Satan’s attack against the church is mainly through death, but by the resurrection life of Christ in our spirit, we can be victorious over the attack of death upon the church.
Hallelujah, the Lord Jesus is both resurrection and the life, and as we enjoy Him as life, resurrection operates in us to first deliver us from any death, and second to remove any death in the church, so that the Body of Christ may be built up organically.
Today we are in a very similar situation as in the garden of Eden, being faced with a decision: eat the tree of life (God Himself as life in the form of food, simple, unadulterated, uncomplicated, and filled with life) or eat the tree of knowledge of good and evil (which results in death; it is a complicated and complicating tree resulting in death).
The principle of the tree of life is dependence on God; we can’t just take something of life once and that’s it – we have to keep partaking of life, keep feeding the life, and keep life growing and developing.
So we need to depend on God, who is the source of life; only what comes out of God in Christ as the Spirit can give us life and maintain life in us.
The principle of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is independence from God; once we eat of this tree, we don’t need God because we already have knowledge, we know good, and we know evil, so we can choose the good and abstain from evil.
However, the result of eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is death, while the result of eating the tree of life is life, even life abundantly.
God wants us, His people to depend on Him; He doesn’t just want us to know about Him or have many doctrines concerning what and who God is, but He wants us to come to Him so that we may have life.
Christ came so that we may have life and may have it abundantly (John 10:10), and our coming to the word of God is so that we would come to the Lord Himself so that we may receive life (John 5:39-40).
May we choose life and reject anything that comes from or resembles the tree of the knowledge of good and evil!
May we choose to depend on God, come to Him, enjoy Him, and take Him into us as life constantly, and may we reject any thought of independence from God!
As we go through the daily situations of our Christian life and church life, we need to decide things and do things not based on “is this the right thing to do?” but by contacting the Lord, enjoying the Lord, and following the feeling of the divine life within us.
This is what Moses meant when he put life and death before the children of Israel; we need to choose life, choose to depend on the Lord, and choose to come to Him again and again in a fresh way so that we may abide in this organic union with Him, doing things not in and of ourselves but of Him and one with Him.
We can be Victorious over Satan’s attack of Death upon the Church by the Resurrection Life of Christ
Christ is life; He is not only life for us to live by but also He is resurrection life, the life that went through death, overcame death, and came out of death victoriously.
God is life; He is the eternal, uncreated, divine life, and He flows out from eternity to eternity.
However, when God reaches us, this life is the resurrection life, for the divine life has already passed through a process to become resurrection life, the life that overcomers any death.
Death, however, is the characteristic of Satan’s work; the ultimate goal of his work is to saturate man with death (Heb. 2:14-15).
The Lord Jesus said that He will build His church, and He also said that the gates of Hades will not prevail against the church (Matt. 16:18).
On one hand the Lord builds His church with the resurrection life (just as Eve was taken out of Adam, so the church was built with the resurrection life of Christ), and on the other hand, death tries to creep into the church.
Satan wants to invade the church with death; he not only wants to bring in the world, sin, the flesh, and the self to hinder the building up of the church, but especially death.
Satan wants to pervade the church with death. However, the Lord Jesus is building up the church with His victorious resurrection life to overcome any element of death that Satan wants to bring in.
Satan’s special objective is to spread death within the church, and his greatest fear with regard to the church is her resistance to his power of death (Rev. 2:8, 10-11).
May the Lord build up in all the churches such a resistance to death. We all need to close the door to death, not giving any room for death to come in.
Satan knows that the church is a vessel of Christ, a container of the divine life, the resurrection life, so he wants to bring in death.
God’s riches are in Christ, and all that Christ is and has is being transmitted into the church.
The church is the vessel of Christ on earth, expressing Christ’s life and living in the resurrection life of Christ; God intends that the church would manifest the life of Christ.
So Satan attacks the church specifically not merely with the enticement of sin or the world, but death; death is Satan’s ultimate weapon.
Death, however, is not easily identifiable, for it can creep secretly into the church.
Satan can use many refined and moral things – and not just filthy and treacherous sins – to attack the church, for many such uplifted and refined things are filled with death, and they bring in death.
Sometimes a situation may happen in the church life and many saints give their opinion on why this happened, why would this person do this, etc.
