05. The Aspect of Strategic Position

The Aspect of Strategic Position But there is a third aspect. If we are to know the full tide of victory, I am persuaded of this, that we require more and more to recognize that behind all the sin is this great foe to which I have referred, and if we are to win the victory we must occupy the position, the strategic position, which God has revealed to us.

Why was it that Joshua received the command utterly to exterminate the Canaanites and those other nations? You will find it inDeuteronomy 7:1-5 that tremendous command of God that he was utterly to destroy those nations and not allow one of them to live. Why was it? Because it was necessary for the health of the people and for the carrying out of the purposes of God, just as on certain occasions He has had to act in the same way, and sometimes exterminate a people, and just as governments today have sometimes to deprive a man of his liberty and of his life because it is for the good of others, because it is for the carrying out of a wider purpose. When Joshua received this command to exterminate the Canaanites it was because of the foe that was behind them. Their religion was a religion of spiritism. It was saturated with Satanic power, and therefore Joshua was sent to war, not so much with those Canaanites as men as with the awful power that was behind them and that was working all this mischief. If we are to know the fullest victory our attitude must be the same as God’s attitude to those powers of evil. At the back of sin, at the back of practically everything that is happening today against God and against righteousness is this awful foe of which Paul speaks in Ephesians 6, with this marvelous army, this disciplined army that he directs: the principalities and powers of evil. Behind the sin which attacks you, behind all this apostasy that is rushing in upon the Church, behind all these methods of other nations that are creating such problems that our statesmen are being completely baffled, and that are bringing about burdens that are breaking men and nations down, stands this implacable foe of God; and you and I can make the cross a barrier in resisting him, in attacking him, in overcoming him.

Now turn to the third aspect of the cross, which is found in Revelation 12:11 “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” Read the book of Revelation and you will find it is a record of war between the Lamb and the dragon; and what is prophetically true of the future is spiritually true of the present.

There is the enemy today, more bold, more open, more defiant, more determined than any general, I believe, in the past, has ever had any experience of, and to know that there is an enemy is half the battle. He was no myth to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is no myth in the Bible, and we have no right to leave people in ignorance of Him and His workings today. There are many causes of trouble due directly to Satanic influence, and the very essence of spiritual strategy is to know your enemy, and then to know how to direct the power God gives you upon him at the right spot.

Now here, just in a word, is the full Gospel of grace—deliverance from sin, deliverance from self, from the old man, and deliverance from Satan and all his works. How does that deliverance come? “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb …” (Revelation 12:11). “Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12:31), said our Lord Jesus on the eve of Calvary. And when He hung there on the cross, crucified in utter weakness, that weakness became the power of God by which He expelled the devil from his place of sovereignty in the world and stripped his principalities and his authorities of all their power. From that day to this and to the very end Satan is a defeated foe, and the purpose of God is that you and I should be treading him under foot. The truth is that there are many Christians today who are being trodden under his feet; and that is not in God’s program for anyone of His children. He is exercising authority in lives today to which he has no right because he is defeated, and the Lord Jesus Christ gives to you and to me the right, the authority, the privilege, to tread him under our feet and to know in experience the fullness of the victory of the cross. For remember the victory of the cross is not confined to our salvation from sin or to our victory over self, it embraces the indisputable fact that the prince of this world has been judged and cast out, and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world, gives us now the authority to bruise the serpent’s head.

How do we overcome him? That is a wonderful word, the word “overcome” in the Greek. If you were in a court of law it means that you win your case. If it is in a conflict it means that you have knocked the weapon out of the hand of your adversary. That is the meaning of it. Here they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.

Satan goes into the presence of God to accuse the believer, and by the blood of the Lamb you win your case at the great court of appeal. Satan attacks you in your person, through your mind, through the circumstances of life, but by the blood of the Lamb you can knock the weapon out of your adversary’s hand, “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.”

Remember that is the basis of all God’s dealings with you and with me, and it has to be the basis of all our opposition to Satanic interference in our lives. The finished work of Christ on Calvary is the weapon by which you and I can fight the good fight of faith with perfect success. And bear in mind that the cross is the only place where Satan admits defeat. It is the one and only place in the universe of God where the great enemy has been conquered. It is the one and only place where you and I can have victory, and therefore we have got to choose to stand there and resist him and claim the victory. “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.”

Precious blood, by this we conquer in the fiercest fight, Sin and Satan overcoming by its might.

Then John goes on to tell us something more, that they overcame him by the word of their testimony. That is a great deal more than getting up in a meeting and saying, “Twenty years ago I was saved.” Testimony here means cooperating with the Holy Spirit in His judgment upon Satan. And what is His judgment upon Satan? That he has been defeated and that he has no right to any life. Testimony here means entering into partnership with the Holy Spirit to have that fact carried out in actual experience.

How is it to be made effective? You have got to go back to Romans 6:6, and you have got to learn, and I have got to learn, to stand upon that death of Christ and ask the Holy Spirit to make it all that it means, to make it a fact in our experience every moment and every moment. There has to be the perpetual attitude of reckoning myself dead to this and that sin as Satan attacks me every day. Then there has to be the perpetual aggressiveness of the Spirit against him and all his works.

You take your sin, the sin you know is your besetting sin, the thing you sometimes call just a failing, an infirmity. Perhaps you have never yet come to call it a sin. The sooner you begin to give it its right name the better. Take your sin and stand on the death of Jesus Christ against that sin and claim the victory that there is in Calvary for you when joined to the living Christ. Close by faith every avenue into your being against that sin and other sins.

Take your environment, take your home, take your business, with all its duties and tests and trials and irritations, take the circumstances of life; learn to stand there in death union with Christ, and then, by faith through that cross, claim the victory against every foreign power that is seeking to disturb the atmosphere of your home or that is seeking to cripple you or lame you and hinder you in business or through circumstances. That is making Christ Lord of your surroundings. That is entering into cooperation with the Holy Spirit for the deliverance of your life and your home and everything else. Take your work for Christ, take the meetings, the services: learn to stand in them on the death of Christ and claim that through the blood of the Lamb you will get victory over everything by which Satan would seek to hinder you in that service, in that meeting.

We want to take up this aggressive attitude of spirit in opposition to the evil one and bear our testimony to the fact that he is defeated and therefore he has no right here, and he has no right in that work, and he has no right in that home and in that life. Therefore, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can turn upon him and bid him go. Remember the words of God, “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and He shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them” (Deuteronomy 33:27). In this conflict you will find that there are two things you have constantly to do. You have constantly to come back to1 John 1:7and get the cleansing of the blood through faith, and healing for the wounds. Then you have to come back again and again toRomans 6:6, and in the face of every attack of the enemy take up this attitude of death, it is the only bed rock position for the victorious Christian life. Stand in this spirit, and then trust the Holy Spirit to make it real to you. And lastly, John says, “They loved not their lives unto the death” (Revelation 12:11). That is simply the call to you and to me for the fullest surrender of will and of life in order to give us the fullest measure of victory. Make this surrender each day, at each point of the conflict. Just as the Holy Spirit shows you what God asks, then obey and give God all and He will give you all, and you will overcome and share in His mighty victory.