Spiritual Survival in the 80s Eph 6 — George Verwer

Persevering in Christ Through Spiritual Warfare

Ephesians chapter 6. We're following along our general theme of survival in the 80s. The other term, for those who like more spiritual terminology, perseverance in the 80s. How to keep on keeping on. How to avoid the devil, the devil's minefields.

How to maintain the spiritual glow, pressing on. We've seen the importance of spiritual balance. We've seen the absolute necessity of really knowing Christ is Lord. Absolute Lord of our lives. And what it is to be in God's race, with our eyes fixed upon the Lord Jesus.

And laying aside every weight and every sin that could possibly hinder us. And we've seen the importance of love and relationship, serving one another. And we've especially tried to think how we can put some of this into practice in this camp ministry, that the Lord has called us into.

I hope you will review the material you have received. Because really we're here not to just throw out a challenge, but to teach in a way that hopefully you will be able to take these things and teach them to others also.

And that's one of the purposes also of making these cassette tapes available. Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

The Armor of God and the Reality of the Enemy

That's strong terminology. For 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.

Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girded about with truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness, your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

Above all, taking the shield of faith, with which ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Praying always. With all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. Watching thereunto with all perseverance, all perseverance and supplication for all things. And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds, that in this I may speak boldly.

We got a crisis. I believe that you can get that twice a day. Very strong. Have you ever wrestled with this chapter? I wonder if you imagine this as a military camp. Strange as it may seem, as I look out the window right now, you're probably never going to forget this.

It reminds me of a camp I visited in Poland just about one year ago. It was called Auschwitz. Now that is an initial impression just from the side of that one brown building. The fact is, once you examine the two camps, there is no comparison.

I don't know if you've ever visited one of the concentration camps that are preserved as museums. If you're ever over in Eastern Europe, by the way, there's a great need for workers in Eastern Europe.

And the coordinator of our work in Eastern Europe lives in Wales, in Reel, if you want to go see him. What an opportunity there is there, especially for British people, a lot easier than for Americans.

It was just about a year ago, I was in the Soviet Union again, and I wish there were time to just share just that experience I had there in the Soviet Union. And I will never forget that visit. What has happened there can never, never be forgotten.

War is a very real thing. It's a very ugly thing. It's going on right now as we sit here so peacefully. Iran and Iraq have lost a couple hundred thousand. Many who are fighting in that war are only 16, 17 years of age.

It's a holy war. They consider the Iranians especially the greatest privilege to give their life in the service of Mohammed. In Lebanon, we had to evacuate our team a month ago because of the war there.

They've now gone back. In Salvador and Nicaragua, we're having guerrilla warfare. We're having fighting that, when you read about it, it's just, it's overwhelming. We wonder what is going to happen next.

Christians as Soldiers of Jesus Christ

The history of our planet, whether we like it or not, is a history of war. And during the war, there were many places similar to this all over Britain. Some for POWs, some before that time for American military, some for British military.

And it's interesting to go and visit those camps. When I lived in England in the, when I first came here, for a short time, I lived in a military camp in a place called Chigwell in the east end of London.

We were the first group, I think since the war, to actually stay in that camp through the winter. That's where my son was born, my second son. I'll never forget. The truth is, this is a military camp.

And this summer, whether you like the terminology or not, or whatever you may decide to do here, it is going to be and is a military camp. Why? Because every follower of Christ is referred to in the New Testament as a soldier of Jesus Christ.

So if some who come here are believers, and I believe many who come here are believers, according to the Bible, they are soldiers of Jesus Christ. Believer as a soldier is greatly, greatly neglected in the church today.

I don't know if you've ever read that little poem, based on Onward Christian Soldiers, that's reworded, Backward Christian Soldiers. I won't read it now. I think it's in my first book. I find it a little depressing, and perhaps it's too cynical.

When 40 men signed a pledge that they would not eat until he was dead, once they got back home to Birkenhead, Liverpool, a couple of days' time, there's a little note waiting for you, signed by 40 of the people in your neighborhood.

We hate you, and we are not going to eat until you're dead. You'd probably think it was a practical joke. But what if you knew, in the light of your ability to stir up hatred, what if you knew that this wasn't a practical joke, this was for real?

How would you emotionally handle that? No doubt you'd probably write and sign up to come on Operation Mobilization and live in London. Or China. You know, when we read these things in the New Testament, because it's so unreal to where most of us are living, we actually relegate it to evangelical fantasy.

We don't really believe that people are going to live this way. We don't really believe there's actually a war going on. We don't really believe there are actually weapons and there are enemies. And so we create a Christian, we teach it on the flannel graph to the children at Sunday school.

