For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities.
The invisible enemies of man
Does it not appear, philosophically speaking, a somewhat violent assumption to decide that man is really the highest being in the created universe, or, at least, that between man and his Maker there are no gradations with different moral colourings of intermediate life? Would it not be, rather, reasonable to suppose that the graduated series of living beings, graduated as it is so delicately, which we trace from the lowest of the zoophytes up to man, does not stop abruptly with man, that it continues beyond, although we may be unable to follow the invisible steps of the continuing ascent? Surely, I submit, the reasonable probability would incline this way, and revelation does but confirm and reveal these anticipations when it discovers to faith, on the one hand, the hierarchies of the blessed angels, and on the other, as in this passage of Scripture, the corresponding gradations of evil spirits, principalities, and powers, who have abused their freedom, and who are ceaselessly labouring to impair and to destroy the moral order of the universe. Two great departments of moral life among men are watched over, each one of them, beyond the sphere of human life, by beings of greater power, greater intelligence, greater intensity of purpose, than man in the world of spirits. These spiritual beings, good and evil, act upon humanity as clearly, as certainly, and as constantly as man himself acts upon the lower creatures around, and thus it is that “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.” Does not our experience, my brethren, bear this out, at least sometimes in our darker hours? Have we never known what it is, as we phrase it, to be carried away by a sudden impulse--to be driven, we know not why, hither and thither in conscious humiliation and shame before some strong, overmastering gust of passion? Have we, too, never seen another law in our members, warring against the law of our minds, and bringing us into captivity to the law of sin that is in our members? And what is this at bottom but to feel ourselves in the strong embrace and gripe of another power, who, for the moment, has overmastered us, and holds us down? We may be unable to discern his form; we may be unable to define the precise limits and nature of his power; we may despair to decide what it is that we supply to the dread result out of our own fund of perverted passion, and what it is that he adds from the hot breath of an intenser furnace. But then the most ordinary processes of our vital functions themselves defy analysis, however we may be certain of their reality. No, depend upon it, it is not any mere disposition, inseparable from the conditions of human thought, to personify, to externalize passion which has peopled the imagination of Christendom with demons. As well, just as well, might you say that the fearful epidemic which has ravaged London this autumn was itself a creation of human fancy, that it had in itself no real existence, that it was the real cause of no real disease in the individuals who succumbed to it. Our imagination may, no doubt, do much; but there are limits to its activity, and the higher facts are just as much beyond it as are the facts of nature. The contests of which St. Paul is speaking were not only to be waged on the great scenes of history. St. Paul is speaking of contests humbler, less public, but certainly not less tragical, the contests which are waged, sooner or later, with more or less intensity, and with the most divergent results, around and within each human soul. It is within ourselves, my brethren, that we meet now, as the first Christians met, the onset of the principalities and the powers. It is in resisting them--aye, at any cost--in driving them from us at the name of Christ, in driving from us the spirits of untruthfulness, of sloth, of anger, and of impure desire--that we really contribute our little share to the issue of the great battle which rages still, as it raged then, and which will rage on between good and evil until the end comes, and the combatants meet with their rewards. (Canon Liddon.)
The holy war
I. The foes. Spiritual enemies. Our danger arises from--
1. The advantage they find in this world. It is in many respects their own.
2. Our natural inclinations.
3. Their number--Legion.
4. Their mightiness.
5. Their invisibility.
6. Their artfulness.
7. Their malignity.
II. The armour.
1. The articles in which it consists. None provided for the back. He who flees is wholly defenceless, and sure to perish.
2. Its nature--Divine.
(1) Appointed by God.
(2) Provided by God.
3. The appropriation of it. You must apply it to the various purposes for which it has been provided. There are some who are ignorant of it; these cannot “take it to themselves,” and they are “perishing for lack of knowledge.” There are others who know it, but despise it; they never make use of it; their religion is all speculation; they “know these things,” but “they do them not”; they believe--and “the devils believe and tremble.”
