Encounter the Truth

Jonathan Griffiths: Friends, we are indeed engaged in a great battle. And this battle, it rages on in surprising ways. Weak people are given divine power through the weapons given for that warfare. And that truth, it breaks down the highest walls, and it takes hold of the most unyielding intellects, and it wins captives for Christ, even when victory looks well-nigh impossible.

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths. I'm Steve Hiller, and Jonathan, I'm just reflecting on what we heard right there. Weak people given divine power. That's a great thing for us to reflect on, for us to be thinking about. But I think sometimes we may struggle to believe that.

Jonathan Griffiths: Well, and here is a place where we need to take the word of God seriously. Paul says in the passage that we're going to look at together today, that we have divine power to destroy strongholds.

And if you have any experience of spiritual warfare and you know what it is to see the opposition of the enemy to the work of God and to the gospel of Jesus Christ, you know how overwhelming that can feel. But to know that God has given his divine power by his spirit to his people to persevere in faithfulness and in service and in the work of the gospel, that strengthens us and that encourages us. And we can believe and trust that the promise is true, that God by his spirit will indeed help us as we seek to follow him, as we seek to serve him, and as we seek to get the gospel out.

And you know, my great encouragement at the present time is to see that there is a response to the gospel in our culture and in our age. There are young people coming to Christ. There are fresh waves of people showing up at church on Sunday. And something is happening, and it is only by the power of the spirit of God, and it is of course something that the evil one very much dislikes, but is not able to stop because God is in it and God is doing something powerful.

Steve Hiller: Oh, what an encouraging reminder of that. And we're going to continue to look at this truth that Jonathan's just been talking about as we join him in 2nd Corinthians chapter 10. Grab your Bible, meet us there as we continue a message called The Dynamics of Spiritual Warfare. Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: I read in the news this week that the city of Toronto is facing a challenge in that its power transmission lines, which bring in electricity from outside the city to its heaving downtown core, they are soon to be overwhelmed by the demand for power. Power comes in from a large nuclear plant in the east and from the Niagara Falls in the west. But within a few short years, the transmission lines will be incapable of meeting the demand of the city, and a new plan is needed quite urgently to address the need.

Now, you think of a great city like Toronto, one of North America's largest, and you think of the great towers in the city center and the buzz of activity taking place within them. All the people who live there, all the people who conduct their business there. Toronto's the financial engine of Canada, a great hub of global commerce and innovation.

But hearing about the power transmission lines and that vulnerability and so on, it reminded me that this great city is in and of itself powerless. That is, it generates none of its own power from within. Without these few flimsy wires, as it were, bringing in electricity from outside, the city would fall silent and its towers would go dark.

That actually happened once, by the way. You may remember the summer of 2003, when the power grid across much of the northeast of North America failed completely. And the great cities of the northeast, including Toronto, fell into darkness. I remember it because I was working a summer job at a law firm downtown as a university student, and I remember that afternoon the city going completely dark. Drained of all power, traffic lights failing, gridlock everywhere, elevators and subway cars stuck mid-journey, the whole bit.

See, from gleaming towers to ramshackle warehouses, from luxurious mansions to humble dwellings, all alike had no power of their own, and they fell into darkness. But the point for the moment is this, the power comes from outside and not from within. And the same is true for the Christian believer. Whether we look impressive or unimpressive to others, whether we appear strong or suffer from marked limitations of physicality or mental strength, whether we have much or little by way of the world's goods, the fundamental reality for every believer is this, our power comes from outside, from elsewhere. Our power, to put it in another way, is not fleshly, but is rather divine in its origin.

Now the image here, as mentioned already, is clearly that of warfare. Verse 4: "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but we have divine power to destroy strongholds." One of our children once had the opportunity to go to the police headquarters downtown and to be taken into the basement to see some of the armory and the weapons that are available for police operations. Some of the very powerful guns that can be used for serious situations or high security events.

In various museums we've visited over the years in different cities, we've had the opportunity to look at ancient weaponry and the armaments that have been used to wage war. I think of the display in the Smithsonian in Washington or the Imperial War Museum in London or our own Canadian War Museum here. Displays where you can, as it were, step into the armory and look at the weapons of war through the ages: shields, swords, spears, firearms, tanks, rockets, all the rest.

Now Paul here in this passage, he doesn't take us into the armory to see the weapons. Not on this occasion. He does that elsewhere. And we know what those weapons are. Allow me just to remind us of his most comprehensive listing of our armaments for spiritual battle, which of course is found in Ephesians 6. Allow me just to read this for our reminder. Ephesians 6 and verse 10. Paul says: "Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication."

What is the armament of the believer for the spiritual battle? Truth, righteousness, the readiness of the gospel, faith, salvation, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, prayer. Now those are our weapons and our armament, and the power that makes them effective, it is the divine power that comes from outside. As we think about that list, you know, it strikes me that apart from the word of God, which we hold in our hands, all the rest of those armaments are intangible and in a sense invisible, although their presence in our lives would of course be visible to those observing.

