Wrestling Against Spiritual Darkness — Joshua Daniel

The Darkness of the Human Understanding

Let us turn to the book of Ephesians and the fourth chapter, 17th verse please. This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart.

Just look at the strong, plain language the Bible uses to describe having the understanding darkened. You know friends, what is actually happening around us seems rather confusing to some people but it should not be to us when you know the word of God.

So we see around us the understanding of people darkened. They can't see right or rather wrong from what is right. Isn't that tragic? So we have got a situation where with the poor declaration of the word of God on one hand and the defensive posture, apologetic posture which most preachers take today, you know they must find some nice way by which to get the word of God across.

Seeking the Kingdom Rather Than Prosperity

That's what they imagine. So prosperity gospel. Where do you see it in the book? Oh, where do you see it? It's simply not there. Jesus emptied himself, says the Bible, made himself of no reputation, says the Bible, then that we through his poverty might be made rich.

He left all, he gave all. Now when we apply it to actual life, the Lord Jesus Christ reduced it to a very simple law. He said seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, the kingdom of God. Now, you know, very few people really get to the point where they seek the kingdom of God first.

What shall we eat? What shall we put on? All the heathen are exercised by these thoughts. You know, people are always thinking, oh, how is the kitchen doing? How is the fridge? And one of our brothers has laid the law that the kitchen is not to be invaded in that fashion.

I was very encouraged by those necessary admonitions. You know, people get stuck to their own ways. What shall we eat becomes a big deal. You know, when people ask me, what do you want to eat, I say, come on, I have not even thought of that.

You just give me something or nothing. Sometimes I just say, no, I'm not going to eat anything. I want to rest and pray. Well, you know, the whole thought pattern is centered around self, not the kingdom of God.

Prayer, Discernment, and Spiritual Preparedness

You know, sometimes when my heart is greatly exercised in prayer, I just can't sleep. And from subject to subject, person to person, I begin to pray in the middle of the night. And you know, if we are led of God's spirit, we will be troubleshooting and preempting the devil.

I saw my father preempt many things like that. He would know in advance, God would warn him in advance, and he would say, hey, this is going to happen. So, be ready now. This is no time for being careless.

And we would have to face that crisis, and the Lord would give grace because my dad would have prayed in advance. Now, we are losing that prophetic spirit. You know, it's blind man's buff all the time.

Groping, you know, trying to find something to latch on to or someone to blame. No, that's not it. The overcoming life, not the way of the heathen. Now, when you think of the great blindness existing today, where you are not able to see any light breaking into the sea as in the Middle East, well, it has taken us such a long time to gain the simple understanding that by denying Jesus Christ, the divinity and the Lordship of Christ, we have got the spirit of the devil himself.

And when we are confronting it, I don't think we are really doing a good job. Recently, I was in Kashmir just last month, and the prayer hall was further extended to accommodate one third more, a bigger congregation.

But that got full, as well as the front of the hall, as well as another place where the whole meeting was being projected. And, you know, I met people who had come, risked a lot to come to those meetings.

You know, they are marked people, and the community there knows, oh, these people are setting out. It must be for these meetings. And, you know, they can just be slaughtered. And there's such extensive killing over there.

You know, unabated killing, not just military personnel. Even tourists are being targeted. Now, in the midst of that, a small beachhead, a very small beachhead, I said, how many churches are there in this city?

They said, none, except ours. I was surprised. You see, we have a situation where Christians are afraid to spearhead anything that smacks of danger. Well, for adventure, for sport, you know what people are ready to risk.

But for the things of God, it's all go slow, go slow, be very cautious, that's it. Make sure of your own security, and so on. Listen, my dear friends, I don't know why God has put us at a time when there should have been a spiritual race of giants, and we are just a bunch of midgets.

Daniel, Paul, and Purposeful Obedience

And why did God put us at such a time as this? To beat around the bush, just to acquire some reputation for ourselves, or just spend our days with shallow and hollow greetings, you know, Daniel purposed in his heart, and we see how St. Paul purposed also, that he should visit Rome.

Maybe he never foresaw that he was going to be preaching in Rome, even in the household of Caesar, but as a prisoner, he evidently did not foresee that. But there was a very definite direction and purpose in all these things, which God prepared for his people, and God prepares his people for times like these.

