28 - THE STRATEGY OF THE MOCK ANGELJanuary 1, 1961
Henry F. Kulp
Ephesians 6: 10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
We have been talking about this great battle, this great warfare that the Christian is to wage. He is the one who is to be aggressive. He is the one who takes the initiative. His enemy, of course, is the devil and his demon host, the only one that can fight against common enemy is the believer who is mature. We do not send babies into the fight. We do not send our small children to fight, and God does not expect babies to fight against the devil—they do not know how to fight, so it is necessary for us to grow spiritually, so we can wage this warfare, and we can win it.
1/ Satan’s purpose is not to cause us to lose our salvation. Satan wants to rob you of your crown. He doesn’t want you to gain any reward in your Christian life. Many Christians never take up this battle—they are not interested enough to fight. They don’t care, they are saved, and that is about as far as their Christianity or their belief goes.
2/ Now notice the saint’s source of strength. This is important. To start this battle we must be strong in the Lord, and the power of His might. The words, be strong, means to be endued with power, or made powerful. Who is the one telling us to be strong in the Lord? Whenever you take advice from anyone, it is always well that you know who is speaking. What type of person, what is their character? Do you know the subject they are advising you about? There are many folks in this world who want to put forth advice when they do not know what they are talking about. They like to tell you how to run your home, to run your children, they tell you what insurance to buy, what car to buy, where to live, and many times they are failures themselves, so how can they advise you? But what about this man, Paul, who says to be strong in the Lord? Was he a weakling? I am sure not. He was no pink tea artist. Paul was one who knew what it meant to be strong in the Lord. He had been in this battle, and he knew what it meant to strive for Jesus Christ. He had been stoned, smitten with stripes, bound with chains, cast into a dungeon, but he went right on with the struggle. He was still at it when he was urging the believers here to be strong.
3/ Galatians 6: 17 From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.
Here, Paul says, from henceforth let no man trouble me. These folks at Galatia had teachers come in and say this man, Paul is not a servant of Christ, he is not an apostle, why do you listen to him? Paul says, you know I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice, he emphasizes the personal pronoun, I, as he contrasts himself with the Judaizing teachers. He says I have marks in my body today. And what are these marks? Why are they here? They are actual physical injuries, and the best way we can translate that word, marks, is the word, brand. We get our English word, Stigma from it—so he was branded. They were actually scars and long continuing sores. He had been stoned, smitten with stripes, bound with chains, and his sores, his marks, his brands were ever with him. He was scarred up. They were in his physical body. I can accept advice from a man like that. When he tells me to be strong in the Lord, I know he knows what it means to be strong in the Lord, and he knew that it worked. He was one that could give advice like this.
4/ The man who said, be strong, was strong. When he wrote this he was in prison chained to guards down in the dungeon of the palace. But down there, he was still working for the Lord Jesus Christ, still striving to gain a crown. There is a crown for one who is a soul-winner. He won many crowns while he was down there in that dungeon. He testified to everyone he came in contact with.
Philippians 4: 22 All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar's household.
Where he said, the saints in Caesar’s household. Please remember Paul was in a dungeon in Caesar’s palace, and you would hardly think that he would dare open his mouth and testify to some of the folks in Caesar’s household, but he did. He evidently won servants, soldiers, and maybe some of the officers and they must have had a little church there—a little company of believers right there in Caesar’s household. He was carrying the battle right down to the end. I could listen to a man like this. I CAN PULL UP MY CHAIR CLOSE TO HIM AND I CAN LISTEN BECAUSE I WANT TO HEAR THE SECRET OF SUCH STRENGTH.
5/ Than the exhortation to be strong in the Lord is followed by another, namely, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
Ephesians 6: 11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
Notice, here is the adversary. Our adversary is named, he is the devil, and his weapons are referred to as wiles. First of all, let us look at our operation, at our adversary. Let us look at our opposition, at our adversary. We are inclined to think that our only opposition comes from flesh and blood, and relatives in the home, from friends and society, from neighbors across the street, from our associates in business, from somebody at the home who is difficult to live with. Notice, we wrestle not against flesh and blood. Flesh and blood can bring hardship, there is no doubt, there is no doubt that neighbors can make fun of our position. Even our own loved ones—you can have a husband or a wife who hates your stand in Jesus Christ. You can have children who refuse to do what you want them to, but that is not the main battle of life. There is so
6/ Then notice, we wrestle, not with flesh and blood, but with Satan and his demon followers. The idea of wrestling is hand-to-hand combat. And so when Paul used this word, wrestle, here, the Greeks immediately knew what to picture. The contrast between the two in which one endeavors to throw the other. And the contest is decided with the victor is able to press down and hold down his antagonist, and then the loser in the Greek wrestling had his eyes gouged out so that for the rest of his life he would be blind, so you can know what the people at Ephesus thought when he said wrestle—this is no patty-cake sort of an affair, this is not a pink tea. This is a terrible struggle.
7/ Then we go back to the 11th verse with this in mind, that we are to put on the whole armor of God that we might be able to stand and not be thrown, not be pressed down by our antagonist, but be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. That word, wiles, means expert methods, or you could use the word strategy. He has expert strategy that he uses against us. It would indeed be very simple thing if that demon came to us and said, now, I’m demon so and so, good morning—I’m here on a mission from the devil, and I want you to get into something that is going to cause you a lot of misery and a lot of wretchedness and will disowner your savior and lose your testimony for you and if you listen to me and obey me, I’ll be able to accomplish my end. We would have no difficulty in saying to him—get thee behind me Satan, we don’t want any part of you. But that is not the way the devil works, that is not the way his demons work. We have a wonderful illustration in the book of Joshua exactly what I’m driving at. Remember we told you the book Joshua is to the Old Testament what the book of Ephesians is to the New Testament.
