“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Eph. 6:11-12. The devil is wily and cunning, and he takes advantage of human nature—the flesh—unless it remains firmly nailed to the cross by the power of God. If a person lives beyond his means regarding food, drink or clothing, he gets into debt and becomes a slave of unrighteousness, toward God and men. To avoid this bondage, we must live within our means. We must practice restraint and self-denial if we are to escape the clutches of Satan, creditors and the judgment of God. If you live beyond your means, you will soon begin to lie and use unrighteous means to make money; and once you have sunk to that level, it becomes even easier to fall even deeper into sin. However, God has given us a remedy: armor, spiritual armor that enables us to conquer—yes, to be more than a conqueror. Even if the truth is only understood or spoken in part, it will always have the following effect: One piece fits perfectly with the next piece to form a perfect whole. There may be long periods of time between each piece, yet when all the pieces are put together, they will fit perfectly. This is what it means to be girded with truth. A person who tells a lie will have trouble remembering a month later what he said. What he says today may directly contradict what he said then. Such a person is not girded with the truth. He is vulnerable and can be judged at the point where one piece does not fit with the other. Practical righteousness in small as well as in big things will protect us like a breastplate against the darts of our enemy. Small acts of unrighteousness will be like holes through which the foxes can sneak in and destroy the vineyard. Nehemiah built a wall—a breastplate—around an entire city, around Jerusalem. Neh. 6:15-16. The wall was finished on the 26th day in the month of Elul. “And it happened when all our enemies heard of it, and all the nations around us saw these things, that they were very disheartened in their own eyes; for they perceived that this work was done by our God.” The breastplate of righteousness will discourage our adversaries, and in that, our victory is already half won. People are glad to preach the gospel of peace, but they usually draw back from the battle that accompanies the gospel. Such a gospel is only half a gospel. Jesus was anointed to preach the gospel to the poor. Luke 4:18. He shared what He had with the poor. To do this, He had to battle against the flesh that always wants to live in prosperity. He invites us to follow Him in this battle. Paul preached the gospel where Christ had not been preached before, and consequently he made himself vulnerable to reproach and ridicule from the Gentiles, who considered his words to be folly. The proconsul, Sergius Paulus, was an intelligent man. He called for Barnabas and Saul and asked to hear the Word of God. Acts. 13:7. They came, but Elymas, the sorcerer, resisted them and tried to turn the proconsul away from the faith. Paul, however, had shod his feet with the preparation to go to battle, and he struck the sorcerer with blindness, so that he had to grope around seeking for someone to lead him by the hand. Wherever the gospel of peace is preached, there will always be a sorcerer or sorceress present to turn seeking souls away from the faith. There is a proconsul to win and a sorcerer to silence. David’s wife Michal, Saul’s daughter, despised David when he put on a linen ephod and danced with all his might before the Lord. 2 Sam. 6:14. When David returned to bless his household, Michal went to meet him and threw one of Satan’s fiery darts at him when she said, “How glorious was the king of Israel today, uncovering himself today in the eyes of the maids of his servants, as one of the base fellows shamelessly uncovers himself.” David put up the shield of faith against her words, saying, “It was before the Lord, who chose me instead of your father and all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel. Therefore I will play music before the Lord. And I will be even more undignified than this, and will be humble in my own sight. But as for the maidservants of whom you have spoken, by them I will be held in honor.” David came to bless his house, but Saul’s daughter excluded herself from this blessing and was reminded of her father’s house, which was destined to perish. She remained childless until the day of her death, and because of that, she remained nothing more than a member of her father’s house, from which she had departed. We who belong to the day, let us be sober and put on “the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.” 1 Thess. 5:8. This hope strengthens and enables us to endure hardships. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” Rom. 8:18. Hope makes us fearless in battle and impervious to dishonor; it causes us to look forward to the reward. The Scriptures are the Word of God for those who have spoken it because they believed it. The Word of God must have accomplished its work of breaking us down and must have found a place in the depths of our heart as an indwelling power if it is to be used effectively as a sword. Satan was able to quote Scriptures, and people can recite lots of them by heart, but the Word does not become a sword until it has been mixed with faith in our hearts. Old Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, the mother of Jesus, “Behold, this Child [Jesus] is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” Luke 2:34-35. The Sword of the Spirit exposes and reveals the thoughts of a man; then those thoughts can be taken captive to the obedience of Christ. When the thoughts are thus directed to a different track, the enemy is rendered powerless, because the only weapons he has are his own thoughts. Blessed Word, which has such power! Clothed with this armor, we become more than conquerors through Him who loved us. When, in addition to this, we pray always in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication and are watchful therein, persevering in prayer for all the saints, our position of faith grows immovable and ever stronger, to the honor of God’s name.Johan O. Smith