Music, Rebellion, and the Loss of Christian Doctrine

Now, we have made our whole world to revolve around music, and music has become a cause of great rift and divisiveness. See, some old people will say, hey, I don't enjoy this music, and so they turn cranky, or they get angry, and over that, there is a great debate.

All right, you know, successive generations go into different tastes. Oh, the classical taste, I think it is still there, but of course, very muted, you know. We all sang those great hymns, full of Christian doctrine.

Now, today's Christians don't know doctrine, they don't know the Bible, they are just caught up with a rhythm or a rhyme, a very ignorant bunch of people, you know. And of course, you can spend all your time strumming away and jumping up and down, and all that kind of thing, but that gets us nowhere, let's face it.

If you look at some of these old pop groups of yesteryear, some of them are just, you know, living wrecks. You can see it. They have had nothing like a proper marriage, they have built nothing enduring, they paid, they made a pile of money and wasted much of it, and what have they done?

They have inspired several people to commit suicide. Some of their songs, their rebellion, it has filled the whole world with the spirit of rebellion. You know, I said to a young man, what is the big point which you are trying to make by your long hair?

What's it? You know, in those old days, some of these boys used to have a little tuft here, you know, it would stick out like this, a little tuft. You would have seen it somewhere. And my, I would get so amused, or I would say, hey, you tufty, and they would get very cross, of course, because to them it was a religious symbol.

Today, what is, what does it symbolize? Anyway, I don't talk very much about these hairstyles because they get so weird anyway. And if you talk, if a fellow gets a little upset, the next best thing he can do is take a razor and make a fine coconut of his head, you know, a glimmering shiny head.

Well, what does it indicate? It indicates a spirit of rebellion. What's the point? What, what are you trying to gain? And on a day like this, don't you sit next to one of those fellows. You won't get any pleasant smell out of that long hair.

So, that's the kind of distraction which is offered. What's the point? Well, what's the point you're trying to make? Anything worthwhile? Nothing worthwhile. And what are we supposed to be doing? We are supposed to be reading.

Wrestling Against Principalities and Powers

Now, the sixth chapter of Ephesians and the twelfth verse, which, of course, all of us ought to know by heart, for we razzle not. How many of you ever razzled? Come on, let me see your hands. Huh, I see a few hands.

So, my grandchildren also are learning a little razzling evidently. Okay. Now, listen, I took a fancy to razzling because my father loved to razzle. You know, the modern razzling, kicking each other, biting each other.

Oh, my, it's sickening, you see. And those monstrous men, you know, monstrous mountain-like men, you know, boasting away and all that, whatever it is. Razzling was a science before. There were certain holds.

You didn't just barge into your man and just knock him down or something. You had to hold him down for the count of three, and that was very hard to do with both shoulder blades flapped against the canvas.

That was very hard to accomplish. You needed to be an expert to be able to do that anyway, but it was a science. Now, St. Paul uses that figure. We razzle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities.

Just think of that. We don't expect to be fighting against the parliament, do we? You see, we are law-abiding citizens, and I do trust in matter of taxes too. You see, I'm not sure at all what this welfare state is doing to people because they seem to cheat a lot, cheat the government a lot over many things.

I am so shocked. However, you see, against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, that is, demonic powers. Now, we are laboring also close to Burma, where some of those tribes have just spent ages, ages, killing each other.

That's it. Shedding blood, and some of the pastors and others taking sides with these warring groups. No notion of righteousness. I was appalled. How are these fellows ever called Christians? All right, they were brought into the churches, but to get them out of their tribal ways.

Revival, Social Justice, and the Transformation of Society

Now, we see also a lot of bloodshed in Africa. Although the world has hailed Mr. Mandela as a great deliverer of South Africa, yet, he was a revolutionary, and he did bring about a change politically.

But, has there been any moral change? No, but for the worse. So, that today, from the security angle, South Africa has become a very dangerous place, full of thefts and murder. Now, that is no deliverance.

Now, when reforms started to happen in Britain, it was revival. It was not revolution. Revival brought about a social justice, a chance for the poor man. And, of course, we can't go into all those great reforms, including the abolition of slavery.

When the missionaries labored in India, you know, folks, when one custom, let us take one custom, which was observed. What was that custom? A Hindu woman was obliged to jump on to the blazing fire, which was consuming the body of her dead husband.

