Thank you, sir, for clarifying that matter of
my skipping a chapter in the epistle.
I thought afterward, perhaps some people may have
thought he doesn't know how to count to
have left one of the chapters out and
yet have another session, but I do want
to bring something different tonight in the closing
message, and so you'll forgive us for just
omitting that one chapter in the book of
Ephesians.
I'm asking you to turn this morning to
the last chapter, chapter 6, and I wish
to read, so that we may have it
fresh in our thinking, the verses found from
10 toward the end of the chapter, Ephesians
6, beginning with the 10th verse.
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord
and in the power of his might.
Put on the whole armor of God, that
you may be able to stand against the
wiles of the devil.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,
but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers
of the darkness of this world, and against
spiritual wickedness in high places.
Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of
God, that you may be able to withstand
in the evil day, and having done all,
to stand.
Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with
truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness,
and your feet shod with the preparation of
the gospel of peace.
Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith
you shall be able to quench all the
fiery darts of the wicked one.
And take the helmet of salvation, and the
sword of the Spirit, which is the word
of God, praying always with all prayer and
supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with
all perseverance and supplication for all saints, and
for me, that utterance may be given unto
me, that I may open my mouth boldly
to make known the mystery of the gospel,
for which I am an ambassador in bonds,
that therein I may speak boldly as I
ought to speak.
I'll stop there.
I didn't know how else to stop because
Paul is inclined to write such long sentences.
And there's another long one, but at last
you arrive at a period so you can
stop.
This thought just goes on and on and
on.
In this section of the epistle, and following
out our little imagery that the book of
Ephesians may be likened to the alpine peaks
of Switzerland, it suggests to me, this particular
passage, that if one is going to attain
to the heights, that is, if you seriously
determine that you're going to claim for yourself
all that we've been looking at and observing
and learning that is ours by divine right
and promise, but if you seriously say, by
God's grace, I intend to be dissatisfied with
anything less than the highest and the richest
experience God has for me, I want to
warn you in advance that it will not
be an easy thing to attain.
Mountain climbers soon learn that to attain a
peak, often times, and I'm talking now about
some of the mountains here in our eastern
part of the country which we boldly claim
are mountains, really become somewhat like foothills compared
to some of the great peaks of the
earth.
I'm talking about one of the great mountain
peaks, famous peaks of our world.
They learn pretty soon that sometimes as they're
observed down in the valley, they seem to
be pretty clearly outlined, and they learn after
a while to study very carefully the weather
because when they reach a certain height, and
sometimes it's almost at the peak, the mountains
are a bit capricious, and they seem to
say, I dare you to try to conquer
me.
I simply dare you, and I'm going to
make it difficult for you, and it isn't
long before mountain climbers discover that the peaks
are enshrouded with cloud and mist and fog,
and sometimes what doesn't appear in the valley
is true in the heights.
It's a stormy brand of weather, and you
have to fight in order to conquer foot
after foot until you reach the peak.
I don't know whether you have ever read
the story of the conquering of Mount Everest
by Sir Edmund Hillary.
Unfortunately, somebody loaned me the book in the
evening, and I never got it.
I couldn't put it down until about three
o'clock in the morning.
I simply was fascinated and hypnotized by the
story, and I found myself so identifying with
Hillary as he climbed Mount Everest that there
were times when I was gasping for breath.
I found that it was hard to breathe
because I was gasping along with him as
the atmosphere became rare.
I could feel the stinging blasts of the
snows and the winds as they blew.
It's a magnificent story.
If you want to get intrigued by it,
get the story of the conquering of Mount
Everest.
Well, I say again, I think Paul is
trying to warn us here in this passage
that if we're going to attain unto the
peaks, if we're going to dare to claim
the very highest and best that God has
for us, we must expect a battle.
We must expect conflict.
It will not be easy.
You remember maybe in the Old Testament that
crusty old character, one of my favorites, Caleb,
who the companion of young Joshua, when finally
the land was conquered or nearly conquered, it
came time to sort of divide up the
spoils.
And on his 85th birthday, in fact I
was almost inclined to speak on Caleb tonight,
but I thought you don't want to hear
about Caleb tonight, you want to hear about
something else.
