October 11

We wrestle not against flesh and blood, out against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of this world, against Spiritual wickedness in high places. - Ephesians 6:12.

LET us consider the foes with which every Christian soldier has to fight. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood,” says the Apostle. Yes, they did; all ranks and conditions of men were opposed to them. “Marvel not,” said our Lord, “if the world hate you; ye know that it hated me before it hated you.” But he means that these were not the only or the principal foes, that they had more tremendous adversaries. The Apostle refers here to Spiritual adversaries in distinction from those that are merely human; he speaks of “standing against the wiles of the devil,” and of “Spiritual wickedness,” or “wicked Spirits,” as it is in the margin. It is not necessary to lay any stress on the distinction between Satan and these wicked Spirits; they may be considered as all one: he the leader, and they employed in his service.

We should neither metaphysically or curiously inquire after the mode of diabolical existence or influence, but our aim should be to get our minds impressed with a sense of our danger from these awful and adverse beings. And our danger arises first, From the advantage they find in the world. This world is in many respects their own. We therefore read of the “world lying in wickedness;” of the “god of this world;” and of “the prince of this world.” And in these depraved regions of ours he finds all the machineries, all the auxiliaries, all the aids that can enable him to deceive, or excite, or alarm, or allure.

And, secondly, It arises from their having in league and correspondence, a party, and an active party, IN OURSELVES; in all the powers, principles, passions, and the necessities of our nature, so that here it is peculiarly true, “A man’s foes are they of his own household.”

Thirdly, From their number. “Their name is legion, for they are many.”

Fourthly, From their mightiness. Who knows the energy or the force of any one of these wretched creatures? We see what they have done by the permission of God; how they have cast down many mighty; yea, “many strong men have been slain by them;” and princes, and heroes, and philosophers, and moralists; and how they overcame Adam and Eve in Paradise, when there was no fallen nature to operate upon.

Fifthly, From their invisibility. If they were “flesh and blood,” why, we could escape them, we could secure ourselves from them by walls, or gates, or doors, or bars, or bolts; but what are we to do with Spirits? How can we hinder these, who move like the pestilence that walketh in darkness?

Sixthly, It arises from their artfulness. We read of the “wiles of the devil,” of the “depths of Satan,” of the “beguiling of Satan,” and we read of his “devices.” And, finally, The danger arises from their malignity; Satan is called “a destroyer and a murderer from the beginning.” He bears hatred to us as we are men, as we are the creatures of God, more indulged and favoured than himself, but especially as we are redeemed, as we are renewed, and as we have forsaken his wretched service and abandoned his ways. He thus pursues us as Pharaoh pursued the Israelites when they left Egypt, determined rather to exterminate his own vassals than that they should be employed in the service of the living God.