The Living God and the Battle for Life # 3

The Living God and the Battle for Life # 3

Now our point is just this, that the hallmark of God's work is Life, the hallmark of satan's work is death. The great objective of satan is to bring us into that state of heart - it is called "conscience" in Hebrews - which will be a suitable ground for him to bring about his reign of death, but God has made His full provision of another ground upon which satan has no standing, where he cannot come - iniquity cannot come on that ground, unrighteousness cannot come onto that ground, sin cannot come there. satan therefore cannot stand there on the ground of that provided righteousness in Christ who is made unto us from God righteousness, sanctification and redemption. satan cannot come there. Stand then on the ground of Christ and satan has no stand, no power, and death is vanquished. But that does not mean that satan accepts his defeat. It does not mean that the battle is at an end, for our battle is not to get our ground, it is to keep it. We may get our ground and stand on it, but that is not the end of the conflict. It may only be the beginning of the conflict. We have got to hold that ground, stand our ground. "Stand, therefore...stand, withstand, having done all, stand." The battle for Life so often resolves itself into a matter not of gaining some position, but holding it. Remember that! To get us moved away - that is a great apostolic word - being moved away, by any means to get us moved away. Now, satan stands at nothing to bring that about, that moving away.

I am not going to begin to touch on the means, the ways by which satan seeks to get that moving away, but I have the present situation very much in mind, and here I head up everything and stop. I cannot get away from the strong feeling that what is happening today is something very much more than just a phase of this world's history as such. I do not think that needs arguing. I think we all feel that. We are all convinced, even people who profess very little faith in the Lord Jesus have a strong feeling and strong conviction that this is more than merely an earthly, international conflict, that this is something more in this. We are quite sure about it, but what is the meaning of it? Well, I believe, beloved, that it is heading up to its end, the end of that particular phase of the sovereign ordering method of God which is called "the times of the Gentiles." The end of any dispensation takes the spiritual features of its beginning and repeats them.

Now, if you do not know what I mean by that, let me illustrate. The times of the Gentiles came in with Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. God took the rule of this world away from Israel because of Israel's unfaithfulness and breaking of the Covenant, and committed the rule of this world and its kingdom into the hands of Gentile rulers, the first of which was Nebuchadnezzar. Now, one of the first things you find about Nebuchadnezzar taking the rule of the kingdoms of this world as the great head of gold is this. It came into his head - that is the way of putting it, it seems almost a fancy, a chance, but no. Things come into men's heads, but where do they come from? We will see in a minute. It came into his head to do something. What came into his head? Well, he had dreamed and it came into his head to put all the wise men throughout his dominion to a test and to say this: "Unless you pass the test, you will be destroyed!" - and that, from satan's standpoint, was a foregone conclusion. They would be destroyed. It was their death sentence, because they were not going to pass the test. The thing was altogether beyond them, and they would not pass the test, therefore all the wise men were sentenced to death before they even were given the test, virtually. They had got to interpret, and if they could not, they would be destroyed, for he was an absolute despot - whom he sentenced to death were killed; whom he kept alive were kept alive. That is what is said about this one.

Now, what is the objective of satan? Where did this thing come from? There is one man in Babylon with whom the interests of God and heaven are bound up. The testimony of God is bound up in one man's life - Daniel. He is one amongst the wise men. Get all the wise men killed, and you have got Daniel included. Now you see why. Daniel carries things right on to Christ. The testimony of Daniel is the testimony of Jesus; his prophecies lead right on to today and afterward. Everything of what is precious to God through the history of this world is bound up with that one man in Babylon. He is in touch with heaven. His prayers influence the heavenly powers, principalities. Yes, what is of God is bound up with that man. The living God, the living testimony, the living interests of God are bound up with one man, therefore satan does not mind if he has all the wise men throughout the kingdom of Babylon killed if he can only get one man. That is the beginning of this dispensation of the times of the Gentiles.

My conviction is this, that today satan is standing at nothing in the wholesale slaughter on this earth in order to get at one corporate man, that man child of Revelation 12, that company with whom the heavenly and eternal interests of God and the testimony of Jesus are bound up, and this is it - life or death? And the pressure to corrupt will be intense, the pressure to destroy faith in the living God will be terrible, the pressure to move us away from our ground of confidence in God will be unspeakably great in order that that testimony of the living God, that Life over which satan has no power, shall be brought, so far as the instrument is concerned, into a neutralized state - God must have an instrument. He has done this thing again and again. 

It is our faith, beloved; if we lose faith, we have lost our Life; if we lose our confidence in the living God, we are engulfed in that spiritual death. It does not matter to satan if he throws all the nations into the fire of destruction if he can get his end. What is the end? It is God's elect, with which all the purposes of God are bound up, to get at that, to get at the faith of that, not to destroy it physically, but to get at its faith.

Let us see what the issue is right at the heart of things, and see it is all a colossal, upspeakable iniquitous attack upon a faith, the faith of the Son of God in us. If satan can destroy faith, the day is lost, he is victor. But to come back and finish on the right note - "Thou art the Son of the living God," "Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The Living God!

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(The End)