You know, David and Goliath, that's a great story. And we have the little flannel graph figures, David with his sling, knocking Goliath out. All the little boys and girls sit there at Sunday school. And sometimes when we're involved in teaching Sunday school, we are telling those children that which is in no way a reality in our own lives.

And that is one of the greatest dangers for this camp. That you will be mouthing off to all these young people, you leaders, you responsible people, that which is in no way a reality in your own life.

Teaching From Spiritual Experience

You may have a little Bible study on prayer. The importance of prayer, how to pray. We all should have our quiet time. If you have your quiet time, you're going to grow. If you pray, you're going to be able to accomplish great things.

But can you say that that's a reality in your life? Are you going to be teaching that from experience in front line spiritual combat? Or are you going to just be repeating something that you've heard from somewhere else?

Keep your place in Ephesians 6 and look at 2 Corinthians chapter 5. 2 Corinthians chapter, I mean chapter 10 verse 5. Let's read it in its context starting at verse 3. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh.

For the weapons of our warfare, there it is. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Total war. And every eye thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of the church has run away from.

I believe it is the emphasis on us beings. From my understanding, there's a famous holiday camp where quite a few people have wanted George Burwer to come and speak, but as they met and discussed it, they decided it really wasn't appropriate for a holiday camp.

You feel uneasy. If a message of discipleship and spiritual warfare was given at a holiday, as if somehow it would be impossible for a Christian to be a soldier and also to relax. Actually, the contrary is true.

That if you're going to be a real soldier, you better know how to relax. And you're going to pop. If you just think every minute you can be in one of the more intensive. For some of you, the last couple of hours going on the doors is a thing.

God doesn't expect you to do that. Fifteen hours a day. Even in O .M. where some of our team, only some of our team, specialize in that kind of work, the maximum they usually can be in front line, face-to-face, door-to-door evangelism, is five or six hours a day.

Maybe in the evening they would then revisit contacts in a little easier situation. They would have a previous invitation. That's a little easier than, you know, going what we call cold turkey, banging on doors.

I've been banging on doors even before my diversion. I was selling things before I was a Christian. What do you have before the boys? Anything. Selling Easter eggs. Flowers. Before that, when I was about seven, I sold raffle tickets.

My mother paid for the cake. But despite that experience, before I was a Christian, after I became a Christian, going door-to-door with Christian books and witnessing, I always found there was a certain spiritual law of gravity.

And if you can learn that, you can get the victory in this area. Because getting started and getting going and knocking on the first door is the toughest part. I find that variety often has helped me in evangelism, that sometimes if I just don't feel up to banging on people's doors, I go to a pub.

Evangelism, Discipleship, and the Early Church

In this strong exhortation of that, assemblies used to be known for their emphasis. And what did they do? Verse 42. Look at that. Daily in the temple and every house, they ceased not to seek and preach Jesus Christ.

And what happened? There's no chapter divisions in the original Bible. You go right on and read in those days when the number of disciples was multiplied. That's our goal. I'm sure that's your goal here in this camp.

Not decisions, but disciples. That's why you planned this training weekend, that you may be a little more effective in what you're going to do this summer. Not decisions. I think of the testimony of this one brother here who met this blind lady, bitter, cynical, nothing out of her own how to say he will Jesus Christ.

She's no teenager anymore. How old is she? 80. This could be it. A final chance. And if that brother had faith, he could be over and done with dealing with eternal issues. And personally, I'd rather meet an honest agnostic than a person who claims to believe in heaven and hell and all this that we go around preaching and preaching Sunday after Sunday and very little of it is a burning reality of dishonesty, it's religious game playing, it's the compassion of brethren.

These, your assembly, is that the testimony of your prayer group, of your witnessing group, wherever you're living? And these that have turned the world upside down, it was the testimony of Darby, it was the testimony of many of those early brethren like Chapman and Anthony Norris Gose.

Have you ever read his writings? It's interesting how we don't particularly like the writings of some of our founding fathers. And Anthony Norris Gose's book called Christian Devotedness, tougher than the book True Discipleship, is pleasantly left out of print and out of circulation.

And yet he was the first missionary to launch out from the assemblies. He went to Baghdad way back in the day. Look at an interesting passage of scripture about that. I think it's 1 Corinthians 4. I sometimes get it mixed up.

Following Christ by Following Faithful Leaders

I got on a little side road here, but it's worth it. 1 Corinthians chapter 4. Yep, that's it. Very strong passage of scripture about the Apostle Paul. First time we were pulled for Christ's sake. You are wise in Christ.