4. The entireness of the application--“The whole armour.” Every part is necessary. A Christian may be considered with regard to his principles, with regard to his practice, with regard to his experience, with regard to his comfort, and with regard to his profession; and oh! how important is it in each of these that neither of them is to be left in him exposed and undefended. He is to “stand complete in all the will” of his heavenly Father; he is to be “perfect and entire, lacking nothing.” Nothing less: than this must be our aim.
III. The success. Three inquiries are here to be answered. The first regards the posture; what does the apostle mean by “standing”? It is a military term; and “standing” is opposed to falling. A man is said to “fall” when he is slain in battle; and he does so literally. It is opposed to fleeing. We often read of fleeing before the enemy in the Scriptures: this cannot be “standing.” It is opposed to yielding or keeping back; and so the apostle says, “Neither give place to the devil.” Every inch you yield he gains, and every inch he gains you lose; every inch he gains favours his gaining another inch, and every inch you lose favours your losing another inch. The second regards the period; what does the apostle mean when he says, “Stand in the evil day”? All the time of the Christian’s warfare may be so called in a sense, and a very true sense; but the apostle refers also to some days which are peculiarly evil days.” Days of suffering are such. The days in which the poor martyrs lived were “evil days”; they could not confess and follow Christ without exposing their substance and their liberty and their lives; but they “stood in the evil day,” and “rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His Dame.” There are “evil days” morally considered--perilous periods, in which “iniquity abounds and the love of many waxes cold,” in which many may “turn aside from the faith and give themselves to vain janglings.” The third regards the preeminence of the advantage gained; “stand in the evil day, and, having done all, stand.” Some of God’s servants have been foiled after various successes, and have become affecting examples to show us that we are never out of the reach of danger as long as we are in the body and in the world. The battle of Eylau, between the French and the Russians, was a dreadful conflict; more than fifty thousand perished. Both parties claimed the victory. What, then, is the historian to do? To do? Why, he will inquire, Who kept the field? And these were the French, while the Russians all withdrew. Oh, my brethren! it is the keeping of the field to the last--to see all the adversaries withdrawn--that is to make us “more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” It is this that gives decision to the battle. Some have overcome, and then, alas! they have been overcome. What is it to gain success and yield it at last? The Romans often were checked: they often met with a defeat; but then they succeeded upon the whole, “and having done all, they stood.” Of Gad it is said, “A troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last.” And this will be the case with every real Christian. What comes from God will be sure to lead back to God. (W. Jay.)
The Christian soldier’s warfare
I. The enemies with whom, as Christian soldiers, we are called to contend.
1. Spirits.
2. Wicked spirits.
3. Formidable spirits.
(1) On account of their strength.
(2) On account of their weapons.
(3) On account of their extensive influence.
(4) On account of their wiles.
II. In what manner we are instructed to contend with them.
1. In the armour of God.
(1) This must be all put on.
(2) We must retain it till our warfare be past.
(3) We must take and use it whenever assaulted.
2. In the spirit of prayer and watchfulness.
3. In the exercise of firm resistance. Let your resistance be--
(1) Early. At the first approach of the enemy.
(2) Courageous.
(3) Unwearied. Till you conquer.
III. The reasons by which we should be induced thus to contend.
1. Because the most important objects depend on this contention.
(1) Your steadfastness;
(2) your liberty;
(3) your glory;
(4) your eternal life.
2. Because victory is certain to the faithful soldiers of Christ.
(1) Victory over the world;
(2) victory over sin;
(3) victory over Satan;
(4) victory over tribulation;
(5) victory over death.
3. Because victory will be attended with certain glory.
(1) A glorious rest from all painful toil and contention;
(2) glorious exemption from all penal evil;
(3) glorious honours;
(4) a glorious throne, crown, kingdom. (Theological Sketchbook.)
