Chapter 4
Apostolic Realities: The Principalities and Powers
Let us pray:
We so understand Paul tonight, Lord, who beseeched the saints that they might pray for him that a door of utterance might be opened, that he might speak as he ought to speak, the mysteries of Christ. Paul, this least of all men, who prayed for the grace that is given to preach. I ask a measure of that grace tonight, Lord, that we might preach, that we might proclaim and set forth something of these mysteries in Your great love and mercy toward us, and Your understanding that comprehends our weakness and our foolishness. Come and show Yourself strong to Your people in the power of Your own life, Your own wisdom and understanding and we will bow before you in such gratitude in Jesus' Name. Amen.
...."To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things; in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the Church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him".... Ephesians 3:8- 12 NASB
..."Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armour of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armour of God that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the Gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints".... Ephesians 6:10-18 NASB
We have a very difficult topic before us tonight; difficult in every way; complex in itself; difficult because it is unfamiliar to us and complex because it is "strenuously opposed" by the powers of darkness. We are really going to need grace, the grace that is given to preach, and I ask you to join your spirits with mine for we stand at such a place tonight, that we can either collapse in a welter of confusion or break through into a new and transcendant place. We have all the potential for this being an historic hour for the Church. I am not saying these things to be melodramatic, but just to alert your spirit, even to be prayerful through the speaking tonight. If your mind is not fruitful or understanding, do not panic, for there are issues deeper than the issue of mind. So just receive into your spirit the ingrafted Word and do not get all blocked up in your nervousness or your nervousness for me, but let us be co-labourers together in attending to something which needs to be born, something that needs to be brought forth, and whose time has come. It requires the entire operation of the Church together. The powers of hell are trembling at the prospect of this night and a very serious defeat can be inflicted upon them, but much depends upon our own response.
My subject tonight is the principalities and the powers and what is the manifold wisdom of God that must be now made known to them. For this is the eternal purpose of God for the Church, and if we fail in this purpose, we fail in all.
I agree with an American writer in his comments about the Church and the powers. He remarks on how remarkable is the naivety and ignorance of the Church toward them! It is a remarkable indifference and a remarkable ignorance. Not just because it happens to be something of interest, but because it is absolutely foundational to the whole calling of the Church! We have majored in the minors and have ignored this major theme, and this condemns all of our activity to a certain kind of futility and fruitlessness. We dissipate our energy away and walk on a horizontal level and in an earthly way, even though we have been told by Paul that we wrestle not against flesh and blood - and indeed:
...."our struggle is not against flesh and blood. But against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places"....
This is a wrestling, a struggle, a "corporate" struggle; something that is waiting for the corporate activity of elievers together in Christ, as the army of God. It is only a militant company that can address this. What does it mean - the principalities and powers and the world forces of this darkness in the heavenly places? There is a whole realm of mystery here. The "heaven" that is referred to here is not the one referred to by God but something in the very atmosphere that broods over the earth -the rulers and the darkness of the air that influence the conduct of men and nations more than we would suppose. All things were created by God and even these principalities and powers are an angelic creation, a "spirit order" that was given initially by God for His own purposes. But they have rebelled against their Creator, and though they were intended as a benign influence in the aiding of God in His purposes, in their rebellion against the purposes of their Creator, they have now taken unto themselves their own purposes and, along with their ruler Satan, seek to be deified and to turn the loyalties and attention of men unto themselves and to establish their own values contrary to God, and thus turn men away from God. They operate through nations and they attempt to influence economic, cultural, political and even religious institutions. We see this power clearly displayed in "nationalism", in "rivalry and wars", in the celebration of race and power. The very German theologians who would not consider this subject as being respectable and were embarrassed by Paul's reference to the "spirit entities" and wanted to dismiss it as some kind of vestige of his rabbinical understanding - for indeed demon powers of darkness are not a polite subject. Yet these very theologians had to experience these powers in the paganism and the violence and the death that characterized Nazi Germany. When these powers broke through in complete sway in the turning of the loyalties of men to themselves, in the name of race and nation, a new order, a perverse distortion, a manifestation of anti-Christ. Someone has wisely said that Germany had lost World War Two, but the same powers of darkness of the air that precipitated it, remain unchallenged still. The phrase is even in our vocabulary - we say, "there is something in the air". We travel from one country to another and the moment that the plane comes down we can sense something in the air. We would be foolish and naive to continue in a wilful ignorance of these realities. You say, "Just how influential are these spirit-powers of the air?" They were sufficient to crucify Christ - that is what we are told in 1 Corinthians 2:6. Paul says:
...."Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature, a wisdom, however, not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away, but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory. The wisdom of which none of the rulers of this age has understood, for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory;"....
