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The War for the Soul of the Church
It is with hopeful expectation that we look to our future because we trust in the Lord and His present work of preparing us for those coming days. Similarly, when the apostle Paul was ministering in the Roman province of Asia, God was doing a deep work in him preparing him for increased dimensions of Heaven’s power.
Paul went through such intense trouble during his time in Asia that he began to despair even of life itself (2 Corinthians 1:8). What could have happened to him to cause such anguish? First, we discover that he fought with wild beasts in Ephesus, Asia’s capital city (1 Corinthians 15:32). While our first thought might be of him wrestling with a bear or a lion, it is questionable that the apostle actually wrestled physically with animals. In those days, when Christians were thrown to the lions, they generally did not live to write about it. So maybe Paul’s fight was of another kind, having to do with the angelic world, with spiritual powers over that city/region.
We see that the Scripture sometimes speaks of the fallen angels/spiritual powers in terms of physical creatures. For example, the apostle John saw Satan as a serpent and a dragon (Revelation 12:9), and Peter saw him as one who walked about like a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8). When David prophesied about Christ’s crucifixion, he pictured the Lord as surrounded by strong bulls with gaping mouths and roaring lion-like qualities (Psalm 22:12). Yet none of the gospel accounts of Christ’s death reveal any wild animals present to threaten Him at Calvary. More likely, David was alluding to the principalities and powers that Jesus disarmed at the cross (Philippians 2:15).
So perhaps Paul’s fight with wild beasts was in fact an intense wrestling match with regional powers over Ephesus. If so, why would the enemy attack there so forcefully? For one thing, we recognize that in those days Christianity was issuing forth from at least three regional centers of influence.
Jerusalem. It was from here that the Church first began to reach out into the world.
Antioch of Syria. This was the city from which Paul went on his apostolic journeys, first accompanied by Barnabas.
Ephesus. It was in this city, the capital of the Roman province of Asia, that Paul ministered daily in the school of Tyrannus for two years so that all of Asia heard the word of the Lord (Acts 19:9-10).
God powerfully influenced the whole province of Asia through Paul’s time in Ephesus. It was here that seven sons of a certain Jewish chief priest named Sceva tried to cast a demon out of someone by using the authority of Jesus’ name without knowing Him. Because the demon knew who Jesus and Paul were but did not recognize these men, the demonized individual jumped on them and drove them out of the house naked and wounded. This incident became known throughout Ephesus and fear came on the whole city (Acts 19:17). The result was that many then came to know the Lord. Not only that, many practitioners of magic came together and in one place burned their collection of occult books worth fifty thousand pieces of silver. The destruction of these satanically inspired words then became a prelude to the word of the Lord growing mightily and prevailing (Acts 19:19-20). Clearly, Satan hated Paul’s effectiveness in Ephesus for God’s kingdom.
One example of the enemy’s strategy against Paul was revealed when a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines for Artemis, the god of the Ephesians, stirred up the whole city against him. He charged that the apostle had been preaching that man-made gods are not really gods at all. Since Ephesus was the location of the temple of Artemis, and since great economic disruption could occur to the city if this religion was undermined, many people responded to Demetrius with great anger against Paul.
Surely, these incidents of conflict in the visible realm reveal an intense opposition from the invisible realm. And somewhere in the midst of all these events, Paul began to despair even of life itself. Yet it was also during this time that the Scriptures make this powerful statement.
Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them.
Notice that God began to do unusual miracles through Paul. In other words, He began to do through the apostle demonstrations of power that were not typical to how or what He had done previously. It seems that this was Paul’s first time in ministering the miraculous through the use of handkerchiefs. But to be clear, the great and oppressive tribulation that he struggled through in Ephesus became the birthplace for God’s power to be revealed in new ways in his life.
And on top of this, it was after these events that we see for the first time the apostle raise someone from the dead (Acts 20:7 - 12).
Paul’s own testimony was that he and the apostolic team in Asia had received in themselves the sentence of death so that they would not trust in themselves but in God who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1:9). But to know the Lord in resurrection power required a revelation of their own total inability to even pick themselves up off the ground. Resurrection power only makes sense in the context of dead people.
And so when Paul began to despair even of life itself, he actually was standing on the verge of new insight into God’s resurrection power. This process would have profound impact for others in his life (e.g., think of Eutychus who fell asleep during one of Paul’s sermons).
God’s promise to us is that when we are in tribulation, He will come, calling us near to himself; He is our hope. As we turn to Him, we will gain new insight into His power, love and purpose. At that point, faith will increase in our hearts because we will more clearly see the One leading us forward. Then as He brings us beyond our previous level of faith and expectancy, those expressions of His kingdom that we once longed for that seemed impossible will now look inevitable to us.
The Church of Christ must begin to confidently preach the inevitability of God’s advancing kingdom. What is coming out of Heaven simply cannot be stopped. As David so clearly stated: the Earth is the LORD’S, and all its fullness… (Psalm 24:1). He does not need anyone’s permission to invade the place.
The question is not over who owns the planet, but about who has the privilege among the earth’s inhabitants to stand in God’s presence to receive blessing and righteousness. Again, David is quite clear: it is those who seek the face of the Lord.
Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face.
David describes those who seek the Lord. They are people who have clean hands (i.e., their actions are righteous), a pure heart (their motives for what they do are clear), and who both refuse to turn to idols as well as then lie to cover up such infidelity (they have not sworn deceitfully). In other words, their relationship with the Lord as the only true God is paramount to them. As a result, they would never present themselves as lovers of God when their priorities are really somewhere else, and then live a lie to cover up.
These are the people who can then declare to God’s city (i.e., the Lord’s bride, the new Jerusalem – Revelation 21:9-10) that it is time to open our hearts and welcome the arising King of glory.
Obviously, if the Lord is arising into the Earth, then He is arising into His Church as well. Let us turn in His direction with open arms. When David brought the Ark of the Covenant toward Jerusalem, he was actually bearing the presence of God for the benefit of the whole city. But in his prophetic perspective, it seemed as though the city gates were as people with their heads hanging down.
Similarly, many of God’s people today are looking in the wrong direction for the salvation of the Earth. But our answer will not be found in looking downward (i.e., toward the strength of man – e.g., more money, greater theological education, eloquent preachers, impressive buildings, and demographical evangelistic planning). None of these can possibly substitute for having among us more of the manifest presence of the God of Heaven and Earth.
Today the gates of God’s city are the hearts of His people (Revelation 3:20). Even now, tribulation and shaking are increasing in the Earth. The enemy is saying that the Earth will only grow darker and that there is nothing we can do about it.
But when David saw the city gates as people looking downward, he began to prophesy to them.
Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates! Lift up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory.
The question before us is not whether the Lord is arising into His house, but whether we will turn, lift up our heads, and welcome into our midst this mighty warrior King who has set His sights on the whole Earth.
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