THE WEAPONS OF OUR
WARFARE
Dr. W.
A. Criswell
2 Corinthians 10:3-6
06-10-56
You are listening to the services of the First
Baptist Church in Dallas. And this is a humble servant who had rather be
pastor of this church than be the king of England or the ruler of the whole
universe. This is a happy pastor, who delights to open God's Book and to
read from its pages and in prayer and in humble asking for God's divine wisdom
to break for our hearts the Bread of Life. So many ask the pastor,
"How are you faring preaching three sermons every Sunday?" And
my reply, "I never enjoyed the wild joys and gladnesses of living in my
life as I do doing just that. And I am looking forward to the day when
maybe we can have four services a day and the pastor prepares four different
sermons." Wouldn't that be a great problem to face, that so many
people attended upon the preaching of the Word of God that the great church had
to have four services a day? Well, three is a nice beginning.
And my soul has grown in these days since we began that extra service. I
love to study and to prepare the sermon. I thought that I knew something
and somewhat of the Word of God, while I was doing my graduate study and for
three years beyond the Master's Degree in the seminary, getting a Doctor of
Philosophy degree. For three years in that graduate work, studying the
Bible, I thought then that I knew somewhat of the depth of the riches of the
Revelation of God in these Holy Scriptures. I have found mostly in these
recent days that I just barely have touched the top of the surface. There
are unfathomable depths, impenetrable riches; there are gold and silver and
pearls and gems beyond what you ever would think for as you probe into the deep
things of God in this Book. Ah, what a privilege to open it, to read it,
to ask God to give you a message from it, and then to feel God's spirit talk to
your heart.
Now, the power that it has lies in the
intercession of the people. For it is still sentence and language and
word until it is quickened and incarnate in us. I will read the passage,
as I will just now, but unless the Holy Spirit gives it life, makes it live,
quickens it—unless it is incarnate in our hearts, our souls, our bodies, in our
minds, it still is just a printed word. The power of it lies in its incarnation.
It must in our hearts, in our minds; it must come to life again. It must
live in us, throb in us, as it did in the heart of the one who wrote it.
So, all these services are reincarnations of the great truth of God that the
Holy Spirit placed in a prophet or an apostle years ago. But the Spirit Himself
is the Ancient of Days, and the great truth is eternal and timeless. And
it is for us to receive it that it might live again in our souls. Now, we
have come to the tenth chapter of the Second Corinthian letter, Second
Corinthian ten:
Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness
and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am base among you, but being absent
am bold toward you:
But I beseech you, that I may not be bold when
I am present with that confidence, wherewith I think to be bold against some,
which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war
after the flesh:
(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal,
but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing
that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity
every thought to the obedience of Christ;
And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience,
. . . [2 Corinthians 10:1-6].
When Paul writes his letters—we have thirteen
of them in the Bible—when Paul writes his letters, they are all full of
feeling. They are filled with personal reference. They were written
at a white heat. I would think that Paul never in his fondest imagination
once dreamed that they would be incorporated in a Bible as we have, and that
two thousand years later we would be reading them. They lived in the
presence of the imminent return of the Lord. Paul and most of them, for
most of their lives, thought Jesus would come in their day and in their time.
And that is the way all of us ought to live, in the immediacy, the immanency,
of the coming of our Lord. That gave rise to everything that we call
Christian. Paul wrote his letters, I say, at a white heat. Things
would arise, and he would write a letter to the church.
Now, the Second Corinthian letter is no
different. Having left Ephesus in an uproar, having been forced out of the
city, he went around to Corinth, over there in Achaia, in Greece, the
Peloponnesian Peninsula, down there below Athens. He went way around like
this, clear around the Aegean Sea, and up there in Macedonia, the lower part of
the Balkan Peninsula. Up there in Macedonia, he met Titus, whom he had
sent to the Corinthian church to see what he could do to quell the trouble and
the turmoil and the strife and the division that was severing the church in
pieces. When he met Titus in Macedonia, a part of what Titus had to say
was full of good news. It was gladness. So Paul wrote the first
part of the Second Corinthian letter; First Corin –Second Corinthians 1-7.
Those chapters are chapters of great comfort and gladness and exaltation.