The phrase, "the rulers of this age", does not refer to men but to the rulers of darkness and the principalities and powers of the air, invisible and unseen, superterrestrial, beyond the earth, who operate through worldly and earthly authorities that are ignorant of their influence. If they have understood the wisdom of God, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. I want to tell you that this is a great influence and we are still waiting for believers to right the history of civilization because we cannot even explain adequately the history of our own century independent of an exposition of the invisible forces of the air that have influenced the conduct of nations in our own generation. Totalitarianism, Nazism - cannot be understood independent of this phenomenon. This is far more than sociology or political science; this is occultism, Satanism, demonism - the unseen forces of the air, and we need to come to a maturity that recognizes the things that are true - not as some kind of painful obligation to attend to, but as the very eternal purpose of God for the Church.
Now I want to try this on you. Do you understand that there is a "cosmic struggle", a mastery for the control and the dominion of the whole cosmos, a moral struggle for the mastery of the cosmos by two kinds of moral orders: the righteousness and holiness and humility of God and another kind of wisdom which is diabolically opposed to it in every point and particular! What is its "moral wisdom"? What are its principles of operation? Lust, force, power, threats, seduction, intimidation and fear, and by these powers they have ruled and jerked and manipulated an entire mankind. We read in Colossians 2:15 that Christ has disarmed the rulers and authorities of the air:
...."when He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through the cross"....
They are disarmed and defeated. They have no effectual legal power to continue. They can only victimize the ignorant, the "spiritually blind", who have not understood that these powers have been disarmed and broken at the Cross. Can you now understand why Paul wanted to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified? Something is more at stake than our "atonement" in the work of Jesus at the Cross. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, bringing back, as it were, the rebellious powers into submission. If they have known this wisdom, they would not have crucified Christ. Every time the Cross is proclaimed in authenticity and in power their defeat is made more manifest. Little wonder we hear so little preaching of the Cross for there is a power in the Cross, and there is a triumph that was won there that needs to be made manifest in every place, through the presence and the proclamation of a believing Church, whose very presence is a statement to the principalities and powers that their "final vanquishment and defeat" is at hand. Where it sees this faith, this understanding, this proclamation, the realization of this victory by those themselves who are no longer under fear or manipulation or threat, "then" are these forces required to recoil and draw back and release their influence over men in that area. We labour in vain if we do not understand this! What are our "evangelizations", our Christian programs, but sound and fury signifying nothing if we have not first wrestled against the principalities and powers of the air and broken their uninterrupted sway over the very areas where we seek to bring the light of God?
I want to quote from a classic book on this subject, written by a Dutch theologian, "Berkhof", called "Christ and the Powers". It is such a little book, but it is a great gift from God. I do not make any apology to you that I am not myself God's researcher and scholar, for this is a true theological work. I only thank God for the grace that is sufficient to understand it and I commend it to your attention and strongly recommend that you obtain it. I want to quote some things from it, He writes that:
"All resistance and every attack against the gods of this age shall be unfruitful unless the Church Herself is resistance and attack...unless She demonstrates in Her life and fellowship how men can live freed from the principalities and powers."
So long as we are a people who are fearful for our security, who tremble over the issue of our own finances, who model ourselves after the world and use their techniques for obtaining funds, we constitute no threat to these powers. Something needs not only to be proclaimed but to be demonstrated in the very life of the Church - that the Church Herself lives "freed" from the powers, free from fear, from anxiety, from seduction, from manipulation. How guilty we have been of that, from our own bedrooms to our religious platforms. We calculate things to produce a certain effect, to obtain a certain response. And so long as we are unconscious of this, and are moving in the very "wisdom" of the powers themselves, we constitute no witness against them. We need to display that not only are we free from the fear for our own security, and that we are free from "mammon", but that we are joyfully free!