That was to show her loyalty as a wife. Many people perished that way. And, I won't be surprised if history had turned out to be different, because it was an entrenched custom. And, when William Carey saw this happening, he was appalled.

He took this matter to the viceroy, the representative of the queen, and protested, showed statistics as to how many had lost their lives that way, and were losing their lives. And, anyway, it was abolished.

Now, social scientists, sociologists, and others, anthropologists, sociologists, and some of these others, especially from the universities, what are they saying? These missionaries have interfered with the local culture.

You know, that became a big thing. And so, they have spoiled the culture of the people. What was that culture? It was a culture of killing, of impurity, licentiousness. And, the gospel of Jesus Christ fought against this, and brought justice.

Political Reform Cannot Replace the Gospel

Now, to establish democracy in the Middle East, it is a very tall order that Mr. Bush has attempted such a big feat. It is laudable. It is praiseworthy. But, as I was pointing out in some of my public meetings, the Muslim world only knew two classes, the sultan and the slave.

The sultan was served by the slave, was immensely wealthy. In parts, you will find the same situation existing in the greater part of the Muslim world. They won't acknowledge it, but there it's for anybody to see.

Immense wealth in the sultanate, but awful poverty all around. You can see it in communism. It is amazing. We have just begun to work. Last week, they had the first medical camp in what is known as the Sundarbans, the Gangetic Plain or the Gangetic Delta, where the river divides into a lot of tributaries, where whole villages have only widows.

How did they become widows? Tigers ate them up, crocodiles and tigers. And, just 30 miles, 30 kilometers outside Calcutta, one of the biggest cities of the world. And, how much wealth there is in Calcutta.

The man who ruled over Calcutta as chief minister was, probably became a socialist and a communist when he was studying here in Britain. A man who got his degrees here. And, I say, all right, this fellow, educated in England, ruled this region for such a long time, so many terms, but he has not even given electricity to the camp, to the villagers, just 30 kilometers outside the big city.

Do you see, my dear friends? Now, this is all big talk, you know, big talk. But, when it comes to Christian action, where does the Christian begin? It begins with the poor, the underprivileged, begins to lift up people one by one.

The whole history of families have changed. I've seen that happen in my lifetime. Complete change over whole families. From poverty, well, they have risen to economic, not only independence, but affluence.

Well, I do take that with a pinch of salt because I would rather that they had the missionary drive, rather than just a drive for education and well-being. All right, but I've seen that happen. To some of the poorest, those that were great highway thieves, steeped in drunkenness and debauchery, the gospel did it.

Spiritual Giants Against the Darkness

But, here the Bible says that we fight against principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness. You see, I feel like a little dwarf. If heaven sizes me up against the present scenario, it would say, heaven would not hesitate to say, here's a little dwarf, a spiritual dwarf.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and rulers of darkness. You see, princes from hell, that means demonic forces. Now, these are demonic forces driving Britain today.

And, I don't feel we have even come anywhere near getting our fingers on the job. We have not. Now, listen friends, I never give myself marks that I don't deserve. You see, I don't like high talk. Just, we haven't touched.

And, as a matter of fact, there are still a silent majority who are sitting on the fence and watching the scene. What is going to be the outcome of all this? That's all they are. They're just seated on the gallery.

And, you know, how many people in Britain, their conscience is stirred. They are not happy. They are seeing all these things happening to this nation over which they are really distressed. But, the English psyche is such that it can be very long-suffering and very phlegmatic and very dull and seemingly passive.

Well, that's not my business anyway. And so, let sleeping dogs lie. Let them settle their own affairs. In any case, there's the parliament and the government to do things. And, we never speak a word against the royal family and their doings.

You see, that's the attitude. And, that has long been the attitude. So, many of them deplore the spiritual degradation and decadence that they have seen. I've seen it in shop girls. I remember one shop woman.

I wanted some, what, some underwear of some sort, vest or something. And, here was a packet. But, part of it was empty. Oh, she said, these thieves. Of course, she gave me an opening to tell about thieves that come back and return stolen stuff because the Lord Jesus touches them.

But, I could see her supreme annoyance. Well, the whole system used to work on the basis that people are truthful, an assumption that cannot be made anymore. You see? So, what do we have? We have got a situation where being called a liar is no longer a big insult.

