The Fight

Since several women who read this site are not reading along with Challies (read this week’s discussion), I am going to quote Ryle’s introductory statements for this chapter. They are worth repeating. The context is spiritual warfare. Ryle believes that the war waging in the heavenlies is “closely connected with that of sanctification and holiness. He that would understand the nature of true holiness must know that the Christian is a ‘man of war.’ If we would be holy we must fight.”

This warfare, I am aware, is a thing of which many know nothing. Talk to them about it, and they are ready to set you down as a madman, an enthusiast, or a fool. And yet it is as real and true as any war the world has ever seen. It has its hand-to-hand conflicts and its wounds. It has its watchings and fatigues. It has its sieges and assaults. It has its victories and its defeats. Above all, it has consequences which are awful, tremendous, and most peculiar. In earthly warfare the consequences to nations are often temporary and remediable. In the spiritual warfare it is very different. Of that warfare, the consequences, when the fight is over, are unchangeable and eternal.

I think nowadays, many Christians are familiar with the term spiritual warfare. Here in the Bible belt, I have heard all manner of discussions of spiritual warfare. I have heard discussions about which demon or “spirit” is working in someone else. For example, “She has a spirit of seduction in her.” Or, when a friend’s normally sweet child threw a most embarrassing tantrum, “He just had a spirit of anger in him for a little while, and I had to sing over him to drive it out.” There exists this idea that we can speak to demons, or devils, and they will obey us if we have enough faith.

Another one with which I am familiar has to do with health and illness. Having children with chronic health issues opens me up to all kinds of advice from well-meaning individuals. I’ve heard several times that Benjamin’s eczema is a spiritual issue, and we should deal with it spiritually. Some of his behavior when he was younger did resemble the biblical descriptions of demon-possession. So, I really did not hesitate when some men in our church offered to anoint him with oil, lay hands on him, and pray for him. I didn’t have a problem with visiting a woman in our area who claims to have a healing gift. She didn’t do anything strange (nor did she ask for money); all she did was pray for him. I have nothing against prayer. But I have to draw the line when I am advised to anoint my shoes with oil and walk the perimeter of my property in order to “take it back from Satan.” I have to draw the line when you tell me that because I played with a Ouija board when I was 11, I will always have a demon with me. That’s crazy-talk and it gives real spiritual warfare a bad name. So, I’ll have to agree with Ryle that spiritual warfare is a “thing of which many know nothing.” Including myself.

1. “True Christianity is a fight.”
We do not fight other people, whether they be Christian or no. Our fight is against the flesh (our own flesh), the world, and the devil.

• The flesh because “even after conversion [I] carry within a nature prone to evil, and a heart weak and unstable as water. That heart will never be free from imperfection in this world, and it is a miserable delusion to expect it. To keep that heart from going astray, the Lord Jesus bids us ‘watch and pray.’”
• The world because “the subtle influence of that mighty enemy must be daily resisted, and without a daily battle can never be overcome. The love of the world’s good things–the fear of the world’s laughter or blame–the secret desire to keep in with the world–the secret wish to do as others in the world do, and not to run into extremes–all these are spiritual foes which beset the Christian continually on his way to heaven, and must be conquered.”
• The devil because “he labours night and day to cast us down to hell…This mighty adversary must be daily resisted if we wish to be saved. But ‘this kind goeth not out’ but by watching and praying, and fighting, and putting on the whole armour of God.”

Ryle writes it is a fight of absolute necessity, universal necessity, and perpetual necessity. In other words, 1. don’t just sit back on your Christian laurels, engage in the fight for your soul. 2. No Christian is exempt from this fight. 3. There are no vacations from this war.

The saddest symptom about many so-called Christians is the utter absence of anything like conflict and fight in their Christianity. They eat, they drink, they dress, they work, they amuse themselves, they get money, they spend money, they go through a scanty round of formal religious services once or twice every week. But the great spiritual warfare–its watchings and strugglings, its agonies and anxieties, its battles and contests–of all this they appear to know nothing at all…We may take comfort about our souls if we know anything of an inward fight and conflict…Do we feel anything of the flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, so that we cannot do the things we would? Are we conscious of two principles within us, contending for the mastery?…Well, let us thank God for it! It is a good sign. It is strongly probable evidence of the great work of sanctification.