Then the eighth and ninth chapters concerned the offering, the collection, he
was taking. Now, when you come to the tenth chapter of the book, from the
tenth to the end, from the tenth to the thirteenth chapters, you come into an
altogether different atmosphere. It is not the same letter. It is
not the same tone. It is not the same spirit. You would hardly
think it would be the same man who was writing. And the reason for it was
this: when he met Titus, Titus not only told him good news—the church was so
wonderfully overcoming the tremendous handicaps that were facing it—but also
Titus brought in bad news, discouraging news. And the discouraging news
was this: there was a group in Corinth, there was a party there, a faction
there. There was a group in Corinth that were bitter in their castigation
and their criticism of the apostle. They called him every uncomplimentary
thing that language could sustain. He was a pseudo apostle. He was
not a real apostle. He was a—a low schemer in all that he did, and
everything that he said was for his own advancement. He was trying to
further himself and he had no genuine message from Christ and he perverted the
real gospel of the Son of God. Oh, they said lots of things. Now,
Paul addresses the last part of this Corinthian letter through that
recalcitrant, incorrigible, obstreperous group. And when he speaks, then,
he will speak in a tone of defense. He is vindicating his apostleship.
So when we enter these tenth through the thirteen verses, that is the spirit of
the thing.
Now, he uses an illustration here that is going
to comprise the message of this morning. He uses it incidentally. It is
not the direct purpose of what he is writing. But he uses a metaphor, and
then he elaborates upon it, catches fire. And that metaphor is our sermon
today. He starts off by saying: “I Paul . . . beseech you by the meekness
and gentleness of Christ, I who among you”—present among you—“am meek and base
and lowly, but being absent from you, I am very bold” writing you this letter.
“And I beseech you, that I do not have to be bold” and denunciatory, castigate,
“when I am with you in”—in presence” [2 Corinthians 10:1, 2]. But if I
have to be, I won't be reluctant to be against some who think of me as if I
walked according to the flesh; that what I was doing was hiding some ulterior
purpose for myself, as though what I was doing was for my own personal
furtherment and aggrandizement. Then Paul says, “I admit that we walk in
the flesh”—live in a mortal body; I am a mortal man, I admit that. But
“we do not war after the flesh” [2 Corinthians 10:3]. . We are soldiers
of Jesus Christ. But our plans for battle and our weapons of conquest are
not carnal. They are not fleshly. “For the weapons of our warfare are not
carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds, casting
down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against God, and
bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; and having in
readiness to revenge all disobedience” [2 Corinthians 10:4-6].
Now, this is what he—what he did. A
characteristic of Paul is this: he will say something; then that something will
suggest something to him, and away he goes; then he will come back to his
original subject. He is very volatile. His mind is very active
under God, most quickened and alive. He is just full of things to say and
to write and to preach; and he will use a simile or a metaphor or an
illustration. Then, that will suggest a group of things in his mind, and
he says them; then he will come back to what he originally said. Now,
that is what he did here. When he was answering those critics that he
walked in the flesh and that he was a soldier for himself; he said, “I admit
that we walk in the flesh.” We are mortal men, but our soldiering, our
preaching, our ministering, our gospelizing, our evangelizing, is not according
to the flesh. But we war according to the mighty spiritual weapons God
hath placed in our hands. And then the illustration catches fire.
And back of the imagery is this: he looks upon himself and the fellow gospel
preachers who are with him; he looks upon them as soldiers who are attacking a
great fortress or fortresses. And they are—and they are doing it in the
power of God. And he speaks of the pulling down of those great
fortresses, the strong holds, and the casting down of those high towers, those
great, mighty castles and bringing into captivity, seizing those people and
carrying them away captive, and then revenging—bringing revengance on the rebels
who still hold out against the message of Christ. Now, that is what he is
talking about there.
Now, that is an unusual thing. That is a
stupendously different thing when it applies to a preacher of peace, a
messenger of Christ. Here is a man. Here is the spectacular thing;
he starts off by the meekness and the gentleness of Christ. Here is a
minister who is a preacher of Jesus and a representative of the Holy Lord.
And then, down here you have this unusual thing: of that man who is a lowly
minister of Christ, he is storming a fortress. And he is in the war.
And he is casting down castles. And he is overcoming high powers.
And he is conquering kingdoms. And he is carrying into captivity.
