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Spiritual Warfare

Fighting principalities, dominions and powers.

  1. God as Life of the Body

    The Spiritual Man, CFP, Vol. 3, Part 10 THE BODY, Ch. 3, by Watchman Nee

    WE NOTED earlier how our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. What arrests our attention is the special emphasis the Apostle Paul gives to the body. The common concept is that the life of Christ is for our spirit, not for our body. Few realize that the salvation of God reaches to the second after He gives life to the first. Had God desired that His Spirit live solely in our spirit so that only it might be benefited, the Apostle would simply need to have said that “your spirit is the temple of God” and not mention the body at all. By now, however, we should understand that the meaning of our body as the temple of the Holy Spirit is more than its being the recipient of a special privilege. It likewise means being a channel for effective power. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit strengthens our inner man, enlightens the eyes of our heart and, makes our body healthy.

    We have also noted how the Holy Spirit makes alive this mortal frame of ours. To wait until we die before He raises us up is not necessary, for even now He gives life to our mortal body. In the future He will raise from the dead this corruptible body, but today He quickens the mortal body. The power of His life permeates every cell of our being so that we may experience His power and life in the body.

    No more need we look upon our outer shell as a miserable prison, for we can see in it the life of God being expressed. We now can experience in a deeper way that word which declares that “it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.” Christ has presently become the source of life to us. He lives in us today as He once lived in the flesh. We can thus apprehend more fully the implication of His pronouncement: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10.10). This more abundant life suffices additionally for every requirement of our body. Paul exhorts Timothy to “take hold of the eternal life” (1 Tim. 6. 12); surely Timothy is not here in need of eternal life that he may be saved. Is not this life that which Paul subsequently describes in the same chapter as “the life which is life indeed” (v.19) ? Is he not urging Timothy to experience eternal life today in overcoming every phenomenon of death?

    We would hasten to inform our readers that we have not lost sight of the fact that our body is indeed a mortal one; even so, we ...
  2. Prayer and Warfare

    Prayer and Warfare

    The Spiritual Man, Vol. 2, Part 4 THE SPIRIT, Ch. 4, by Watchman Nee

    ALL PRAYER OUGHT TO BE SPIRITUAL. Unspiritual prayers are not genuine and can produce no positive result. What abundant spiritual success there would be were every prayer offered by believers on earth in fact spiritual! But sad to say, fleshly prayers are far too numerous. Self-will found therein deprives them of spiritual fruitfulness. Nowadays Christians appear to treat prayer as a means to accomplish their aims and ideas. If they possessed just a little deeper understanding, they would recognize that prayer is but man uttering to God what is God’s will. The flesh, no matter where displayed, must be crucified; it is not permitted even in prayer. No mixing of man’s will in God’s work is possible, for He rejects the best of human intentions and man’s most profitable prospects. God does not will He should follow what man has initiated. Other than following God’s direction, we have no right to direct Him. We have no ability to offer save to obey God’s guidance. God will do no work which originates with man, no matter how much man may pray. He condemns such praying as fleshly.

    As believers enter the true realm of the spirit, immediately they shall see how empty they themselves are, for absolutely nothing in them can impart life to others or work havoc upon the enemy. Instinctively they will therefore reckon on God. Prayer then becomes imperative. True prayer uncovers the emptiness in the petitioner but the fullness in the Petitioned. Unless the flesh has been reduced to a “vacuum” by the cross, what use is prayer and what can it possibly signify?

    Spiritual prayer does not proceed from the flesh nor the thought, desire, or decision of the believer; rather does it follow purely from that which is offered according to the will of God. It is prayed in the spirit, that is to say, spiritual prayer is made after one has discerned the will of God in his intuition. The command insisted upon in the Bible is to “pray at all times in the spirit” (Eph. 6.18). If that is not the way we are praying we must be praying in the flesh. We should not open our mouths too hastily upon approaching God. On the contrary, we first must ask God to show us what and how to pray before we make our request known to Him. Have we not consumed a great deal of time in the past asking for what we wanted? Why not now ask for what God wants? ...
  3. Deliverance

    DELIVERANCE

    For that which I do I know not; for not what I would, that do I practise; but what I hate, that I do. But if what I would not, that I do, I consent unto the law that it is good. So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me, but to do that which is good is not. For the good which I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I practise. But if what I would not, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me. I find then the law, that, to me who would do good, evil is present. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I of myself with the mind, indeed, serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and death. Romans 7:15-8:2

    The Desire for Deliverance from Sin

    A person who believes in the Lord may immediately be delivered from sin. This experience, however, is not necessarily shared by all new believers. Many are not delivered from sin after they first trust in the Lord. Instead, they often find themselves falling into sin. There is no question at all that they have been saved, that they belong to the Lord and have eternal life. Yet the great difficulty remains that they are frequently disturbed by sin. Because of this, they are unable to serve the Lord as they would like.

    It is most painful for a saved person to be disturbed by his continuing sins. Since he is enlightened by God, his conscience is sensitive. In him is the life which condemns sins; so he has the consciousness of sin. He deeply feels his corruption and he abhors himself. This is really an exceedingly painful experience.

    Out of this experience comes a problem: many believers do not really know what sin is. Some believers say that sin can be avoided by resisting it. Thus they exert all their strength to resist the temptation to sin. Others contend that sin needs to be overcome. Hence they fight with sin all the time, hoping ...
  4. Why Does it Feel So Good to Read The Spiritual Man by Watchman Nee-White Cover Only?