The existence of evil spirits
Against the existence of evil spirits, against the possibility of their exerting a malignant influence on the moral and spiritual life of mankind, nothing has ever been alleged, as far as I am aware, that has any force in it. Some people appear to suppose that they have said enough to justify their disbelief when they have recited the grotesque and incredible legends, the monstrous and childish superstitions about the devil which laid so firm a hold on the imagination and the fears of Europe in the Middle Ages; or when they have illustrated the history and growth of analogous legends and superstitions among savage or half-civilized races. But they could justify atheism by a precisely similar line of reasoning. The mythologies of Greece and of Scandinavia are incredible; their original and central elements are obviously nothing more than the product of the imagination under the excitement of the glories and the terrors, the majesty and the beauty, of the visible universe. But because these mythologies are incredible shall I refuse to believe in the living God, the Creator of the heavens and of the earth, the God that loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity? The attributes and deeds attributed to Kali, the black and blood-stained goddess, with her necklace of human skulls, fills me with horror and fierce disgust; but is this horror, this disgust, any reason for withholding my faith from the revelation of God’s infinite love in the Lord Jesus Christ? Many false, childish, dreadful things have been imagined and believed about invisible and Divine powers; but this does not prove that there is no God. Many monstrous and absurd things have been imagined and believed about invisible and evil spirits; but this does not prove that there is no devil. Three hundred years ago men received popular stories about grotesque and malicious appearances of evil spirits without evidence and without inquiry. It was the habit of the age to believe in such things; men believed, in the absence of all solid reasons for believing. And now we disbelieve, without evidence and without inquiry, what Christ Himself and His apostles have told us about the devil and his temptations. It is the habit of the age to disbelieve in such things; we disbelieve, in the absence of solid reasons for disbelieving. We do not care to investigate the question. We go with the crowd. We think that everybody cannot be wrong. We regard with great complacency the contrast between our own clear intelligence and the superstition of our ancestors. But when we are challenged to state our reasons for refusing to accept what Christ has revealed on this subject, we have nothing to answer except that other people refuse to accept it; and our ancestors had just as good an apology for accepting the superstitions of their times--everybody accepted them. It is not quite clear that there is any good ground for our self-complacency; the belief of our ancestors was as rational as our own disbelief.
1. The subject is confessedly difficult, obscure, and mysterious; but there is nothing incredible in the existence of unseen and evil powers, from whose hostility we are in serious danger. Give the faculty of vision to the blind, and they see the sun and the clouds and the moon and the stars, of whose existence they had known nothing except by hearsay; give a new faculty to the human race, and we might discover that we are surrounded by “principalities” and “powers,” some of them loyal to God and bright with a Divine glory; some of them in revolt against Him, and scarred with the lightnings of the Divine anger. The moral objections to the existence of evil spirits can hardly be sustained in the presence of the crimes of which our own race has been guilty. There may be other worlds in which the inhabitants are as wicked as the most wicked of ourselves; we cannot tell. We may be surrounded--we cannot tell--by creatures of God, who hate righteousness and hate God with a fiercer hatred than ever burned in the hearts of the most profligate and blasphemous of our race. And they may be endeavouring to accomplish our moral ruin, in this life and the life to come.
2. Our Lord plainly taught the existence of evil spirits (Mat_13:19; Mat_13:39; Luk_10:18; Luk_22:31; Joh_12:31; Mat_25:41). No use to say that as He spoke the language, He thought the thoughts, of His country and His time; for it was impossible that He should mistake shadows for realities in that invisible and spiritual world which was His true home, and which He had come to reveal to man. Nor can we believe that Christ Himself knew that evil spirits had no existence, and yet consciously and deliberately fell in with the common way of speaking about them. The subject was one of active controversy between rival Jewish sects, and in using the popular language Christ took sides with one sect against another. That He should have supported controverted opinions which He knew to be false is inconceivable. Again: He came to preach glad tidings; can we suppose that, if the popular dread of evil spirits had no foundation, He would have deliberately fostered such a falsehood?