And he is ready to bring revenge upon the rebels who still hold out. I
tell you, the gymnastics that Paul will go through with in about three or four
verses is astounding. Well, the difference here lies in this: that the
weapons of a carnal warfare are full of agony and dread and death, a big bomb
that falls from the sky, the rattle of a machine gun, the blood and terror and
the horror and sorrow in the weak. Those are the weapons of a carnal
warfare. But the weapons he speaks of are of a different nature.
They are spiritual weapons, mighty under God. And their use is toward the
subjugation of the kingdom of Satan, and bringing all of this world into
captivity to the mind and heart that is in Christ Jesus. Now, so much for
the explanation of the passage.
Now, may I take his metaphor—the storming of
the fortress, the casting down of the high power, the looting away into
captivity—may I take the thought and apply it to our hearts and lives today?
Any preacher, any gospelizer, any evangelist, any soldier of Jesus, when he
seeks to take to the hearts of men the overwhelming, changing, converting
message of Christ—when he does it, he meets horrible opposition. When the
gospel message endeavors to penetrate into a man's heart, there are great
earthen works, breastworks that are thrown up against him. The man on the
inside of that castle, the man behind those frowning walls, those great
fortresses, he is not easily taken. And he looks down upon his assailants.
He has entrenched himself, Paul says, in a high tower and a great, strong
fortress. This man to whom you are bringing the message of Christ, he is
in that fortress, surrounded by those great, towering walls. And if I
could name some things that he has in up there, he is in a great fortress of
self-sufficiency. He does not need your God. He has no use for your
Christ. And he has no time for your church. And he is too busy to
listen to your message. He is in a high fortress that frowns down upon
you.
Another thing, he is in a high tower of contumely
and contumaciousness and intellectual pride and conceit. And with
superciliousness he looks down upon this poor creature. Why, he says in
his heart, this thing of conversion and of becoming a Christian, that is for
the publican and the sinners and for the ignorant. For those. But
as for me, I do not share in those things. They are for some body else,
but they are not for me. Then he shuts himself up in that high tower and
behind those massive walls, and he puts over him the protective covering of
tremendous things and ceilings and roofs. And the life of God's
penetrating love and Revelation, he shuts out. And he lives in the dark, and
the recesses of his life are dark. They never come under the light of the
convicting power of the Son of God. So there he is, in that tremendous
fortress, and he has shut out and opposed Paul—the message brought by the
Christian creature. So the Christian creature talks to him, and he says,
"Up there in your tower, you beyond that high, strong wall, you listen to
my message." And he replies. He says lots of things.
He replies. He calls down to the creature
as he brings the message, and he says, "Listen, I haven't time for those
impractical matters. I am a practical man, and I have to deal with things
of a practical nature." "Why," says that man, "I am
engrossed with great questions like this: What shall I eat? And
what shall I drink? And wherewithal shall I be clothed? And I have
no time for questions such as What must I do to be saved?" So he is
up there in that fortress, and he is up there in that high tower, and he is
giving his life, oh, to many things. "Let us eat and drink and be
merry," he says, "and forget about God." No time for
Christ. Pass by the cross and never look at Jesus. “Oh what
sin?”—as though he had sinned in no other way. Yet has he sinned thusly,
that he rejects and spurns and passes by the overtures of the grace of God in
Christ Jesus. But he is up there in that fortress, and he is giving
himself to those things of the day. And he has no time for Jesus.
But the preacher does not go away. He is
importunate, and he storms that tower with the weapons of God, and he calls for
that man to open his heart to God. And the man has many fine things to
respond, and here is one of them. He says, "Now listen. listen to
me." He says, "I was born a Christian. I was born a Christian.
And I do not need your gospel message. And I do not need to come down
that aisle. And I do not need to confess my faith in Christ. And I
do not need you to baptize me. I was born a Christian." Oh,
that is one of the most—oh, that is one of the hardest walls to penetrate, and
that is one of the hardest breastworks, earthen works, to overcome that I know
of in this world. Did you know in my work among people, the one sure
answer that just pulverizes the appeal of this creature is this; “Now, you wait
a minute, Preacher. I was a Christian when I was a baby. I was
baptized when I was an infant. I was born a Christian, and I was enrolled
in the kingdom of God when I was a little, tiny unconscious baby.” What
are you going to say to that? What are you going to do about that?
Oh my soul, would to God, would to God that a man could become a Christian just
by being christened when he is an unconscious infant. Wouldn't that be simple?