But 85, I often say, when does life
begin?
Some people say 40, nonsense.
For a lot of people, it doesn't begin
until 85.
Some of the most exciting experiences of one's
life can yet be ahead.
It was so with Caleb.
And Joshua, you remember, was portioning out the
land and I imagine for his old crony's
sake, he said, I've got a nice juicy
piece for you, Caleb.
You can retire there.
I'll call it Park of the Palms.
And there you can settle under the palm
trees.
You can put your flocks out where there's
abundant pasture.
There's a lot of water.
You can take it easy for the rest
of your life.
He said that, I think, in between the
lines to old Caleb.
And as I envisioned it, Caleb looked at
him with a glint in his eye and
he said, hold it, Joshua, just a minute.
You remember when we were young and we
came up here to spy out the land?
I was only about 40 years old when
that happened.
Today's my birthday.
I'm 85 today.
And I'm just as strong today as I
was then.
I think it was a little braggadocio, the
old man.
He was bragging a little bit.
But it's significant that no youngsters took him
on.
He said, I'm 85 and I'm ready to
go in and out and I'm ready to
fight too.
Don't you give me that soft chunk of
land to retire on.
Thank you for your interest.
But I've had my eye on Mount Hebron.
I picked it out when I first came
up here and I'm going to have that.
That's my inheritance.
And somebody said, but Caleb, don't you understand
that that mountain that you claim for yourself
is occupied by giants, the Anakins, the sons
of Anak are there.
And that didn't make a single bit of
difference to Caleb.
He said, if so be the Lord is
with me as he's been all along, I
am able to drive out the sons of
Anak.
And he did.
He made Hebron his inheritance.
He claimed it.
He conquered it.
He occupied it, but not without a battle.
He had to fight the Anakins and drive
them out.
And it's a strange thing, but in the
Christian life, when one becomes serious about being
all God wants you to be, and who
wants to settle for anything less than that,
really?
But when you say, I will not settle
for a mundane, ordinary kind of Christian life,
unless that's specifically what God wants from me,
but I want all God has for me.
I want all of that.
And by His grace, I claim it.
Then, friend, face this fact.
You will discover that maybe the greatest struggle
of your Christian life will ensue.
And Paul is here saying, I've shown you
the peaks.
Now, if you dare to climb these peaks
and claim what's up there for you in
Christ, you will find that you are involved
in a vicious battle with a cunning, subtle
enemy.
And that's why he implores them to put
on the whole armor of God for this
battle.
Don't leave out a piece.
And then, having done all, stand and remember
the nature of your enemy.
There was a lady who wrote a remarkable
exposition of the book of Ephesians.
I think it's still in print.
It was out for a while, but it's
back in print now.
Ruth Paxson was a very gifted lady Bible
teacher.
In fact, she occupied the platform many times
in English Keswick, and that was a great
honor for a woman especially.
But she was a very gifted lady, and
she's written a book on Ephesians, which is
a fine exposition of the epistle.
And the title is a little long, but
she calls it The Walk, Wealth, and Warfare
of the Christian.
That's the title of the book.
And her thesis is this, that we have
an enemy who will oppose us at every
turn of the road, our adversary.
And while we're here on the earthlies, and
our life is in the heavenlies, then we
have to face a very powerful foe.
And what he will do is this.
He will seek to decoy us from our
walk.
And secondly, she says, he will seek to
despoil us of our wealth.
And at last, he will seek desperately to
defeat us in our warfare.
That's why she calls it The Walk, Wealth,
and Warfare of the Christian.
Satan does seek to decoy us from our
walk.
He'll keep us from walking in love, from
walking in light, from walking in truth, if
he can.
He'll find ways, subtle ways, to get us
detoured from a straight walk.
And then he will also seek to despoil
us of our wealth.
He'll keep you poor if you choose to
live a poor life.
He'll rob you of your inheritance if he
can do so.
He'll make you feel that you simply cannot
have all these riches.
They're not meant for you.
And so he'll have you groveling in the
dust when you could be living in the
heights.
And then he seeks desperately to defeat us
in our warfare.
And it is a warfare that we're involved
in.
And here Paul says that it's a wrestling
match.
