Page:On The Spiritual Battle.pdf/6

 inception of the world, and observing how these ones depended on His grace and mighty power. In whatever they were tested, they overcame everything in His strength so that the strength of this world, the devil’s strength, or some other enticement could not overcome them. They had the power and strength of God in them, hoped in Him, and sought help from Him in everything.

Therefore, the prophet says, “Though an army should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, even then I will be confident.” (Psalm 27: 3) And again, elsewhere it says, “He is a shield to all those who take refuge in him.” (Psalm 18: 30) That is, we will be able to overcome great difficulties and to stand in all things. The apostle says, “All things are possible to him who believes.” (Mark 9: 23) The apostle admonishes feeble people to strengthen themselves in the God of all mercy, the mightiest warrior, because of the diminishing of people’s hope in God. But lazy people, neglecting to take spiritual strength from Him, would rather perish in temptation like the person who perishes because of hunger, not wanting to open his mouth wide to strengthen himself by receiving nourishment. The reason God graciously gave Himself to us as food and drink was so that we would take spiritual strength from Him. That is why He said, “I am the life,” so that we who are dead might take our strength and sufficiency from Him by the Spirit–if we do not hesitate, if unbelief does not bind us and diminish Him in our hearts, if we do not think more highly of strength in mortal man than in God, if we do not believe more in our money than in His power, and if we do not believe more in our own false presumptions that are devoid of truth than in His promises. Because of such unbelief, His power, grace, and promises are diminished in our hearts so that we cannot take any of His strength for ourselves. For that reason we are blown here and there like a reed in the wind with temptations and fears of many things. We are full of insecurity and perplexity and cannot stand in anything faithfully. The slightest word bows us down, grieves us, and quashes us like a hollow reed because, for a long time, our clouded and bloody hearts do not set themselves at rest in such small adversity.

This is all because we do not take spiritual strength from Him through prayer, the recollection of His benevolence, and the expectation of the future reward that is promised to us. Strength from God comes to us in this way, when we think much about His grace, works, promises, and the reward that we should receive through faith. His fathomless strength comes to us so that we will gladly bear the affliction and the labors we will have together with a rich reward in heaven. But if we do not strengthen ourselves in God like this, temptations will always drive us and we will only care about which way we would escape. The more we depart from temptations so half-heartedly, the more of them we always have; the more temptations come at us like this, the more we are destroyed by them. If we knew nothing of goodness and were dead, we would not feel many temptations and would not sorrow through them either. But we no longer run away from many difficult temptations like this because we have already gotten to know them through faith. And if we will not have strength from God in order to stand against them, we will wretchedly destroy our lives in bitterness, without all hope, in the disbelief that is not recognized by people and that is displeasing to God.

The apostle commands us here to not only strengthen ourselves in God, but also to take on the armor of God so that we would be secure in it from our violent battles. It is fitting to appreciate that the apostle says “the armor of God” and not the armor of this world, because physical armor is not suitable in the spiritual battle. He says to spiritual people, “I beg you that I may not, when present, show courage with the confidence with which I intend to be bold against some, who consider us to be walking according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we don’t wage war according to the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds, throwing