And of course, in the eyes of the world, our armaments look useless. You know, our only visible armament a Bible, a book. And yet in the Lord's strength, as we use his tools for battle, there is mighty power available. And on the most basic level, you know, this is a reminder for us, isn't it, to use the weapons that we have. It's a reminder for us, isn't it, to be steeped in the word of God, soaked in the scriptures, to be immersed in the word. And you know when the battle is on and we feel the pressure, we need to remember to go to the word.

Sometimes we forget to do that, I think. But the word is powerful. I find myself sometimes just compelled to go to the scriptures in a time of pressure, to stop everything and go to the scriptures and to hear again from the Lord and to be re-equipped and re-strengthened by the word. And then there's prayer. How often we neglect prayer. But prayer is power. In prayer we come before the Lord and we say, you know, I am weak, but you are strong. Would you strengthen me and would you be at work in the midst of the particular situation I'm facing? Would you release your power in the midst of my weakness and would you be at work?

You see, the power's not ours, it is his. It is a divine power, invisible to the world, but greater than any other power we could know or experience. The paradox of spiritual warfare. The power for spiritual warfare. And finally, the process of spiritual warfare. Notice the progression that is laid out for us in our text. Verse 4: "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete."

We have to imagine now the image of a siege of a citadel or a city. There's a fortress that has been built against the knowledge of God. There is a stronghold of spiritual power set against the Lord. How is this fortress going to be taken down? How will this city be taken? Well, notice that the battle happens on the level of truth and of knowledge. It's happening at the level of the mind. This is really very significant, I think.

Remember, our God is a speaking God. The Lord created the world by the word of his power. Information is involved at the very fabric of the creation, think about DNA. This is information. And God has made us rational creatures able to understand verbal communication, able to respond to verbal communication. The Lord Jesus Christ is himself the word made flesh. Salvation comes to us through a message. It comes to us as good news that we understand and accept and respond to by faith.

And the battle with our enemy is at its core a battle over truth. It's about the knowledge of God and understanding. It's about truth and it's about lies. It's about knowledge and it's about ignorance. And I want to highlight that because I want to remind us how important it is that we have our minds saturated with the truth of God's word. I want to remind us how important it is to be thinking people and thinking Christians. I want to remind us how important it is to be lifelong learners of the things of God, students of the word, eager to be grounded in the truth and guarded in the truth.

It's why the education and training and discipleship of our children and our young people matters so much because the battle is today, as it always has been, so much the battle of the mind. It's a battle of the mind. And the process of spiritual warfare involves, first of all, breaking down the high barriers that are raised up against the knowledge of God. In verse 5, Paul refers literally to high things that are raised up against the knowledge of God. And of course here he refers to ideas or opinions as the translators have chosen to indicate, but the image is basically of a high wall built up to resist the truth.

And these high walls of resistance, they got to be broken down. The high walls that deny the existence of God, that refuse to acknowledge the problem of sin and the call to holiness. These high walls that deny the deity of the Son, the wonder of his sin-bearing death at Calvary, the miracle of his life-giving resurrection, the power of the Holy Spirit at work in the world today, the hope of the life that is to come. And the battle rages when the weapons of God reach the walls of the citadel.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths and a message called The Dynamics of Spiritual Warfare. Part of our series Strength and Weakness. We'll get back to the teaching in just a moment, but we'd like to extend a special invitation to all our listeners in the Greater Toronto Area. On Monday evening, October 19th, Jonathan will be hosting a special event for listeners at Tyndale University in Toronto. You can get more information at our website encounterthetruth.org. Enjoy a warm evening of fellowship with other Encounter the Truth listeners, get encouragement in your walk with Christ, and learn more about the reach and impact of the ministry. That's Monday evening, October 19th at Tyndale University in Toronto. Again, get all the details and register at encounterthetruth.org. Let's get back to the message. Again, here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: I love C.S. Lewis's account of his conversion in Oxford in 1929. He writes this of the experience: "You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity term of 1929, I gave in and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed. Perhaps that night the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."

Now, isn't that a lovely account? Isn't that wonderful? You see, the city of C.S. Lewis's mind was besieged by the truth of the gospel, and the walls eventually came down. We encounter hard walls of resistance against the truth among those who are not part of the church, among those who are clearly not converted. But we also encounter hard walls of resistance sometimes against the truth even among those who would profess faith.

Remember that Paul is thinking here first and foremost of the difficulty and opposition he is facing even within the professing church. He isn't thinking here first and foremost about his engagement with the pagans in the marketplace, although the principles here absolutely apply. He is dealing with resistance and opposition to the truth from those who might even be found among the gathering of the people of God.

He's got the Corinthians in view here first and foremost. We see that from the shape of the chapter. We notice it even in verse 6. Notice what he says there. Once he's destroyed every argument, he is ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete, you Corinthians. He's thinking of the Corinthians and their obedience to the truth and their acceptance of the truth. He's thinking about them because he knows that within their number there are some who, on some level at least, are resisting the truth and denying the truth.

