Christ and the truth by some specious doctrine, or by some element of worldly religion that is not Christ. How he must hate the Ephesian Epistle, and one of His wiles is to make Christians think that the truth in it is too high for them.

Every man must take the armour for himself, but he must not think of himself only. He must pray for all saints, and for the telling out of the mystery of the Gospel — not the Gospel only, but the mystery of it, which is that Christ and His Church are one.

J.T.M.