When we allow ourselves to be cast down by the state of the church and its prevailing evil, we are apt to think that it is no longer any use to fight and that our part should be exclusively that of the 7000 hidden ones who had not bowed the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19). This is a serious mistake. There are Elijahs in days of ruin, and conflict is more than ever needed. Christian warfare is not, it is true, waged against flesh and blood, as with Israel, but against wicked spirits in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:1212For 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) JND). This satanic power is always at work to hinder our taking possession of heavenly things and to bring the people of God into bondage. We fight then either to conquer or to deliver. In Joshua and Ephesians the conflict is to put us in possession of our privileges; in Judges and 2 Timothy the warfare is more especially for the deliverance of the people of God. “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ,” says the Apostle to his faithful disciple (2 Tim. 2:3). “Endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist,” he says further on, adding, “I have fought a good fight” (2 Tim. 4:5,7).
What goodness it is on God’s part, in a day of universal weakness, to have allowed the enemy to continue, that we might learn what warfare is! Christian conflict will never cease on earth, but the Lord says, “Put your trust in Me; I have set before you an open door, and I will recompense the overcomer.” May God give us to take to heart the deliverance of His people, in seeking to reach souls by the gospel and in setting them free from their chains of bondage by the two-edged sword of the Spirit.
H. L. Rossier