..."Jesus I know and Paul I know but who are you?".... Yes, I hear your praise and I hear your choruses but there is something about them that is hollow, that is mere singing and it is not something that I am not yet required as a ruler of darkness to acknowledge!" This is what the forces of darkness utter when they encounter a "church" operating in less than the "fulness" of her inheritance in Christ! There is a faith and "a faith". There is worship and "worship". There is praise and there is "praise". There must be a cry that goes up from us out of the earth for authenticity in all of these things, for when a praise swells up to Heaven that is more than the product of "charismatic manipulation", a praise that is a spontaneous breaking forth of a celebration of God - who has saved us not only out of sin, not only out of Hell but out of fear, insecurity, anxiety and has brought us to a transcendant place of apostolic faith that is more than just subscribing to correct doctrine - then the powers of darkness shall truly be devastated in that place!
It is written that the just shall live by their faith. I shall not take the time to speak at length biographically but through almost nine years in community together - no outside income, no employment in the world - no organizational connection, fifty-five souls living together, needing to be fed every day, clothed and housed in northern Minnesota, in severe sub-arctic temperatures God, in His faithfulness sustained us.
There are some very real issues before us at which we can no longer afford to play. The manifold wisdom of God that is waiting to be demonstrated beyond the earth and into the very cosmos itself is reserved for one instrument in God's eternal purpose: the Church. You can understand that the church has to be more than an institution that provides religious services. It is a people who live "without fear", a people who are already in the realm of the eternal, who are joyfully freed from the power of mammon and who are walking in light and righteousness and truth.
The powers are having free sway in Africa and inciting one race against another, and even tribe against tribe, and men are playing upon the words of justice as a justification for their own terror and violence. There needs to be a standard in the world of those who can speak to the issue of "justice" because it has been established in their own common life. This is a calling for a Church that is more than just a casual conglomerate of individuals - a people together, whose corporate intercession makes the principalities and powers of the air "part" over the place where they are. It is inevitable that such a Church shall be resisted and that the powers themselves will test it and resort even to oppression and persecution. Jesus said that if the rulers of this age knew the wisdom of God, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. The fact that they have not opposed us is not a statement to our spirituality or maturity, but a "scandal" and an evidence that we are not yet the Church that we ought to be! As the true Church rises up, from faith to faith, and glory to glory, oppression and persecution from the "powers" is inevitable. It is their final act of desperation against us, even as they were desperate against Jesus. They rubbed their hands in glee when they had Him totally in their power, but He who went to His death as a lamb in silence, who did not resist them, but yielded Himself to that terrible power of darkness, by that yielding, triumphed over them. It was a final showdown, a conflict between two wisdoms, two moral orders, violent force and power in vicious brutality against a lamb, slain from before the foundation of the world, who did not so much as open His mouth and suffered in meekness and humility -the worst that could be brought against Him revealed the best that was in Him. The enemies' worst brought out God's best. Utter malignantly met utter magnanimity, and we know who won in the power of that life. He bruised the head of the serpent but it is left to the Church to finish him off - not just in this age but for the ages to come - not just in this world, so as to release its captives but also to make an "eternal demonstration" of the manifold wisdom of God into the very access of the whole cosmos itself - to the principalities and powers of the air. I am not in any way trying to be religiously impressive, to find some rare esoteric subject that is rarely sounded - this is nuts and bolts - utter practicality - the loftiest eternal purposes of God that affect our daily character and posture in the world as the Church. If we see this, and if we consciously walk in the light of it, it will become acute in our spiritual discernment and we shall begin to sense the play of these powers in the civilization in which we occupy and we shall recognize their influence through institutions of education and culture and religion and we shall walk like giants in the earth. Not only shall we be unimpressed by them but we shall free others from their "unnecessary domination". I shall give you some examples but these are only first steps in the walking out of this. Two of the students that we hoped to come to us from Africa to America were opposed by the American consulate officer in that African country. He gave every reason why they could not be granted a visa and every objection that he gave we sought to overcome. He required a written statement - we sent that. He wanted further credentials - we sent that. And still he opposed their coming and so at their insistence he telephoned me from Africa to Minnesota and the call came about five o'clock in the morning our time. It wakened me, and as you can understand I was not at