Called Unto Holiness # 25

Wrestlers for Christ (continued)

Through Delusion of Mind

The world is being flooded by organizations and movements and fellowships, many of them satanic in origin, many of them containing half-truths and half lies, subtle counterfeits that deceive even the very elect. satan today will take even that most glorious truth, the truth of the Holy Spirit, and he will use it and capitalize it for himself. Thus, through cunning deception, satan lays hold upon many hungry-hearted people and leads them away from the Lord and His Word.

Through Distraction of Heart

There has never been a time of such universal distress upon the earth. Many of God's children have been caught in the vortex of it. The loss of position, money, or business; experiences of crushing sorrow or unprecedented conditions have so laid hold upon some and have brought such distraction of heart that people cannot even get their minds upon the Lord. I have had letters from people suffering from just this kind of distraction of heart.

Through Deflection of the Will

The supreme business of the Christian is to do the will of God. But what is God's will? That is the question that countless people are asking today. They are thoroughly distressed over matters of guidance. As a citizen, what is to be one's attitude toward world problems? There are things going on in the church that we cannot believe are according to the Word of God or according to the standard set by Christ. As members of the church, what are we going to do? Are we to protest? Are we to stay in the church or not? There are problems of the mission field - the relation of the missionary to the board, the relation of the missionary with his fellow workers, where, perhaps, there are two in the same station teaching exactly opposite things. A pastor's wife in Chine came to me and said, "What am I to tell the heathen women I am bringing to church Sunday by Sunday, when at one service one missionary preached on the deity of Christ, and the next Sunday a missionary living on the same compound denied the deity of Christ? What shall that pastor's wife do? These are problems which are facing us today as never before. There are the problems connected with our social life. Here is a home where the Word of God is believed and taught; and the children go out into the school and the university and into society and they are almost forced into things which are against the principles of those parents. What are the parents to do? stand out against these things, or yield to these things that their children are having to face today as members of society? As members of society, how can we keep unspotted from the world? So satan tries to darken the mind and to bring about discord.

Through Distress of Body

How many of God's saints are meeting real attacks from the evil one in the realm of the body?

Through Discord in the Home

Through alienation between husband and wife, parents and children, and through misunderstanding between members of the same family, satan causes discord in the home.

Through Division in the Church

Yes, there is division in that part of the Church that is sound and true and evangelical. It has been my privilege to travel in ten different countries in Europe. I am sorry to say it, but I have scarcely touched in any country any work that is absolutely sound and true and evangelical, that there is not somewhere at the heart of it, or  within it, division that is caused by intolerance of workers one with another, by insignificant things, by jealousies. It is the devil's most deadly work within the evangelical part of the Church of Jesus Christ.

These are some of the ways in which satan is working today. They are enough to set before us the truth that we are in the midst of a spiritual warfare.

~Ruth Paxson~

(continued with # 26 - "The Wrestler: Equipment for Warfare")