And indeed it is.
If you won't tell anybody, I'll tell you
something.
You promise?
About me.
And I'm certain that I will now reduce
whatever opinion you may have had of me
another notch or two after I tell you
this one little secret about me.
Do you know what my favorite television program
is when I look?
The wrestling matches.
Ah.
You say, how can you, sir?
How can you?
Don't you know they're fake?
I know, but that's not ketchup that's running
down their faces sometimes.
And the gorier it is, and the wilder
it is, and the meaner it is, the
more I enjoy it.
Now maybe it's because there's a streak in
me of meanness that comes to the surface
and I'm vicariously enjoying letting it out.
It's a horrible thing.
I'm not encouraging you to look at the
modern American wrestling.
It's not wrestling.
It's mayhem.
It is murder.
And I must say seriously, I think there
has rather recently been an injection of demonic
activity and emphasis.
So I'm ashamed a little bit, but I
still am fascinated.
So much so that my boys on one
occasion, and I argue with them.
I say, give it to him.
What's the matter with you, referee?
Are you blind?
I'm talking to him on the television set.
What's the matter with you, ref?
Can't you see what he just said?
Where is there fairness, man?
And here I am preaching while I'm watching
this misery.
And so my boys got the notion, we've
got to record this for posterity.
So they hid a microphone under my chair
one night and ran a wire out there
in the back and put a recorder on.
And then they with glee sat out there
and said, we'll get this and we'll play
it back to dad.
And he'll be so ashamed of himself, maybe
he'll stop looking.
But at any rate, I sat there and
there was silence, dead silence for 20 long
minutes, which was unusual because I nearly always
argued, shouted, and hurrahed when my favorite won
and growled when my unfavorite won and all
that.
And they won all that.
Why was it so silent?
They peeked in.
They thought I'd fallen asleep.
No, it happened to be one of those
nice, clean Marquis of Queensbury rules matches.
It was all fair.
There was no gouging.
There was no miserable meanness.
And so there was no point in saying
anything.
And my poor boys got defeated in their
subtle plot to record me forever in my
meanest moments.
But let me say something to you.
This match, this battle that we're involved in
and will be involved in in our Christian
life is not an artillery duel.
It's not 30 miles away where you can't
even see the enemy and you fire a
shell and work it out, calibrate it, and
hope that it will hit somewhere near the
enemy, whoever he is, wherever.
No, no, no.
That's not the kind of battle we're involved
in.
We're involved in a wrestling match.
And the very word that Paul uses here,
we wrestle not, infers all that is involved
in the body contact, eye upon eye, muscle
against muscle, bone against bone, where there's no
holds barred.
If anything, what is implied here is all
the meanness and unfairness that is exhibited in
our modern wrestling matches today is all involved
here.
Make no mistake about it, my Christian friend,
we're not involved in a Sunday school picnic.
It's warfare.
If you don't feel that, if you haven't
experienced it, where have you been, soldier, when
the battle's on?
The minute you decide that you're going to
do something unusual for God, the minute you
say, I claim in Christ that, the enemy
will say, try and get it.
I'm going to make it difficult, so difficult
that you'll get discouraged and quit.
The Christian life is not a Sunday school
picnic.
Indeed, it's a victorious experience, but it's a
vicious battle against the ugly forces of hell.
Phillips, in his translation, says this, For our
fight is not against any physical enemy, it
is against organizations and powers that are spiritual.
We are up against the unseen power that
controls this dark world and spiritual agents from
the very headquarters of evil.
That's how he translates this passage.
It's frightening, frightening indeed.
There it is, the P.
Claim it, want it, listen to the howling
winds, feel the bite of cold, gasp at
the scarcity of oxygen.
And just when you think you've made it,
there's another blast against you.
And if you allow it, you'll get discouraged
and say, I have to turn back.
I can't do it.
It's not for me.
I'll go back to the valley and live
that ordinary kind of life that I've been
living.
No, you mustn't.
We have to face the fact that it's
a bitter and terrible battle.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, there's just a thin
veil between us and that unseen world.
Very thin veil.
If now and again we feel we'd like
to pierce it, and there's a whole vast
universe of reality beyond our senses that we
sense here in this little sphere in which
we live.