my best but he was - perfect in his diction, a peace of American officialdom, very correct and precise, very legal and authoritative. He said that in all good conscience he could not approve their visas he had a moral objection, because, he said, if he granted them a temporary visa, he knew that once they got to America they would seek for an extension and somehow that would be immoral. In my half sleep I agreed with him - it sounded so correct and I hung up and then the thought came to me, "What is immoral about applying for an extension if the initial visa itself is legitimate? And who is he to have moral scruples about two precious Christian young men, whose heavenly morality far exceeds his own?" So I prayed about that and I was impressed to write him a letter - a rather strong statement and I sent it to these two students instead of him - knowing that such a statement would prejudice him even more against them. I said, "You read this and pray about this and if you are willing to take the risk then give him this letter." They gave it to him and in the letter this is what I said:
"There is a thin line between being an official and being officious and this is a tendency and a danger in which all administrators in the earth stand. There is only one healthy corrective that will keep you from such error and that is to recognize that the earth is the Lord's and the nations and the fulness thereof and all those who dwell within them. You need to be reminded sir, that you are only called to administer in a certain restricted sense, to serve actually, the purposes of God. For as Dietrich Bonhoeffer tells us in his book on "Ethics" - government itself is only an instrumentality given of God to establish that sufficient amount of order by which the Church may continue its life and its purpose, for God has created all things, including governments, in order that through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be demonstrated.
The government official I spoke to was offended but within a matter of days he mysteriously granted them their visa. This is beyond the issue of men and flesh and blood and I have not yet quite savoured the full mystery of this experience but I think it is this: something was expressed to the secular authorities by the Church in the authority and anointing of God, citing the Word of God as our lone credential and bringing these earthly authorities into the recognition of the "limitation" that God has set for them that required the principalities and powers that were working through that American official, to draw back and to release these men for the purposes of God!
There is something that God is waiting for in an entire Church, an authority to be expressed, a quality of praise to be ascending up, a depth of intercession that is corporate - that will require these powers and rulers of the air to break and part and recoil and draw back and release. What is the manifold wisdom of God that is to be demonstrated by the Church? I have already hinted at it - it is the very antithesis of the wisdom of the rulers of darkness where the powers celebrate force and violence and brutality and power - God celebrates weakness and foolishness and humility. God has chosen the foolish and the weak things to confound the things that are mighty and "wise". Are we majoring in foolishness? Are we willing to suffer the humiliation of weakness? Or are we reflecting the wisdom of the powers themselves, and therefore constitute to them no threat at all? If we shall move increasingly as an apostolic Church, we shall incite against ourselves the opposition and the persecution of these powers. In fact, for the first time, I am understanding that not only the persecution of Christians, but the unspeakable vehemence and cruelty with which they have been historically persecuted. This is merely more than putting men to death - this is flaying them alive, sawing them asunder, burning them at the stake. There is a viciousness and a cruelty, a diabolical hatred that fumes in man against God and wants to make him surrender and give up to its terms. But instead it gets another response - those who love their enemies and who pray for their persecutors and say in their dying breath, "Lay not this sin to their charge". When Stephen sighed his last breath with those words, the eternal power of that statement broke something in the powers of the air overhead that released a certain angry Jew (Saul) who experienced a "prick" against his spirit to which he finally had to surrender on the road to Damascus. Something happens when meekness and humility meet utter viciousness. It is a demonstration of the manifold wisdom of God, that these powers are obliged to recognize. For nothing else can impress them than the very nature of God, the holiness of His character under supreme duress and pressure, and only "suffering" and "extremity" reveals it. Is not that what happened on the Cross? Jesus did not writhe and groan to preserve His protoplasmic life. He yielded up the ghost. He uttered the words, "Father forgive them" and a certain Gentile man, a Roman, a centurion, a professional brute, a man schooled and calculated in murder who saw many squirm and die on the cross and spat at them in disdain and contempt, for they were only men clutching their life, saw this God-man die under extreme duress and pain, but He died magnificently and some words broke forth out of his mouth even beyond his consciousness, "Truly this, is the Son of God!" As Jesus walked, so also are we to walk in this world. God is waiting for one final demonstration that shall penetrate to the very heart of the cosmos itself - demonstrated through the Church in the fulfilment of the eternal purpose of God.