And Paul says we've got to break down those barriers first and foremost. And that's going to involve argument. That's going to involve opening up the scriptures. That's going to involve reasoning and persuasion of the truth. But once the wall is broken down and the resistance is gone, there is another step in this process. It involves taking captives from the breached city and the ruined fortress, second half of verse 5. It involves taking every thought captive to obey Christ, says Paul.

Now again, imagine this, visualize this. The image here is that of entering a city where a wall has been breached and then taking captive the inhabitants of the city that they might serve a new master. And here within the breached city of the resistant mind, there are now individual thoughts, as it were, walking the streets of the mind. And Paul doesn't rest on his laurels simply when he's broken down the initial wall of resistance. No, he wants now to wander the streets of the city of the mind and capture every thought and make it a servant of Jesus Christ.

And I don't know about you, but I find this imagery and this concept very, very fascinating. Because Paul sees that within the city of the mind, the thoughts of the person who has been resisting the truth, those thoughts are capturable and they are usable when they are submitted to Jesus Christ. And the fact of the matter is that much of our intellectual process and our knowledge is redeemable and usable when we come to a place of submission to Jesus Christ.

So for instance, you know, if I'm the kind of person who dreams big and has grand thoughts of what can be accomplished, I'm a strategist, my thought processes when they are used for me and my ambitions, those are of little value to the kingdom of God. But when those thought processes and those intellectual gifts are submitted to Jesus Christ, suddenly they become useful for the work of the gospel and for the increase of the kingdom.

When I have scientific understanding and I understand processes in nature and in the world around me, but if in my days before accepting the gospel, I thought of those processes as being merely mechanistic and natural processes without reference to the Creator, well, when I come to faith in Jesus Christ, I suddenly recognize that these are processes designed by his hand pointing to his glory. And so those thoughts are taken captive to Jesus Christ and are now used for his honor.

You see, when you and I encounter a brilliant non-Christian who has a fine intellect and a fertile mind, your aim and my aim as believers is not to get that person to stop thinking. That's not what we want. Your aim and my aim is to persuade that person of the truth of the gospel so that their brilliance and their intellectual gifts might be harnessed for the glory of Jesus Christ.

Now, I think that's a very positive vision of intellectual engagement with those who are opposed to the faith and who are confused as to the truth of the gospel, who are resisting aspects of the teaching of the word of God and are currently in a place of error. It's a positive vision because it says their intellect and their thought processes are redeemable and Jesus Christ can use them for his glory if they will but be taken captive for him.

And so I return again to C.S. Lewis and his description of that thing that he dreaded coming upon him, of admitting that God was God, of being the most reluctant convert in all of England and so on. But what did the Lord do with him? He not only broke down the citadel of his mind, but he then went about the city of his mind and took captive his thoughts. And what happened? His intellect was redeemed and he used his thoughts and his powers now for the glory of Jesus Christ to the benefit of many people.

The wall of resistance needs to be broken down. The thoughts found within the city of former rebellion now need to be taken captive for Jesus Christ. But there is a third element here in the process of spiritual warfare and it's found there in verse 6. Having done all this, Paul recognizes that he needs to be ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete, he says.

Now we won't take time to dwell upon this at length or to develop it, but this element is significant. Paul says that believers need to be held to account for adhering to the truth and living in light of the truth. If there are those within the fellowship stirring up some kind of trouble concerning the truth, undermining the teaching of the truth, they need to be addressed in disciplinary terms. That's the responsibility of the church.

Can't be ignored. And that's a key part of spiritual warfare. You know, the dangers from the outside are quite easy to spot and quite easy to shield ourselves against. But false teaching, the opposing of true teaching, the misconstrual of teaching, the twisting of truth, these things when they come from within, they're much more dangerous. Such trouble from within creates the worst type, actually, of spiritual malaise. And Paul says it's got to be addressed. It's got to be dealt with.

Paul says he himself will deal with it in Corinth if he needs to. And that's just a reminder for us, especially for our leaders, our pastors, our elders here within the church. We've got to be careful to hold ourselves to account collectively for our teaching of the truth and our reception of the truth as a church.

And again, we've got to keep in mind the Corinthian context. Some within the church were rejecting Paul and his teaching. He knew it, and he saw that that resistance to the word was spiritually significant. And if there wasn't going to be ready repentance, there needed to be a response. And that's part of the battle. That's part of the responsibility of the church.

Friends, we are indeed engaged in a great battle. The Lord Jesus Christ has won the decisive victory at the cross of Calvary. But the defeated enemy, and he is a defeated enemy, he is still active for a time. He is seeking to trouble the saints. He is seeking to keep lost souls from hearing and receiving the truth. He is seeking to undermine the flourishing and the health of the church. And this battle, it rages on in surprising ways. Weak people are given divine power through the weapons given for that warfare.