World rulers of this darkness, Paul calls them.
Principalities and powers, he describes them.
Spiritual wickedness in high places.
What a frightening description of our opposition.
Now, the whole Bible, the Old Testament especially,
will verify the reality of this thing.
For a moment, may I ask you to
go back to the book of Daniel where
there's a rather remarkable revelation of the reality
of what I'm talking about.
Daniel chapter 9, the chapter opens with Daniel
exercised because while he was captured as a
young man in his early teens, probably not
more than 13 or 14, 15 years of
age at most, captured and taken into Babylon
when the Jews were dispersed under the Babylonians,
he has lived all the way through the
whole Babylonian regime.
Nebuchadnezzar's son now, Belshazzar, he's fallen, and the
Babylonian kingdom has now been taken over by
a whole new dynasty.
The Persians have dethroned the Babylonians, and that
means that there's a whole new regime.
And Daniel's probably saying, we Jews haven't done
too badly under Nebuchadnezzar, nor had they.
They've been well treated.
Daniel himself occupied a most prominent place in
the politics of the Babylonian empire.
He was third in line, third ruler, a
Jew, respected highly.
So the Jews had fared pretty well.
What was concerning Daniel now was, what's going
to happen to my people under this new
regime?
How are they going to treat us?
And so exercised, he found himself driven to
two things.
When you become deeply exercised, you always seek
out two sources of relief, the word of
God and prayer.
And so he opened the scriptures, and he
was reading Jeremiah's prophecy.
And when he read Jeremiah's prophecy, Jeremiah said
specifically, at the end of 70 years, he
named the number 70 years, the Lord is
going to restore his people, bring them out
of captivity, and bring them back to their
land.
And as Daniel read that, he said to
himself, you see, it was the 31st of
December, I guess, New Year's Day was coming
up.
And he was saying to himself, wait a
minute, how old am I?
I'm 84, huh?
84.
14 I was when they captured me.
I've been here among these Babylonians for 70
years.
That's exactly what the prophet talked about, 70
years.
Oh Lord, you're letting me live to see
the fulfillment of this prophecy?
I'm going to see this literally fulfilled.
Are you going to do what you promised?
Bring back your people?
Oh, glory to God.
But we're not worthy.
And Daniel begins to pray.
And the first section of Daniel 9 is
Daniel's prayer.
And it's a prayer of contrition and confession
and admission before God that this people, and
he too, are totally unworthy of this mercy
about to be exhibited.
I used to take this prayer and make
students in my class in homiletics in the
Bible college, I'd make them read it, I'd
assign them publicly before the whole class to
see how they read this prayer, see where
they could have put any meaning into it
and so on.
And you know, friends, I want to say
something to you, that when Daniel prayed this
prayer, and there may have been long periods
in between when he couldn't say anything, it's
an emotional prayer.
It is one of the most emotional in
the Old Testament.
He's crying out until he comes to the
end.
Look at verse 19.
Is this not a man in the agony
of prayer who cries, Oh, Lord, hear.
Oh, Lord, forgive.
Oh, Lord, hearken and do.
Defer not for Thine own sake.
Oh, my God, for Thy city and Thy
people are called by Thy name.
Here's a man in agony.
Now, maybe there were periods, many minutes in
between those phrases, but you can read that
prayer.
If you don't hurry through it, no matter
how slowly you read it, you'll never take
more than 15 minutes to do it.
Never.
In fact, you can do it in about
five or six.
Now, what happens?
What's this all about?
Well, Daniel's still praying before he gets around
to saying Amen.
While I was speaking and praying and confessing
my sin and the sin of my people
and presenting my supplications before the Lord my
God, yea, even while I was still speaking
in prayer, he emphasizes it, the man, Gabriel,
whom I had seen at the vision in
the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched
me about the time of the evening oblation,
and he informed me and he talked with
me and he said, Daniel, I am now
come forth to give thee skill and understanding.
At the beginning of thy supplication, the commandment
came forth, and I am come to show
thee, for thou art greatly beloved, therefore understand
the matter, consider the vision.
You've been wondering about the immediate future of
your people.