Someone said, a noted politician said, there was a time when if somebody called you a politician, it was a compliment. But, now, it is an insult. So, things have changed so drastically around us. But, our prayer has not grown apiece.

What is needed today is a Daniel, a Jeremiah, a Paul, a Peter, not a bunch of people who warm the seats. You know, folks, that's what is needed today. And, nobody wants to talk about these things. That shows how unreal we have become.

Everywhere, you know, look at industry, manufacturing. Why has manufacturing come to a state of extinction in Britain? Why can't manufacturers choose Britain? This is the place to manufacture anything.

We have got good dedicated workforce, a truthful bunch of people who will give to us eight hours honest work for eight hours wage. Why is national health failing? Truth has fallen in the street. And, there is no distress at all if the same thing is happening in the church.

There is no distress. No, my beloved people, we need to get real. So, the Lord Jesus said, put it this way, when the seed was sown, some fell by the wayside. The birds of the air came and picked them up.

And, Jesus said, immediately Satan cometh. So, in certain places, as I have said, we are fighting against these forces. But, unfortunately, not in all the places where there is need, which is against very sad, very bad.

Revival From Person to Person and Generation to Generation

But, you know, revival has to spread. It has to go from person to person. And, successive generations have to add to the reservoir of faith. That is, you must be mightier, far mightier than your parents or me.

That's how revival spreads. Greater works than these shall ye do. That's what the Lord Jesus said. So, now, while we are in the midst of this battle, this kind of playing around, is not going to help anybody.

And, when we consider that our life is so short, I wish I could impress upon you how rapidly you will run out of time. And, you know, I feel so bad. Well, I used to be such a good walker, you know, I could walk.

A Prayer for Spiritual Giants and National Awakening

Even if there was the bus, I wouldn't care to get into it. I could walk. But, now, my heart does not sustain such walking. And, therefore, I see myself terribly limited. Let us pray. Loving Father, forgive us for being spiritual dwarfs.

This age requires spiritual giants, mighty men and women of God, who will attempt great things for God. And, expect to pull down these forces of evil. Lord God, we pray for all the editors, the columnists, the commentators, the radio men, the mass media, the actors, the actresses, the members of the royal family, all these people who seem to be steering the way Britain thinks, the way the moral collapse gets accelerated.

Lord God, we pray that these men who are in the grips of darkness should be delivered. They hardly know what they say and how injurious it is. All they want is to sell their paper, to sell their magazine, however sleazy it is.

Oh, my father, have mercy upon Diana's, Princess Diana's family. Please, Lord, all those inherited genes that are strongly present in the young princess, let it not run amok and destroy the youth of this nation far faster than anyone is able to do.

Oh, my father, enable that there will be people who pray. There must be some very godly people, say, somewhere in some remote corner. And, Lord, we pray and ask you, these forces of darkness that have swept in from many quarters, bringing their cultural baggage of heathenism and untruth with them.

Lord God, and we ask you that these people also should be touched and awakened. Oh, my gracious father, have mercy on Europe next door to us. Britain used to send out missionaries into many of these countries.

And today, I do not know how well these mission, mission societies are functioning. This dependence upon the pound or the dollar, which is so strongly rooted in our culture today, what a restricting force it has become.

Is it because of money we preach the gospel? Is it because our pockets are full we can send some missionaries? Or is it because the need is calling us? Oh, my father, would you pray when the whole land has become a mission field?

Oh, God, here are young fellows in the universities and they have Christian unions, this and that. And most of it is fun time. And the only way by which some of them seem to function is by pairing off and carrying on just like the world does.

This is not going to save Britain. I do plead with you, though we have no access at the present time to some of these numerous student bodies, enable that these young fellows who are students presently will catch a heavenly vision to set before others a higher standard, not to be wishy-washy themselves.

Oh, my father, I looked for a man that will stand in the gap, but found none. Is this what you're going to say? Lord, even of me, is this what you're going to say? Help us, father, in our need, we pray.

Whether it be Russia, whether it be China, whether it be hard Japan, or whether it is the United States, wheresoever the fields are ripe, prepare the workmen. Here are humble workforce. Here are humble cry in Jesus' holy name.

Amen.