3. The teaching of Christ on this point is sustained by all the apostles (Jam_3:7; 2Co_4:4; 2Co_11:14; Eph_4:26; 1Pe_5:8; 1Jn_2:13-14; 1Jn_3:8; 1Jn_3:10; 1Jn_3:12; 1Jn_5:18-19, etc.).
4. The teaching of Christ and His apostles is confirmed by our religious experience. Evil thoughts come to us which are alien from all our convictions and from all our sympathies. There is nothing to account for them in our external circumstances or in the laws of our intellectual life. We abhor them and repel them, but they are pressed upon us with cruel persistency. They come to us at times when their presence is most hateful; they cross and trouble the current of devotion; they gather like thick clouds between our souls and God, and suddenly darken the glory of the Divine righteousness and love. We are sometimes pursued and harassed by doubts which we have deliberately confronted, examined, and concluded to be absolutely destitute of force, doubts about the very existence of God, or about the authority of Christ, or about the reality of our own redemption. Sometimes the assaults take another form. Evil fires which we thought we had quenched are suddenly rekindled by unseen hands; we have to renew the fight with forms of moral and spiritual evil which we thought we had completely destroyed. There is a Power not ourselves that makes for righteousness; light falls upon us which we know is light from heaven; in times of weariness strength comes to us from inspiration which we know must be Divine; we are protected in times of danger by an invisible presence and grace; there are times when we are conscious that streams of life are flowing into us which must have their fountains in the life of God. And there are dark and evil days when we discover that there is also a power not ourselves that makes for sin. We are at war, the kingdom of God on earth is at war, with the kingdom of darkness. We have to fight “against the principalities,” etc. And therefore we need the strength of God and “the armour of God.” The attacks of these formidable foes are not incessant; but as we can never tell when “the evil day” may come, we should be always prepared for it. After weeks and months of happy peace, they fall upon us without warning, and without any apparent cause. If we are to “withstand” them, and if after one great battle in which we have left nothing unattempted or unaccomplished for our own defence and the destruction of the enemy we are still “to stand,” to stand with our force unexhausted and our resources undiminished, ready for another and perhaps fiercer engagement, we must “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might,” and we must “take up the whole armour of God.” (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)
The nature of the contest
Wrestle. It denotes--
1. That our enemies aim at us personally.
2. The nearness of the parties to each other.
3. The severity of the struggle,
ðáëç
.
4. The continuance of it. The present tense. (H. J. Foster.)
The evil angels
I. Here are presented beings whose attributes are very appalling.
1. Actual beings, possessing an angelic order of existence.
2. Beings deeply and fearfully characterized by evil.
3. Beings who possess wide power and authority over the world.
II. The beings here presented are engaged in active and malignant conflict against the interests of redeemed men.
1. Notice the manner in which that conflict is conducted. These principalities, etc., fight against the children of God through the medium of their own thoughts; as those thoughts may be influenced independent of external objects, or as those thoughts may be influenced by the thoughts and passions of other men; and by the various events and occurrences which are transpiring in this sublunary and terrestrial world. It is intended by this power and instrumentality to lead to principles, to actions, and to habits which are inconsistent with the maintenance of the Christian character.
2. Mark the spirit in which that warfare is conducted. It is precisely such as we might expect from the character and attributes of the principalities, the powers, and the rulers against whom we wrestle. It is, for instance, conducted with subtlety and cunning. We find that Satan is said to transform himself into an angel of light. Hence, again, we read of “the devices of Satan” and “the rulers of Satan” as being “the old serpent.” It is, further, conducted in cruelty, Hence, we read of Satan as being “the adversary”; we read of his fiery darts; and we are told that he “goeth about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.” It is, again, conducted in perseverance. All the statements which are urged with regard to subtlety on the one hand, and cruelty on the other, show that there is one incessant labour, which is perfectly unvaried and unremitting on their part, to accomplish the great designs they have in view with respect to the character and the final destiny of the soul.