8/ God had told Joshua to cross over Jordan and there he would find in the land that God gave him, seven nations of Canaan. They were corrupt nations, abominable, given over to all kinds of vileness and idolatry, and they were commanded not to enter into any league with them, not to marry with them, but they were to destroy them utterly. These words were plain and for a time Joshua and the people carried them out just the way God instructed them. But then one day there came a strange looking group of men limping up the highway, dressed in filthy rags. They had worn sandals on their feet, they carried in their arms old sacks which contained moldy bread, and their water bottles made of goat skins were cracked and dried up, so some of Joshua’s scouts went out to see them and said who are you and what do you want? We would like to see your general they said. And when they were led into the presence of Joshua, and said what is it that you want of us, where did you come from? Oh, they said from a very far country, you can see these clothes of ours, they were brand new the day we left home, so you can realize we came a long way. These sandals that we have on our feet, we just bought them from a dealer the day we left, and look how worn they are. And this bread was fresh from the oven, but now it is moldy. We have come a long distance because we heard of you, how that God is with you, and we would like to make an alliance with you—let us be friends. We would certainly be proud to be linked up with you, so let us make an alliance right now. This is most interesting, said Joshua, you say you are from a long way off, How in the world did you ever hear about us? Oh, the word has been going out through all the land. We have heard of how you have been victorious as you entered the land, how Jericho and Ai fell before you, now let us get together and make an alliance. And so we read that the men made a league with them and asked the council of God.
Joshua 9: 14 - 16 And the men took of their victuals, and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord. And Joshua made peace with them, and made a league with them, to let them live: and the princes of the congregation sware unto them. And it came to pass at the end of three days after they had made a league with them, that they heard that they were their neighbours, and that they dwelt among them.
Here they were deceived by the wiles of the Gideonites, but a day or two after they had made the league, when there was not chance to break it, they found out that the men came from a nearby village and were anxious to link up with them in order to save their own lives. This is a picture of how the devil with his demons works among the children of God. They have expert methods, they do not come as the average person thinks they come.
9/ The average person says, so and so is going to the devil. They do not realize that the devil has no part in that sort of thing. It is not his fault. How does the devil come? The Scripture we use so often, but people still do not recognize.
II Corinthians 11: 3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
Here, Paul says by any means that your mind should be corrupted from simplicity that is in Christ, and of course, that is by the serpent, by the devil. The simplicity that is in Christ—they don’t hold the thought of the simplicity in Christ—they like to make it very involved. How they like to do this with the work of the Holy Spirit. How they like to do it with so many things in life. They have to have feelings, and they have to have tremendous experience, rather than just trusting in Jesus Christ by simple faith, and depending on Him day by day and filling their hearts and minds with the Word. Is it any wonder that the devil is able to defeat the average Christian by his expert methods? How does he do it? Notice the word mind, here it is very important. This is what the devil uses, he uses the mind of the believer this hand to hand combat goes on in the mind.
10/ Now let us go over for a description for how Satan works.
II Corinthians 11: 13 - 14 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
He transforms himself into an angel of light. He doesn’t come with wickedness—he comes with human goodness, an angel of light in your mind.
11/ Let us go to another Scripture that describes this battle for us.
II Corinthians 10: 3, 4 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
Again he says, we walk in the flesh, but we war not after the flesh, not at all. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, are not fleshly but mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds. So in our fight we are to besiege our enemy, we are to throw a defense all about him, just as the enemy in days gone by. They would come into the city they wanted to take, and they would besiege it from every side, keep everything locked up there, and then finally they would cast down the strongholds, and what is it? What is the stronghold that is being besieged? It is imaginations, it is reasonings, and finally bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. After you tear down the imagination and the reasoning what are the captives that are taken? The captives are our thoughts, Satan battles with us in our minds and it is a hand to hand struggle.
12/ Colossians 3: 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
Here we are to set our affection on things above. We are not only to seek heaven, but we must think heaven. In other words, the word, affection, means mind or thought. Your thoughts should be constantly on Heaven, not on things of earth. We are to think Christ, here is the battle. We want to think Christ. And the devil and the demons come along and they want us to think about things other than Christ. They are good things, but they are things that replace Christ. They are not the things of Christ so here we have the battle brought to us very clearly.
13/ Philippians 4: 8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
I want you to notice two things here. In verse 8 we are told to think right, and in verse 9 we are told to do right. In other words if we think right, you can’t help but do right. Here is the point, it is discipline of the mind. We can only be as we think.
14/ Romans 12: 1 - 3 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
Notice this is what Satan doesn’t want you to do—to put God first, give yourself as a living sacrifice to Him. He doesn’t want that, so what does he do? He tries to corrupt your mind from it, and so God says here, to be renewed in your mind, and when you are renewed you have proper estimation of yourself, you’ll not be lofty, you’ll not be high and mighty.
AMEN
Ref: 01/01/1962/ 28 - THE STRATEGY OF THE MOCK ANGEL / 08/14/2021