We are weak, but ye are strong. Ye are honorable. We are despised, even unto this present hour. We both hunger and thirst and are naked and buffeted. We have no dwelling place. And labor, working with our own hands, being reviled, replaced, being persecuted, we endure it.

Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world and are the off-scouring of all things unto this day. Perfect description of Darby and Groves. I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sense I warn you, for though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet had not many fathers.

For in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Wherefore I beseech you, being ye followers of me. Isn't it interesting that the Apostle Paul, who we would tend to categorize as a sort of special person, we don't expect the average Christian to be like the Apostle Paul.

We put our great Christian leaders in special categories and relegate them to the flannelgrass. But Paul wouldn't allow that. After giving these strong words, he said even in his Corinthian church, which was a New Testament church with a lot of problems, including immorality, he said, be ye followers of me.

And as you come to have responsibility in this camp, though you may like to be all very, very spiritual and say, oh well, just follow Jesus. Don't follow me, just follow Jesus. You can't biblically say that.

Because these young Christians are going to follow you. And it is biblical as Christian leaders to be able to, in a particular sense, say follow me as I follow Christ. Not copy me. We're not talking about carbon copies, but we're talking about what Paul mentions here.

The interesting thing in thinking of our own spiritual roots is this little verse 15. For though ye have 10 ,000 instructors in Christ, in the past 50 years, the Brethren movement especially shifted from evangelism to teaching.

Praise God for every teacher. But we now have so many teachers. So many teachers. And some of them, what they're teaching, well, I won't get into a big discussion about it right now, but I'd like to go back to this verse.

Probably today in our assemblies worldwide, we may have thousands of teachers, but we don't have many fathers. And men like Darby and Mueller and Chapman and Groves and others, they were our fathers. And it's good once in a while to look at their lives, to look at their zeal, to look at the emphasis they had on being a soldier in Jesus Christ, to look at their evangelistic spirit, to look at their pioneer spirit, a rebirth of the vision and the compassion and the discipline of the founding fathers of our movement.

And if we don't, we will be relegated to the periphery of what God is doing in Britain today. We can't be carving copies of that. And we're in a different generation. But oh, how much we can learn. Yes, we're in a spiritual warfare.

We're soldiers of Jesus Christ. There's a real enemy, we're told in Corinthians, not to be ignorant of Satan's devices, and therefore we cannot afford to go out at any time without that armor described there in Ephesians chapter 6.

Opposition, Spiritual Warfare, and Fiery Darts

As we do go out, we can be sure, as it was in the Book of Acts against the Apostle Paul, so it will be against us. A conspiracy. A conspiracy. Maybe not 40 men who get together and agree that they're not going to eat until you're dead, but there will be other subtle forms of conspiracy.

Have you read C .S. Lewis's amazing book Screwtape Letters? Oh, his writings are so relevant, even in this day. What are some of the fiery darts that we can expect as we go forward in this great spiritual warfare?

And even as we, by God's grace, attempt to be involved in this camp, and to see this camp really used for God's glory, and to see people really coming in to greater reality in their spiritual life. Let me just list a few of the fiery darts that you can expect against your own personal life.

Unbelief and the Struggle of Faith

Number one, the fiery dart of unbelief. Unbelief. Don't be afraid of doubt. Great faith is not made in the absence of doubt. It's made as you battle through. And I find that often when I begin to move out in evangelism, my doubts become greater.

I'm standing out somewhere on the street, giving out literature, and the devil sort of buzzes in my ear, you have the audacity to believe these people are lost. You actually believe you're better than these people.

Especially hard when you're out among thousands, surrounded by thousands of Muslims, did a lot of evangelistic preaching just recently in Pakistan. I found often I was struggling with doubt. Doubt is normal.

It's part of spiritual growth. Don't be frightened by it. There are answers to the toughest questions. That book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, more Evidence That Demands a Verdict, I could point out ten other books on that table that will answer some of the hard questions about whether what we're preaching and teaching is really the truth.

We're not a sect. We're not just off in some kind of religious cult. We have found the basic historical truth that has been passed down since Pentecost. Beware of the fiery darts of unbelief. And remember that old expression, don't get off the train when it's in the tunnel.

I was on a train in Switzerland some time ago. I've never been in so many tunnels. Yes. I didn't have a desire to get out of the train at all when it was in the tunnel. I waited until it came out to the station.

If you're in a dark period, if you're going through doubt, don't do something foolish. Don't do something foolish. Study. The second fiery dart, we're going to have to just bring this to a close, is materialism.

Materialism and the Call to Missionary Sacrifice

We live in a society that is manipulated by materialism. It has become God. Don White's written a book called The Golden Cow. You're in that little book. In many ways, men like Anthony Norris Gould in his day had the strongest anti-materialistic message the Church in that day knew.