So, according to Ryle, true spiritual warfare is a battle taking place within a Christian.

2.True Christianity is the fight of faith. “It does not depend on the strong arm, the quick eye, or the swift foot.” Ryle writes that the Christian’s faith is rooted in

• “the truth of God’s written Word
• our Lord Jesus Christ’s person, work, and office
• Christ’s presence and readiness to help”

Here is where I think most Christians today are missing the spiritual warfare boat, so to speak. In regards to God’s Word, many want to claim certain verses for their situation. I don’t think God means for us to take His Word and treat it like the plates at the local Piccadilly Cafe. It is dangerous to take verses out of their context and claim them for your own personal victory. Or worse, offer them to someone else for her personal victory (I’ll get to that in a minute). We do not have the liberty to take what we like in the Holy Bible and discard what we don’t like. Our faith, and subsequently, our fight, will be strongest when we are firmly planted on all of God’s Word.

In regards to Jesus’ person, work, office, presence and readiness to help, I find that we put too much faith in other people. How often are we quicker to talk to a friend than go to Jesus in prayer? How much easier is it to ask a friend for help than to wait on God? How much simpler is it to ask someone else for advice than to search God’s Word for a precept or wisdom? Just this last week, I overheard an acquaintance ask another woman if she had a “good word” for her life that day. That doesn’t mean she didn’t seek God first that morning (she may have for all I know), I just wonder why even ask another human a question like that? How would she know what your day was going to be like? Your last breath could be in five minutes, why ask another woman for “a word” for your day? It just seems ridiculous to me. Faith for the fight is going to increase as we place our hope in Jesus alone.

Many believe that the absence of conflict means that the battle is going in their favor. Our minds are backwards on this point today. Sure the battle is tougher some days than others. But an increase in faith does not equal a decrease in warfare. Conversely, the absence of a battle does not indicate victorious faith. Quite the opposite. It really struck me that Ryle considers those who DIED in the heat of their spiritual battles to be the victorious ones. He lists the men of the Reformation and others throughout Church history who faced severe persecution. As their faith increased, their battles only became more fierce. It’s one of those seeming paradoxes in the Christian life, I guess. The ones who look like the biggest losers are the overcomers. Read Hebrews 11. THEY ALL DIED! And some died extremely painful, gruesome deaths. From a worldly perspective they were a bunch of fools, but because they did not love their lives, they did not faint, they held fast to the gospel and faith in Christ, Ryle calls them victors!

I can read their testimonies in God’s Word and in their biographies to understand how Ryle, in making his third and final point, can call spiritual warfare a “good fight.” The Christian’s fight is good because:

• it is fought under the best of generals–Jesus
• it is fought with the best of helps–the Holy Spirit
• it is fought with the best of promises–great and precious promises
• it is fought with the best of issues and results–we are more than conquerors
• it does good to the soul of him that fights it–the fruit of the Spirit
• it does good to the world–blessing the world by being salt and light
• it ends in a glorious reward for all who fight it–“What eye has seen?”

He ends the chapter with some practical encouragement. The part that resonates with me the most, probably because I’m reading a biography of Augustus Caesar right now, is,

Think what the children of this world will often do for liberty, without any religious principle. Remember how the Greeks, and Romans, and Swiss, and Tyrolese, have endured the loss of all things, and even life itself, rather than bend their necks to a foreign yoke. Let their example provoke you to emulation. If men can do so much for a corruptible crown, how much more should you do for one which is incorruptible! Awake to a sense of the misery of being a slave. For life, and happiness, and liberty, arise and fight.

For what it’s worth, these are the thoughts I had after reading this chapter. The chapter for next week is entitled, The Cost. Ryle will answer three questions: What does it cost to be a true Christian? Why is it of such great importance to count the cost? and What may help men to count the cost rightly?