I'm going to pull back the curtain and
let you see the long range feat of
your people.
And there is now revealed in the next
few verses one of the greatest, grandest, most
important segments of Bible prophecy to be found
anywhere in the Holy Word of God.
That's 70 weeks of Daniel, see.
But, please note this, when Daniel started to
pray, up in heaven, where is heaven?
Is it a place?
I am convinced that it's a place, as
well as a condition.
We have heaven down here on earth, a
little kind of a smidgen of it, but
it's still a real place.
It's where God dwells.
I don't know exactly where it is.
It seems to be, if we follow through
Paul's experience, the third heavens where God's throne
is, where he was caught up and saw
things he wasn't allowed to write about and
talk about.
If that be so, it has been suggested
that the first layer of the heavens is
what we see when we move out on
a cloudy day, the clouds, or on a
clear night the stars up there.
And then beyond that is the second heavens,
the planets and the stars, and somewhere beyond
all of that is the throne of God.
How far away is it from here?
I don't rightly know.
I haven't any idea.
But if it is beyond the stars, now
we've got a staggering thought.
Gabriel is God's Western Union boy.
Did you know that?
He runs errands for the Lord.
Whenever God wants a special errand run, Gabriel,
are you ready?
Boom, he's off and running.
And God gave a commandment.
Daniel prayed down in the palace, and God
heard up in heaven, what's the fastest thing
known to man?
They tell us it is the speed of
light.
And how fast does light travel?
A little bit more than 186,000 miles
per second.
And it went 186,000.
Multiply.
If you want to know how far a
beam of light travels in terms of miles
per year, you've got to get a big
piece of paper and start multiplying.
You take 186,000 and multiply that by
60, and then multiply that by another 60,
and multiply that by 24, and then multiply
that by 365, and you'll come up with
5,865,696,000,000 miles.
That's how far in terms of miles a
beam of light travels in one year.
And now the astronomers come and tell us
that the nearest fixed star to us is
40 light years away.
So that's 186,000 times 60 times 60
times 24 times 365 times 40.
But they say that's so close, if you're
not careful, you'll get starburn.
And so they tell us that out there
are some stars that are 500,000 light
years away.
How far is that in terms of miles?
That's 186,000 times 60 times 60 times
24 times 365 times 500,000.
Pretty far.
And Gabriel is there, and Daniel says, Oh
God!
And God heard him right away.
The fastest thing known to man is not
light, it's prayer.
Prayer.
God hears in heaven right away.
Even a feeble cry He hears.
But here's the fascinating thing.
In the ninth chapter of this book, Gabriel
comes all the way from God's side to
Daniel's side in less than 15 minutes.
Man, that's moving.
That's moving.
Turn the page to chapter 10.
A vastly different story.
In chapter 10, you have Daniel in trouble.
It's the third year now of Cyrus, king
of Persia.
And God reveals something to Daniel.
And Daniel 10.2 says, In those days
I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks.
I ate no pleasant bread, no flesh, no
wine was in my mouth for 21 days.
I didn't anoint myself till three whole weeks
were fulfilled.
Then I lifted up my eyes, verse 5,
and looked, and behold, a certain man clothed
in linen, loins, and he describes him right
on down.
And what does this man do?
Verse 10.
A hand touched me, set me on my
knees, on the palms of my hands, and
he said, O Daniel, man greatly beloved, understand
the words that I speak to you, and
stand up now, for I am sent to
you.
And when he had spoken this word, I
stood up trembling, and he said, Don't be
afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that
you did set your heart to understand and
to chasing yourself before your God, thy words
were heard.
Same principle.
In the ninth chapter, as soon as he
opened his mouth, he said, O God, it
was heard.
In the tenth chapter, when he began to
pray, your words were heard.
But, big difference, what's happened now.
But, the buts of the Bible are most
interesting.
Here's an interesting one.
But, the prince of the kingdom of Persia
withstood me twenty-one days.
How long was Daniel in agony and fasting?
Twenty-one days.
Three full weeks.
Why that extended period of time?
Because the messenger who was sent from God
to earth to speak to Daniel and reveal
things to him ran into trouble.
He ran into difficulty on the way down.
He, the prince of the kingdom of Iran.