    The Spiritual Man, 700 pages, by Watchman Nee does something to you that no other book does, except for the Bible of course though the Bible takes longer to work in you because it is far more than 700 pages.

    Why does this happen? Because it is the foremost book ever written on the dividing of spirit, soul and body. Nobody else has even come close. Nee considered it a perfect work. I concur. Watchman Nee had the highest IQ of anyone in the history of the Church that we know of. TSM extracts from the Bible the best and most applicable material to show you how the dividing of spirit, soul and body takes place and shortens it up to get right at the heart of the matter.

    So what happens is you read say 20 to 50 pages in one sitting. You're deeply touched, but nothing major happens. Wait for later that day or the next morning. You will sense a change in you, and you can directly correlate it to appreciating what was said from what you read.

    You've just experience a taste of the dividing of your spirit, soul and body to walk by your spirit more than you did the day before.

    Now, realize, this is just a taste of what can be realized. If you were to spend 5 hours that day continuing to read and let it sink into your innerman, the change in your spirit increases exponentially in correlation to your consecration, that is, the amount of time you are willing to delve into it.

    You should not need to go to Jessie Penn-Lewis' War on the Saints unless you are contending greatly with evil supernatural spirits that are attacking you incessantly.

    After reading TSM do read The Latent Power of the Soul that belongs at the end of the TSM.

    If you do all this, you will experience such a change in your being, you will be left in awe and read the Bible like you have never read it before, because the spiritual world will have opened up to you.
  5. The Crazy Games People Play Who Call Themselves Christian that are Not Christians



    Have you come across people, and more potently family members, who claim to be Christians but are clearly not? They throw the word "Christian" around when tested as if somehow that automatically makes them a Christian. For example, a family member may think the atheist in the family or other members of the family are Christians even though they never want to discuss the gospel of salvation of Jesus Christ let alone hear about it. They get angry about it. So this "nominal Christian" (i.e. false Christian) essentially believes in universalism that they are all saved and is under strong delusion that they believe in Christ anyhow in some mysterious esoteric way. What a false Christ this would be!

    How does an atheist accept Christ when the atheist claims God does not exist? That is the most obvious case to put forward. But it is no less true to observe the contradiction in someone who may not vocally deny Christ, but certainly has not received Him for forgiveness of sins and resurrection life.

    This family member who is a false Christian may have accused you of being a fanatic for your faith as a Christian even though you were simply giving the gospel of salvation with love to another family member who is an atheist. You were saved so you ask this fake Christian family member when he or she was born-again? Never did he or she ever give you the gospel before you were saved (or even after). What love is that? But as the years go by this fake Christian says she or he was saved long before you were. What a surprise that is hearing it for the first time when just a few days ago she or he said she believed in reincarnation, universalism and never mentioned Jesus is God the Son. This is a perverted form of one-up-man-ship. This is how worldly people are. They don't care about the truth of the Scriptures or the Spirit of Truth.

    Not only have I experienced this demented game they play, but I know other Christians who have given me their testimony that they have undergone the same mind games from fake Christian family members. I would like to add as well, I have never met anyone over the age of 40 who ever gave their life to Christ so don't expect them to change. At some point you need to simply not discuss it with them anymore, kicking the dust under your feet even as Jesus and the Apostles did. Just be
    ...
  6. Prayer and Warfare

    Broadly speaking, a Christian who has not yet experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit is rather vague about the reality of the spiritual realm. He is like the servant of Elisha whose eyes were closed to that sphere. He may receive instructions from the Bible, yet his understanding is confined to the mind because he still lacks revelation in his spirit. But upon experiencing the baptism his intuition becomes acutely sensitive and he discovers in his spirit a spiritual world opening before him. By the experience of the baptism in the Holy Spirit he not only touches the supernatural power of God but contacts God’s Person as well.

    Now it is just there that spiritual warfare begins. This is the period when the power of darkness disguises himself as an angel of light and even attempts to counterfeit the Person and the work of the Holy Spirit. It is also the moment when the intuition is made aware of the existence of a spiritual domain and of the reality of Satan and his evil spirits. The Apostles were taught in the Scriptures by the Lord after Calvary; but they were made conscious of the real existence of a spiritual realm following Pentecost. Spirit-baptism marks the starting point of spiritual warfare.

    Once a believer has contacted the Person of God via the baptism in the Holy Spirit, he then has his own spirit released. He now senses the reality of the things and beings in the spiritual domain. With such knowledge (and let us call to mind that the knowledge of a spiritual man does not accrue to him all at once; some of it may, and usually does, come through many trials), he encounters Satan. Only those who are spiritual perceive the reality of the spiritual foe and hence engage in battle (Eph. 6.12). Such warfare is not fought with arms of the flesh (2 Cor. 10.4). Because the conflict is spiritual so must the weapons. It is a struggle between the spirit of man and that of the enemy—an engagement of spirit with spirit.

    Before he arrives at such a juncture in his spiritual walk, the child of God neither understands, nor can he engage in, the battle of the spirits. Only after his inner man has been strengthened by the Holy Spirit does he know how to wrestle with the adversary in his spirit. As he spiritually advances he begins to discover the reality of Satan and his kingdom and then it is that he is given to understand how to resist and attack the foe with his spirit.

    The reasons for such conflict ...
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