A. d. M. God cleanses through His dispensation. He brings us into situations and together with people where our inner man is turned inside out, and the true condition of our heart is revealed to all. There may be things that have remained dormant within us, and perhaps they are living and thriving in our nature; but we have been blind to them until now and not yet mature enough that God could reveal them to us in His light. But now God is doing this, and we are learning to know ourselves in a way that neither we nor others have known until now. Israel was led by God into the wilderness, where they were at once deprived of everything they had previously enjoyed in abundance. And what happened? They murmured against God, because their bread and water were not available at the time of their choosing. In Egypt they saw what the world was all about, but in the desert, they had to see what they themselves were all about. If someone in Egypt had said to these Israelites: “You will probably grumble at God one day,” they would have replied that there was no way that they would do that. But just see, when they arrived in the desert, that is exactly what happened! Only two out of 600,000 men have passed this test and been cleansed by this dispensation. It was Joshua and Caleb who had full confidence in His leadership and therefore followed Him completely. (Numbers 14:24). How often have we not passed the test but grumbled instead of submitting to Him and believing in Him; we have complained about people and certain situations, because we have not understood that they were only a means to an even deeper cleansing. And so, we have once again been spilled from the crucible along with the slag. We have not received help, because we have obstructed God’s purpose for us with our self-will. But because the Lord is long-suffering towards us, He starts again; but now often in a way that is more grievous: because He could not take us on the shorter path, He must lead us on a longer one. (Exodus 13:17). God even uses people who are not holy to cleanse us. Jacob had to work for Laban, in order to learn to hate his own unrighteousness. Jacob was looking for his own advantage but met his match. Haven’t we had similar experiences? Haven’t we often been put together with people who resembled us with all their faults? But instead of learning through them to hate ourselves and let ourselves be cleansed, we have hated them, and instead we have become even more unclean through their impurity. Hannah did it better. She was stuck with Peninnah, and Peninnah taunted her year after year. But Hannah did not say to her husband: I want a divorce! I’m leaving! No! She allowed herself to be pruned and cleansed. And so, she became a fruitful bough that could give life to a Samuel. She saw Peninnah as the knife in the hand of the Vinedresser, which He used to prune her. You must not regard the people who test you as a nuisance, but as a heavenly whetstone that the cutler uses to sharpen and beautify you, or as a hammer that the Master uses to shape the iron in the forge. “You have caused men to ride over our heads,” said David. God has allowed this. Joseph was thrown in prison by the Egyptians. They hurt his feet with fetters, he was laid in irons. (Ps. 105). For how long? Until the time that His word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him. Then the king sent for him and set him free. The Lord God stood above the Egyptians. He allowed him to be put in irons and fetters, and He made sure that he did not stay there a moment longer than was necessary for the word of the Lord to cleanse him—until God had let him go through a deeper cleansing. God’s dispensation requires silence! This dispensation aims to grind our own strength into the dust as we see during Israel’s deliverance. (Exodus 5:6). God’s dispensations and dealings with us point us forward, and are aimed at setting us aside and making room for God, so that God may be all and in all, and exalted above every height and depth of our lives to His glory. (Philippians 2:11).

As soon as we begin to think how happy we are, and to dwell upon and to please ourselves with the thought, the joy itself becomes an offence, and diffuses a secret but destructive influence through the inward life. To be happy in our own happiness, instead of being happy in God, is to drink from a cistern of our own construction, a broken cistern which can hold no water. Fenelon says, that: “The most eminent graces are the deadliest poisons, if we rest in them and regard them with complacency. It is the sin, of the fallen angels: which was that they turned to themselves and regarded with complacency their state; at that instant they fell from heaven and became the enemies of God.”(Upham)