Could that have been the Ayatollah?
No.
But, another Ayatollah, maybe.
The prince of the king or the prince
of Persia withstood me twenty-one days.
And, I had to call on help from
heaven.
And, Michael, one of the chief princes came
to help me.
And, I remained there with the kings of
Persia.
Now, I've come to make you understand what
shall befall thy people in the latter days
for yet the vision is for many days.
The message was so important that was being
delivered from heaven to earth that the forces
of hell marshaled themselves to oppose it and
to keep it from being revealed on earth.
And, so, a prince of Persia withstood a
heavenly messenger sent to bring this special message.
Question.
Do you think that prince of Persia was
a human being?
Before you answer, let me give my answer.
No.
I can't conceive of any powerful prince on
earth having the ability or the power to
withstand and oppose an invisible, heavenly messenger of
God in any way, shape, or form.
Then, who is this prince of Persia?
Oh, because, look, at the end of this
passage in verse 19, he tells him, Peace
be unto you.
Be strong.
Be strong, Daniel.
And then, when he had spoken, he said,
Know this.
Do you know why I came to you?
Now I have to return and fight with
the prince of Persia.
And when I am gone forth, lo, the
prince of Grecia shall come.
What is this?
Kind of mysterious.
Yes, it is.
What he's saying is this, that as I
came from heaven, this is what I construe.
He says, As I came from heaven, I
had to pass through the aerial portion dominated
by an unseen, powerful, demonic prince.
The aerial portion over Persia.
I have to go through his portion again
and I'll have another battle on the way
back.
And then the prince of Greece will come
in and maybe help him to oppose me.
Do you know what?
When you add this to some other things
that are found in the Bible, I said
there's a thin veil between us and that
powerful real world out there just beyond us.
There was a day when the sons of
God presented themselves to the Lord and among
them, the powerful prince, Satan.
And you remember, he taunted God.
God said, What have you been doing?
I says, I've been walking to and fro
on the earth.
God says, Have you considered my servant Job?
I said, Yeah.
You mean that spoiled brat you've got down
there?
You know why he trusts you.
You're spoiled to death.
And furthermore, you won't let me touch him.
You've built walls around him.
You let down those fences and I'll show
you.
He'll curse you to your face.
And that's what the whole book of Job
is about.
To prove that the devil is a liar
from the word go.
And that God can really win a victory
on the battlefield of the human life.
That's what the book's about.
But who were these heavenly beings?
Then you remember, there was another time when
King Ahab, that wicked man, that awful man,
he was not only wicked, but he made
a terrible thing.
He married a woman, Jezebel.
When you get Jezebel and Ahab incorporated, you've
got yourself a terrific mess.
And Ahab was ungodly, but you remember, he
was going to have a fight with the
king of Syria.
And so he called on the king of
Judah, Jehoshaphat, and said, hey, how about helping
me out?
And poor old Jehoshaphat, who was already a
compromiser in many ways, he said, well, my
people are like your people.
My soldiers, your soldiers.
My horses, your horses.
You do anything you want.
Sure.
Well, then he said, we're going up.
We're going to attack a certain area and
we'll see what we can do.
We're going to turn the ears back of
this man from Syria.
I'm sorry I'm treating the Hebrew so loosely
this morning, but this is what I see.
And Jehoshaphat says, just a minute before we
go, can't we get a word from the
Lord to tell us whether He's going to
bless us in this venture?
And you remember King Ahab said, oh yeah,
I've got lots of prophets.
They're on my payroll.
So he got a hundred of them.
And they all came and he said, shall
we go up and attack this area?
Am I going to be successful?
And they said, oh yes, King, God bless
you.
Go to it.
The Lord's with you.
A whole hundred of them.
And Jehoshaphat had still enough little bit of
spirituality left in him.
And you remember he said, don't you have
a real prophet of God around somewhere?
And then Ahab reveals, yeah, there's one.
His name is Micaiah, but I hate him.
That's what it says in the Word of
God.
I hate him.
You know why?
He never says anything good about me.
Never.
I don't want him.
Jehoshaphat said, well, let's get him anyhow.
So they sent down to where Micaiah was
living.