Just take all of our babies, take them to the priest, take them to the vicar,
take them to the minister, take them to the pastor; and he would christen them
and baptize them and put a little water on their head and that would save them,
and they would be saved for ever. Wouldn't that be easy? Wouldn't
that be simple? “I am born a Christian.”
But God's Book says, God's Book says, “That
which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit.” Verily, “I say unto you, You must be born again” [John 3:6, 7].
It will not do. It will not do. You must be born again. God
says, for a man to be born one time, to be laid an unconscious infant in the
arms of a loving mother or father, is not enough. There is another birth,
there is another kingdom, there is another world; and the subjects of that
kingdom are those who are spiritually born again in the heart and in the soul.
I must consciously, for myself, take the Lord Jesus as my Savior in the
forgiveness of my sins. My mother who loves me cannot believe for me. My
faithful father who is in heaven could not receive Jesus for me. I must
accept him for myself. I must repent. I must believe. I must
turn to Christ. I must openly, publicly confess His name. I must be
baptized on the basis of that committal of my life in faith to the Lord Jesus
Christ; “You must be born again.”
The man in his high tower, he persists. He is
hard. He has created a fortress roundabout. But the preacher does
not leave. He is importunate, and he says to the man, "But you must
trust in the Lord and be saved."
And the man replies. In his great high
tower, he replies, "Now, you listen to me, Preacher. You listen to
me. I do not believe in any Revelation from God. I do not believe
in that old verse back there in Isaiah 55:3: “Incline your ear, and come unto
me: hear, and your soul shall live.” That is an old, outmoded, outdated
verse in the—in the Bible. "I believe that the only thing we ever know
comes through scientific thought. That is all, and what is certainly
proved by science, those are my acceptances; and what is not brought to me by
scientific thought, I will in no way receive or accept." So he shuts
his mind, and he closes his heart against all of the Revelation of God.
To him, the Book is a book of fables, or it is a book that does not
matter—written way back yonder—those dusty, musty pages reciting a story that
ought to have been forgotten about. And he is living in a new day and a
new generation and a new age, and he worships at the shrine of science and what
scientific thought can bring to him. Oh, what a man. What a man.
That man is just the same kind of a man who says, "I am going to shut my
eyes. I am going to blot out the entire handiwork of Almighty God, and I
am going to evolve me an astronomy all of my own. I am just going to
think it out for myself and seek it out for myself. But I am not going to
see what God has done and I am not going to look at the great handiwork of God
in the heavens. I am going to evolve my own astronomy."
That is just the same thing as a man living in
this world who says, "I am not going to read what God has said. I am
not going to study the Revelation of God about Himself, but I am going to think
it out for myself. I am going to probe down there in the earth, and I am
going to look at the rocks, and I am going to seek out there under those—under
those logs and stones. And I am going to look at the bugs, and I am going
to study all about zoology and the animals that walk on this earth. Then
I am going to look around me. And by the time I formulate and summarize all the
scientific knowledge, then that will be my Lord and God." Ah, and I
will tell you the God you will come out with. You will come out with a
God that is just like those stones you are looking at, and just like those bugs
you are studying, and just like those four-footed and two-footed animals that
you are following after, and just like all of the fauna and flora and geology
you will find in this world. You do not elevate. You do not rise.
You do not find Him who made it—not in those things. The only way we ever
know God is through the self-Revelation of God. You cannot be smart
enough to find it out. He has got to reveal himself, and that Revelation
lies in the heart and the mind that is in Christ Jesus, Who is at large, Who is
exposed, Who is revealed here on the pages of the sacred Book. If I do
not find Him here, I do not find Him. If I cannot know Him here, I cannot
ever know Him. Never. Never. Never.
That man in the high tower, in that fortress,
he looks down on me, and he says, "Now, listen. Now, listen, I know
your Christianity is all right. And it is good for you, and it is good for
your people. I know it is all right. But listen to me. Listen to
me, I have an eclectic faith. "I take what is good in Christianity.
I take what is good in philosophy. And I take what is good in Baha'i.
And I take what is good in oriental mysticism and theosophy. And I take
what is good in Hinduism. I take what is good in Buddhism. And I
take what is good in all of these faiths in the world, and I will have an
eclectic and superior religion. Now, that is the kind of religion I am
going to have." I was preaching in a city in the north and east.