3. Observe for what purpose the conflict is designed. That there may be a failure on the part of the redeemed, in their character, their consistency, and their hopes; and this, under the impulse of one dark and fearful result, as bearing both upon God and upon man. As regards God, it is intended that the purpose of the Father should be foresworn; that the atonement of the Son should be inefficacious; and that the influence of the Spirit should be thwarted. And, as bearing on man, it is intended that his life should become bereft of honour, comfort, and peace; that his death should be a scene of agitation, pain, and darkness; that his judgment should he an event of threatening and bitter condemnation; that his eternity should be the habitation of torment and woe; and that over spirits, who once had the prospects of redemption, there shall be pronounced that fearful sentence, “Depart ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”
III. The knowledge, on the part of redeemed men, of such a conflict, ought, at once, to bind on thee those practical impressions which are essential to their perseverance and victory.
1. The nature of the means of preservation.
(1) A constant and diligent attempt, in the strength of the living God, to live in practical conformity with the doctrines and precepts of the gospel.
(2) Watchfulness.
(3) Prayer.
2. The effect which these means, when used aright, will secure. That the Christian warrior, fighting against these mighty and invisible foes, shall, although faint, yet pursue, and although feeble, shall yet conquer. (J. Parsons.)
The craft of our invisible foes
The great art of these invisible world rulers consists in never seeming to be against us. They conceal themselves in our affections, and plead for our wishes. And, as though from quite a motherly consideration for our weakness, and a warm concern for our enjoyment, they make it appear that the claims of God are unreasonable, and that the way to heaven is cold and forbidding. Seated in the warmth of our hearts, they reason warmly for our pleasure, and then flatter us that we reason well. We are taken by the “wiles,” we suck in the flattering honey, and know not that we are being poisoned unto the second death. These spirits are too much for us. Their strongholds are in our hearts. Before we can successfully oppose those who clothed themselves with the armour of our own life, we must put on “the armour of God.” Jesus is the only man who ever prevailed in this war. He came to the encounter, not in nature’s heats, nor with nature’s reasonings; but clothed with truth and purity, guilelessness and perfect love. We must “put on Christ.” (J. Pulsford.)
Our spiritual foes
The apostle brings out into bold relief the terrible foes which Christians are summoned to encounter.
1. Their position. They are no subalterns, but foes of mighty rank, the nobility and chieftains of the spirit world.
2. Their office. Their domain is this darkness in which they exercise imperial sway.
3. Their essence. Not encumbered with an animal frame, but “spirits.”
4. Their character--“evil.” Their appetite for evil only exceeds their capacity for producing it. (J. Eadie, D. D.)
Every part must be protected against the adversary
It is reported by the poets of Achilles, the Grecian captain, that his mother, being warned by the oracle, dipped him--being a child--in the river Lethe, to prevent any danger that might ensue by reason of the Trojan war; but Paris, his inveterate enemy, understanding also by the oracle that he was impenetrable all over his body, except the heel or small part of his leg, which his mother held him by when she dipped him, took his advantage, shot him in the heel, and killed him. Thus every man is, or ought to be, armed cap-a-pie with that panoply--the whole armour of God. For the devil will be sure to hit the least part that he finds unarmed; if it be the eye, he will dart in at that casement by the presentation of one lewd object or other; if it be the ear, he will force that door open by bad counsel; if the tongue, that shall be made a world of mischief; if the feet, they shall be swift to shed blood, etc.
Spiritual wrestling is personal
Atthe battle of Crecy, in 1316, the Prince of Wales, finding himself heavily pressed by the enemy, sent word to his father for help. The father, watching the battle from a windmill, and seeing his son was not wounded and could gain the day if he would, sent word: “No, I will not come. Let the boy win his spurs, for, if God will, I desire that this day be his with all its honours.” Young man, fight your own battle, all through, and you shall have the victory. Oh, it is a battle worth fighting! Two monarchs of old fought a duel, Charles V and Francis, and the stakes were kingdoms, Milan and Burgundy. You fight with sin, and the stake is heaven or hell. (Dr. Talmage.)