And the messenger that came down said, look,
I know that you are a fighting fundamentalist.
I know that.
And you are noted for bringing bad news
to the king.
But please, this one time, you got Ahab
and Jehoshaphat together.
And all the prophets are saying, go, go,
go.
God bless you.
Just for once, why don't you join the
majority and say, God bless you.
You remember what Micaiah said?
He said, what the Lord tells me to
say, I've got to say.
So they brought him down.
And when he got there, they said, what
do you say, Micaiah?
And here sits the two kings.
They found an open spot in the gate,
the Sumerian gate.
And they're sitting there with their robes on.
And they bring poor old fundamentalist prophet Micaiah
there.
And they said, what do you say?
Shall we go up?
Will the Lord bless us?
And he looked at the kings and he
said, yeah, go up and the Lord bless
you.
And Ahab said, see, didn't I tell you,
Jehoshaphat, this guy never says anything good about
me.
No matter what Micaiah said, he wouldn't have
won.
If he said, don't go, the king would
have said, I told you so.
When he said, go, he said, he's not
telling the truth.
I know it.
Well, then when he opened his mouth and
began to tell Ahab what he actually did
was to spell out the death sentence of
Ahab.
He said, I saw in a vision the
children of Israel scattered like sheep.
You know what was the matter with them?
They lost their shepherd.
That's you, Ahab.
You're finished, my friend.
You're not coming back alive.
And furthermore, you know, in my vision I
saw something else.
I saw the heavenly host marching before Jehovah
God and God said, how can I defeat
Ahab?
Anybody got a suggestion?
And one of those heavenly beings stepped up
and said, Lord, I know how to do
it.
I'll put a lying spirit in all his
prophets and they won't be able to tell
the truth.
And that's exactly what happened.
That story's there in 2 Kings.
Read it for yourself.
Fill in the nice biblical details.
But what impresses me is that there was
a parade in heaven of all kinds of
spiritual beings and among them one who probably
was an evil spirit who was sent forth
to put a lying mouth on all the
prophets of Ahab.
So the Old Testament is replete with examples
of the reality of these evil forces which
Paul says we shall be in conflict with
if we seek to gain the heights.
There was a book published some years ago,
I think two, it is now back in
print and I'm glad that it is.
It was written by a man named G
.H. Pember and titled Earth's, then, I don't
know what the title is under the new
publication, Earth's Earliest Ages.
Remarkable book.
And there's a paragraph in that book that
I want to read to you.
He says, The startling suggestion from these and
other passages of Scripture indicate that all the
worldly rulers of earthly kingdoms, whether conscious of
it or not, are directly under the control
and in the hands of Satan.
Did you get that?
All the worldly kingdoms, the United States, I
don't know who the evil prince is who's
in charge of the USA, but there's one.
And Britain, and Canada, and Mexico, and down
the line that apparently every one of the
earthly kingdoms has set over it in that
structured kingdom of Satan a special power, a
special wicked spiritual empathy that keeps interfering in
the affairs of that nation.
That's a sobering thought, you know it?
And so he goes on to say, When
we are saved, we become part of a
special people who were delivered from the jurisdiction
and kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of
God's dear Son.
Of course, this incurs the deadly hatred and
enmity of our former master who is constantly
moving or making a bid for the return
of our vassalage.
Then he adds, The whole area surrounding our
planet is densely populated with a hostile race
of beings unutterably superior in wisdom and power
to ourselves.
Having, during a vast number of years, every
conceivable experience of the weak points of humanity,
possessing the incalculable advantage of being themselves invisible,
though, as spiritual intelligences, they are probably able
to judge of us by our words and
outward actions, and cooperating with a most perfect
and never failing organization, and lastly, directed by
a leader of consummate wisdom and skill who
is assisted by powerful princes and finds his
subjects so numerous that if we are able
to lay any stress on the word legion
in the memorable narrative of Luke, he is
able to spare some six thousand of them
to guard one miserable captive.
Staggering thoughts, that.
And we make a grave mistake if we
underestimate the magnitude and the power of the
enemy with whom we are engaged in this
spiritual battle.
We must not underestimate his subtlety nor his
purpose.