The side effects of a certain situation can come in to bring in death into the church.
But we are here not for who is right and who is wrong, what is the good thing to do versus what’s the bad thing; we are here to not give any place to death.
Satan wants to destroy the church by attacking the church with death, and we have the resurrection life of Christ which has overcome death, and by this life we overcome Satan’s attack!
We can experience the resurrection life and exalt this One who is resurrection so that every bit of death would be swallowed up! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah, the Lord Jesus came so that we may have life and may have it abundantly! Lord, we choose life: we come to You to enjoy You as resurrection and life! We come to You to be filled with You and be constituted with Your resurrection life. May the church be filled with life and filled with resurrection so that the church can withstand any attack of death from Satan! Amen, Lord, may all the churches would build a resistance to death, closing the door to death and not giving any room to death to come into the church!
Experiencing the Resurrection Life of Christ by doing things in Spirit to Overcome death
The foundation of the church is Christ the Rock; when the church is built on Christ, the gates of Hades cannot prevail against the church.
If the church is built on Christ the Rock, it will distinguish between death and life, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. How can death come into the church life?
We need to realize that everything that comes out of our flesh, the self, the natural man, and the soul issues in death, but what comes out of our mingled spirit results in life.
Someone may be very talkative and he may love to speak vain and improper words. Someone else may be clear in logic and excellent in eloquence.
We may think that the talkative person brings in death by his speaking, but the logical person with excellent eloquence speaks good things; however, everything that comes from the soul and the flesh and the natural life brings in death.
Only the life of Christ in our spirit being expressed through us and flowing through us can bring in life.
So when we are about to do something or say something, our questions shouldn’t be, Is this correct or is it wrong? Rather, we should check what is the source: is our spirit the source, or is this from our mind, our good heart, or our self.
Of all the things that we as Christians possess, only the things originating from our spirit are life, and only they can give life to others; nothing else – no matter how logical, eloquent, good, profitable, or nice – gives life.
So what the church needs is not more teachings, doctrines, good theology, or wonderful expositions; the church needs life, the resurrection life of Christ.
So we need to experience the resurrection life of Christ by doing things in spirit to overcome death and cause the church to be built up in life.
Only the life of Christ and what issues out of the life of Christ in our spirit builds up the church; everything else is just disguised forms of death and cannot withstand the attacks of Satan.
For us to overcome death and to build up the church, we need to experience the resurrection life of Christ by being in the mingled spirit and doing all things in the spirit.
If we would overcome the attack of death, we need to know Christ as the First and the Last and the living One; He has become dead and lived again, and He has the keys of death and of Hades (Rev. 1:17-18; 2:8).
This is the Christ we should experience in the church life – the One who is the First and the Last, the One who became dead and now is living again!
In Him there’s no death; in our mingled spirit there is no death!
We shouldn’t seek to be right or good versus being wrong or evil; we should seek to know the resurrection life of Christ and overcome death.
In ourselves we cannot overcome death, for Satan has injected death into us; the only One who is qualified to overcome death is Jesus Christ Himself.
And this One is in us; His death is a Satan-terminating death, and His death terminates Satan in us and in the church whenever we enjoy His resurrection life and live in the mingled spirit.
Lord Jesus, we want to know our spirit and do all things in the mingled spirit so that we may remain in life and live a life for the building up of the church. Amen, Lord Jesus, may we experience Your resurrection life to overcome any death and withstand any attack of death from Satan. May all the saints know, enjoy, and experience the resurrection life of Christ so that the church would be a vessel filled with life! Be merciful to us, Lord, and keep us from touching death or bringing death into the church! May God fill the church with life, and may Satan find no opening to attack the church!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. James Lee for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 44, chs. 113-114, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Deuteronomy, week 12, Life and Blessing under the Government of God.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Though the gates of hades frustrate, / Yet the Church still stands for God, / Overcoming evil spirits / By her Lord’s victorious blood; / And at Christ’s return in triumph / All her foes will then be trod. (Hymns #836)
– Oh, may I know this resurrection life, / In every kind of death its pow’r outpoured, / In my experience ever realize / This life is nought but Christ my living Lord. (Hymns #639)
– The blest reality / Of resurrection power, / Thy Church’s dower, / Life more abundantly, / Lord, give to me. (Hymns #365)
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