And the biggest church in that city boasted—the pastor boasted of this—he said,
"Our church is not just a Christian church." He said, "Our
church is greater than a Christian church. For," he said, "a church
that worships just Jesus is bound down by the ethic and the Revelation of the
Lord Jesus. But," he said "this church is superior to just the
ethic and Revelation of the Lord Jesus." He said, "This church
takes what is best out of Jesus and what is best out of Zoroaster and what is
best out of Muhammad and what is best out of Mahayana and what is best out of
Buddha and what is best out of Confucius, and we put it all together; and all
of it together, it makes a superior religion and a greater faith."
That is what that church's pastor said. And they boasted of their
intellectual, ethical, and religious superiority. Ah, my soul, my soul.
Christianity, the faith of Jesus, is not come into this world in order that it
might occupy just one of the niches of a great pantheon. There is Jesus,
and those who want to bow at that shrine, and there is Buddha for those who
want to bow at that shrine, and there's Confucius, and there is all the rest of
them, and in this great pantheon of world faiths, each one may bow at any
shrine that he chooses. Not so. Not so. When the Christ comes
in, that false God Dagon, may the mask fall off his pedestal and not a scrap of
him remains. The faith of Christ is an exclusive faith and an exclusive
religion. It countenances none other. That pantheon of religions,
they have in it every false God in this world, and they can look at one another
in perfect peace because they are altogether false. There is one true God
and there is one true Savior. And that God's name is Jehovah God, and
that one Savior is the Lord Jesus Christ. And—and “there is none other
name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” [Acts 4:12].
The weapons of our warfare—as we storm the
fortress and the high towers behind which a man shelters himself against the
appeal of the gospel of Christ—and the marvel of it is our weapons are not
carnal; but they are mighty through God to the pulling down of the strong
holds, to the casting down of every high thing, and to the leading into
captivity. Would you believe it? I am amazed. I am surprised.
The weapons of our warfare are spiritual; but they are mighty unto God to the
pulling down of the strong hold and the casting down of that high tower.
Would you believe it? What are these weapons in our hand by which we
storm the heart and the soul? Why, they are simple things. They are
things like this: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men
unto me” [John 12:32]. They are the preaching of the gospel of Christ.
They are the convicting power of the Holy Spirit: and he, “when he comes, will
convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” [John 16:8].
Every time I talk to a man about Jesus and every time I stand in this pulpit
and preach the Lord Jesus, I have got God on my side. The Holy Spirit
leads, penetrates, enters that man's heart. And he says, "That
preacher is right. That preacher is right. God is on the side of the
preacher.”
Can we overcome Satan? “by the blood of
the Lamb, and by the word of our testimony” [Revelation 12:11]. These are
our weapons, spiritual weapons. And what things they bring to pass.
What things. What things. There is a publican, a rich tax
collector, and he is there in God's house. And he is beating on his
breast, and he cries, saying, "Lord, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner,
the sinner" [Luke 18:13]. Look at that man. Look at that man. Look
at him. Look at this proud rabbi who was a young man and a member of the
Sanhedrin, who was to inherit the medal of Gamaliel. Look at that young
man. Look at him. Because now he cries: “O wretched man that I am!
who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” [Romans 7:24] And
blinded, they were leading him by the hand into the city of Damascus. Who
would ever have thought of that? Who would ever have thought of it?
Bunyan’s "Pilgrim Christian," there
he stands with his back to his city and his face to the celestial hills of God,
and he holds in his hand an open book. And he cries with a great and
lamentable cry as he reads from the page, and says, "What shall I do and
where shall I go?" Isn't that amazing? Here is a man,
yesterday he was proud and lifted up and vainglorious and conceited. He
was self-righteous and boasted of his own goodness. Now, he is on his
knees, crying, "O God, how unworthy and how undone am I. Lord, be merciful
unto me." Isn't that amazing to you? And there is not a single
one of you that has gone through that experience? You can remember times
in your lives when you were proud, in some high tower, when the Spirit of God
pulls you down and humbles you, and you felt in your soul such vast,
indescribable unworthiness. Oh, God, be merciful to me, the sinner.
The weapons of our warfare.
Why, there is no Sunday passes, no Sunday
passes, that we before our very eyes see men and women, children and young
people, humble before God. Of the seven or eight who came at the
eight-fifteen o'clock service t
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