I do not believe that my wife will be embarrassed if I share this. We have had a long history of vexation and trial and conflict in being Jew and Gentile, male and female - the mystery of the Church. And how often have I reacted in anger and force and intimidation and threats, but by the grace of God - the grace which is given - some months ago she said something to me of such a vexing kind that everything in me that is natural and human wanted to express itself in anger - but by the grace that has, and is, being worked in me in the privilege which is mine in a true community with God's people, I heard myself responding in another way - in a soft way - in a kind way, yet in a truthful way. I only said, "You are a most disagreeable woman," and she blinked her eyes and I sensed that something was being transacted in that very moment. You may laugh but there was a release in the powers of the air that had been brooding over our household to wreak their vengeance and their viciousness that was required to break and to part and to loose its influence upon my wife because of the soft and loving answer that came, in the character of God.
How we shall react under extreme duress and persecution is the issue which is before us now. Our little impatience, our critical spirit and disdain, our irritation with one another is already an evidence of how little prepared we are for this final confrontation. How foolish we are that the very things that we have complained about in the Church, namely the trials and the irritation that come to us from other saints, is exactly the provision of God for the shaping of His godly character in us to move us to that ultimate place of response, that when the "ultimate persecution" comes, we shall stand graciously and exhibit the wisdom of God. We shall demonstrate the triumph of the Cross, and by the eternal Spirit we shall offer ourselves as Jesus did in that final moment. The eternal Spirit was offering up God Himself, so that in the ultimate moment in His trial and suffering, the demonstration that was being made to the powers, that made of them an open spectacle and spoil, was the demonstration of God being all in all, bringing to the core of the cosmos His quintessential self.
When that same demonstration shall come from us, the triumph will be complete and the powers demolished, creation released and all authority will be under Jesus Christ, including the last enemy which is death. This is the eternal purpose of God for the Church. The phrase "to be crucified with Christ" is not for us an option or a luxury - it is the very basis for our overcoming. For once you have experienced that death and risen to newness of life - of what shall you be afraid? This is a call for maturity - for a Church to come into its fulness, according to the eternal purpose of God which He has intended for us, and for which He has created all things, in order that - through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers of the air. Do not think that this is a complete statement tonight. It is only a first statement, but a necessary statement and I can tell you that the powers of darkness are not happy for it. It is to sow a seed in your spirit - to open to you a whole new line of consideration - to recognize what is our high calling in Christ Jesus and that there is a purpose for our being that has more to do with than our own person - more even than a Kingdom come in the earth. It is something beyond the earth and affects the ages to come. It is something that pertains to the whole moral order of the cosmos itself in the purposes of God reserved for the Church. May we see our calling and rise up to meet it and receive every difficulty and trial and experience that comes into our life as coming from God's hand. This will give us a new view toward "suffering", a much more realistic anticipation of our future and our persecution - not something for which we should mourn, but something in which we rejoice at our privilege and high calling, eternally in Him.
Let us pray;
Thank you precious God for the day of small beginnings. It was only a little thing that was birthed in the stable at Bethlehem and yet it already contained all the things that pertained to the King. And I pray for this little thing that we are caught up in together today - this seminar in these days - that there might be a time of birthing - the conceiving of holy thing - first statements and declarations - a new quality of apostolic faith that comes by hearing and hearing by the Word which is sent. Lord, brood over us jealously and water and nurture the seed being sown - may it take deep root and come forth as a root out of a dry ground - a planting of the Lord
that will be eternally fruitful. I pray blessing upon the words which have been given. Seal it unto our spirits and whatever we have not understood in the first hearing, th our minds, let something rise up from within our spirits that we might be raised to a new level of consciousness, of the kind that profoundly affects our conduct and our
life. May we see each other in a new light from this night - not just as strangers along side each other sharing a common facility, but together as the Church, called to eternal purposes and may we give ourselves to it sacrificially through the eternal Spirit that unto You might be the glory - world without end throughout all ages - in Jesus' Name. Amen.