That's why Paul says, Brethren, take on you
the whole armor of God because we're wrestling
against spiritual wickedness in high places.
We're in a wrestling match against the evil
forces of hell that will throw every roadblock
in the way of our spiritual progress.
I think the early believers in the early
church seem to have this clearly fixed in
their mind.
That's why when we read the records of
Christian experience in the early centuries, they have
a far more sober note to them than
contemporary records.
We're only concerned about happiness.
Are we happy?
What in the world difference does it make
whether you're happy or not?
Happiness has got nothing to do with it.
Happiness is a pure surface thing.
The believer in Christ has something far more
valuable than happiness.
He has joy.
Joy!
That goes way down to the bottom rock
thing.
It doesn't make any difference if the surface
is being blown by storms.
That will disturb your happiness.
But it can't rob you of your joy
in Jesus Christ because that's a deep abiding
thing.
Well, on this note, I want to close.
And it's a somber note, I admit.
Unless you go out saying, oh, I'm so
depressed this morning.
He took me down.
I don't know.
I feel...
Well, there's a verse I want you to
take with you.
Greater is He that is in us than
he that's in the world.
Oh, that's beautiful, isn't it?
We're not on the defeated side.
We don't fight for a position of victory.
We fight from a position of victory.
We're already more than conquerors through Christ.
William I of England bore a worthy title
which has been handed down to us and
forever associated with his name.
In 1066, William of Normandy then pressed his
claim to the crown, you know, at the
Battle of Hastings.
And from that point onward, he was not
only known as the King of England, but
history records him as William the...
Ah, isn't that interesting?
William the Conqueror.
That's the title we bear.
William, Mary, Samuel, whatever.
The Conqueror in Christ Jesus.
Oh, glory to God for that.
Let me conclude with this.
You've heard me mention the fact that I've
spent a great deal of time in Switzerland.
The fact of the matter is this past
year we made our 18th visit to the
land of Switzerland.
So I love it and know a lot
about it.
One of the little things I find myself
doing is this.
Near one of the great mountain peaks like
Mont Blanc at Chamonix or Matterhorn at Zermatt.
You'll discover in the little villages clustering around
the foot of the mountains there often are
buried people who died on the mountains, whether
guides or climbers.
And if you spend a little time in
those little cemeteries, you can learn a little
bit about some of that history.
And quite often you will find lying right
out in the open where you can pick
it up and handle it will be the
pickaxe that was used by a now dead
and buried guide or climber.
And then the epitaphs on the stones are
most fascinating.
And I recall a couple of them.
Down at Zermatt, for instance, I saw in
a cemetery a very wonderful epitaph.
They usually just give the name of the
guide and the date of his birth and
the date of his death and then a
little epitaph.
And this one says, I chose to climb.
Isn't that great?
I chose to climb.
He deliberately picked the peaks and said, I
choose this.
I will climb.
And then over at Chamonix, I wandered through
the cemetery there and I saw another one.
And it said, there were two there in
fact.
One said, I scorned the lesser peaks.
Great.
I scorned the lesser peaks.
That means he chose the high ones, the
difficult ones.
But the one I like the best is
the one I find at Chamonix that says,
here's his name, here's the date of his
birth, his death, and it says, he died
climbing.
You know where his face was when he
fell?
Toward the peak.
Not toward the valley.
He didn't make it to the peak, but
he was on his way.
Maybe some of us will not make it
to the peaks.
But wouldn't it be wonderful if your epitaph
was, she died climbing.
I know a lot of saints whose epitaph
ought to be, he died reclining.
You know, taking it easy.
No.
The peaks are ours.
Sure, it's going to be a struggle to
reach them.
Yes, the forces of the enemy, strong, mighty,
but victory is assured and this belongs to
us in Christ.
Climb, friend!
You may die climbing, but you're on your
way.
Now, Father, we thank Thee this morning for
the assurance of victory that we have in
Jesus Christ our Lord.
We read of the overcomers that they overcame
Him by the blood of the Lamb.
And so do we overcome our enemy by
Thy victorious, atoning, cleansing, all-powerful shed blood.
And we lay claim to victory once again
from the cross against our enemy.
O God, help some of us who may
have been discouraged and defeated