Andrew Murray wrote another similar book. His book was called Gold. And as all the other Andrew Murray books about prayer and the spiritual life were kept in the print, Gold was left out of print. It is unfortunate that often the Church has settled in to the sort of middle-class, bourgeois, easy-going crowd with lots of money to put into church buildings, with lots of money to buy nice cars.

And sometimes you can go to a little tiny assembly where they hardly give any money to world missions, and when you look at the cars parked around the assembly where they have this little offering of maybe 50 pounds on Sunday morning, you wonder what in the world has gone wrong.

The assembly missions, through echoes of service, is barely keeping up with the debt rate. Now, praise God, that's not the total picture of Brethren missionary work, because Brethren young people go out with OM, they go out with other groups, some go out just from their own assembly, are not enlisted in echoes.

You know, everything the Brethren do is always a controversy. You never get Brethren assembly's degree on anything. But the fact is that we are not, we are not seeing very many. And I was looking at all the retired missionaries in the back of the echoes book just a couple days ago, on the way here.

Amazing number of retired missionaries. I wrote to one of them. My heart really went out to all these great soldiers who are in retirement, and many of them are still serving the Lord. It would be a tremendous thing if you could sponsor a project here in the camp, this center, I'd be happy to pray with you about it, to do something from this camp to encourage all those retired missionaries around me.

Maybe it costs a 15-pence postage stamp. Think about it. Who's going to take their place? Who's going to take their place? It's a challenge. And I think one of the reasons so many are not going is the pressure of materialism.

We find more young people want to go than churches and assembly want to send. And oftentimes they're not really honest. They're saying, well, we don't really believe this Brethren is ready. We don't believe he's really gifted enough.

We don't believe he's really called to missionary work. What they really mean is we don't have any money to commend him and support him. It always encourages me when people speak with honesty and simply say, well, it might be good if he did go, praise the Lord, but we don't have any money here.

We certainly can't support him. Praise the Lord. If the Holy Spirit hadn't raised up alternative ways to see God's workers supported, I just don't know where we'd be. And you know the alternative that George Mueller emphasized.

It's one we've sort of forgotten about. You know, believing God. Believing God could supply money. Do you think God could do that? We've drifted a long way. We've drifted a long way. We had many teachers, but we've forgotten what our fathers had said.

Impurity, Unequal Yoking, and Holiness

And materialism, because the enemy will use it against you personally. Thirdly, impurity. Paul wrote Timothy and he said, flee youthful lust. I had a struggle with this. Can you believe it? This afternoon.

I was giving out tracts and there was a woman I could see from a distance who didn't have any clothing on, from here on. And of course there was that temptation, just, you know, little eye gate exercise.

Somehow I thought, you know, I'm going to give a tract to her husband. I mean, you know, I was giving tracts. I was coming right by there and I just, I just, you know, I gave a tract to the husband and just walked away.

Now maybe you think that's puritanical. Maybe you think it's pharisaical. But I personally believe that if there's going to be a ministry to nude women, then I'm going to let the sisters handle that ministry.

I'll take the nude men and you can take the nude women. But don't let me project my problems on you. I thank the Lord for that little victory this afternoon. Impurity seems to come from every side, doesn't it?

You're sitting late at night, you feel well, I just want to relax, put my feet up, you turn the television on and within ten minutes there are people having sex right in your living room. And now we're told by this generation, what's wrong with looking at that?

Do you really think that's God's will that we sit watching other people have sex on television? You really think that can be justified in the name of art? Personally I don't. And I think we should have more hatred and righteous indignation for that which is being pumped through our TV screen and write a few letters once in a while and turn it off or walk out of the room.

Impurity of course is far more subtle than that. Far more immorality than I have to be involved in counseling comes between Christians. It all started quite platonic, just nice feelings. There was no big heavy sexual overtones until a few months later when the mood changed and the weather changed and then what started as a purely platonic friendship and there's nothing wrong with platonic friendship between boys and men, men and women, boys and girls.

And we know the ancient Phariseeism and Puritanicalism of yesteryear did not necessarily produce a dynamic generation. It's an area where we need balance. We need wisdom and discernment each step of the way.

I wonder if there's anybody here who's involved somewhat in depth with an unconverted person in a social relationship. You're going to come into this camp to counsel young people about relationships, about not being unequally yoked and yet you yourself have a relationship.

That's not really God's way. It's only something you can decide. But how my heart breaks when I meet men and women who in a weaker moment of their spiritual life got into an unequal yoke and are now paying heavily for it.

Extremism, Humanism, and Other Spiritual Dangers

The fourth fiery dart is extremism. I've written here, convictions without love turn to bitterness. I'm a man that discovered over the years I have too many convictions, especially about small things.

I think this is part of our American culture. Or maybe we copied it initially from Britain. But we get so many convictions. You meet people in the States who have deep convictions about vitamins, vitamins I think you say.

Everybody must be taking vitamins. And wherever you go around the States people are laying some heavy thing on you about this, about that. All these different convictions. You have a group now they won't drink any water directly from the faucet.

It must all go through a purifier. And they're on a crusade against impure water that comes out of the faucet. And there seems to be every form of extremism. And people get very, very strong convictions about minor issues.

And ten years later they're almost always bitter. Bitter against the church. Bitter against others. We get something that we're crusading on. We're crusading on. And I hope you won't leave here as some kind of extremist crusader taking some little thing out of context that we've said in these days.

That's not the way to do it. It takes time to build a spiritual foundation. Another fiery dart in the fiery arc. The fiery dart of humanistic ideas. We're bombarded by humanism. We're so bombarded by humanism we're not sure anymore what's what.

What's coming from the Bible? What's coming from the church? What's humanistic? Praise God for the message of Dr. Francis Schaeffer. You may not agree with all of it. But it's a needed word in our day.

Humanism. False ideas. Every form of compromise is coming on us from every direction. Sixthly, the fiery dart of ignorance. And seventh, the fiery dart of laziness. Eighth, the fiery dart of intellectualism.

Elitism. Middle classism. I don't know if you like all my interesting terminology. But our time really has gone. The fiery dart, number nine, of disunity. I'll repeat that. Six, that I have ignorance.

Seven, laziness. Eight, intellectualism. Nine, disunity. Failure to build relationships, which we've talked about. Ten, prayerlessness. Voluntary sessions where only a few turn up will not neglect corporate prayer as taught in the book of Acts.

Spirit. Twelve, bitterness. Overreaction. This is a great problem in my life. Me, I have that difficulty. Somebody says something to you, heals a bit, Overreact. Gets us in a lot of trouble. Thirteen, legalism.

False ideas about sanctification and holiness, judging by outward appearance. Fourteen, perfectionism. I hope you will read Dr. Seaman's Healing for Damaged Emotions. If you haven't got the money to buy it, borrow it from somebody, put it in your church library.

I hope your churches have libraries. So important when people don't always have the money to go out and buy all these great books and cassette tapes. We have a whole cassette tape library. I'd be happy to provide.

It includes many, many of the great Brethren Bible teachers combined with the OM Bible teachers. Because the founder of that library is actually a man from a very interesting Brethren assembly in a place called Flixton over near Manchester.

Then fifteen, the good. So often the good becomes enemy of the best. I've seen that again and again. And sixteen, false motivation. Boy, that's a tough one, isn't it? In my little book, Revolution of Love and Balance, there's incorporated another little booklet called Pseudo-Discipleship.

I've had people read that and decide they weren't even converted. I thought maybe I should withdraw it from print. It is a bit strong. We've got motivation. God is concerned why we do things. But I was reminded by William McDonald, who's written many of those Emmaus correspondence courses.

Correspondence courses are another source of blessing and ministry in my life. And I would commend you to those Emmaus courses. They're right here in this country, not far from here. You can study them and get so much from the Word of God.

But I remember William McDonald writing to me and saying, look, beware of getting extreme in this area of motives. Sometimes we just have to cast our motives on the Lord, repent of that which isn't right, and then press on and do what we were planning to do, knowing that it is right and we should do it, even if some false motivation creeped in in the process.

Don't throw away the lovely baby with the dirty bathwater. I washed some dishes today there in our little motorhome. And when I was done washing the dishes, I threw away the water, not the dishes. I get in real trouble with my wife.

We have to deal with false motivation. But some of the things we were planning to do in which there was false motivation still need to be done. Don't overreact. Get yourself into a more difficult situation.

Enduring Hardness for the Sake of God's Will

Well, I know this is a hard message for some people. This whole thing of spiritual warfare, being a soldier, enduring hardness, evangelism, being on the attack for God, using the weapons. We don't like the terminology.

You want to know something? I don't like it either. And if this message wasn't in the Bible, I'd never preach it again. I am no natural soldier. I'm a natural coward. I'm also naturally lazy, and I don't want to get in all my other natural problems, which you've already had an overdose of, in dramatic form as well.

But if it's in here, then whether I like it or not, that's the way I go. Because I want God's will, and I want God's way more than anything else in life.