Satan's Objective - the Nullification of the Church's Position and Warfare through Corruption

What then is ever Satan's objective? To corrupt, and thereby to pull down the Church from its spiritual position. 

Hence we have such a word as this: "Consider from whence thou art fallen". That is said to the church at Ephesus. "Thou hast left thy first love."

Go back to Acts 19 and note that first love. Paul comes to Ephesus, and what happens through his presentation of Christ there? Why, many of them brought their valuable and perhaps priceless books of magic arts and made a great fire of them, and the sum is taken of their value, an immense sum; and it all went up in flames!

In a city like Ephesus where Demetrius is so concerned about the profits of trade, where capitalism is such a big factor, where money means a lot, an immense fortune is thus sacrificed. 

Why? Because they turned to the Lord with all their heart. 

The testimony of Jesus is accepted and established. What a thing!

You remember Paul's talk to the Ephesian elders. What a wonderful disclosure, what a relationship in spiritual things! Well might he, through the enablement of the Holy Spirit, write that letter, which had Ephesus as its base, to go round all the churches in Asia, a letter of heavenly unveilings. What a revelation, what a position!

And now to Ephesus in Rev. 2 "Thou hast left thy first love"! 

You do not value Christ, you do not value the inheritance, you do not value heavenly things as you once did: "consider from whence thou art fallen". Fallen!  

Here we have spiritual collapse, the work of Satan in bringing down from an Ephesian position. 

Thus the overcomer is the one or the company that stands for God's full revelation, and God's full revelation is a heavenly people in whom there can be a growing and ultimately full, perfect manifestation of the moral glory of God in this universe. 

That is the city, the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, having the glory of God, her light like unto a lamp most precious. That is the end to which God is working.

Now, beloved, remember that the rulership of this world and this universe is centred in the heavenlies.

Let us not forget that. In this age there are the world rulers of this darkness in the heavenlies. In those heavenlies just now the principalities and powers, the world rulers of this darkness, are operating, and they are doing their work thoroughly.

Oh yes, never was a day such as this. The manifestation of the evil work of Satan in the nations, the moral degradation in the nations, is coming out, it is being manifested.

The rulership is there in the heavenlies, so far as this world is concerned outside of Christ. I am leaving room for the sovereignty of God over all that, but we are talking about the judicial and rightful government of man, and Satan has it outside of Christ because of man's consent; and man still does consent.

The very people who even here in this country deplore the iniquitous procedure that is going on in the world, and who would most loudly and vehemently decry the wickedness of what is going on, if you speak to them along these lines of enthroning Jesus Christ, they would not listen to you. Giving God His place? - that is pious talk! They are going to deal with it in other ways. 

Satan has such a grip that even those who deplore iniquity do not give God and His righteousness a place. However, that by the way.

Now, the rulership, the moral rulership, is vested in or seated in the heavenlies. The evil hierarchy that is seen there as yet is to yield its grasp, and the destiny of the Church is to take the place of the principalities and powers and world rulers of this darkness, to occupy the heavenlies.

So in Rev. 12 as we have seen, we have the "overcomers", the "man-child", caught up to the throne of God, and then no more place is found for the red dragon and his hosts in the heavens.

Thus at present there is a spiritual warfare between the Church and the principalities going on in the heavenlies - yes, down in your kitchen!

I must say this in order to keep you from becoming nebulous and abstract. Amidst irritating daily work, that is where the battle in the heavenlies is going on.  

You have not got to reach some geographical point to have a battle in the heavens. It is spiritual and moral. The Church is fighting that battle in daily life.

Then the issue - Satan knows the issue is a very great one. It is his place of rulership over the inhabited earth, the deceiving of the nations, the holding of them bound, the directing of them contrary to God, the opposing of God's end in His own, that is at stake. 

The Church is fighting that battle spiritually now. 

The battle is going to be fought and fought and fought within our own spirits.

It is a question of whether we in spirit are going to overcome or Satan. 

It is the position that is in question; government, dominion, rulership.

What then is Satan's objective? In the first place it is to corrupt in order to pull down. It will then be the displacement of believers from their heavenly position, the displacement of the Church...

Ours is not some position to which we have to rise, to attain. The letter to the Ephesians does not put it in that way at all. It presents it as an accomplished fact: "hath seated us." 

Beloved, do grasp this, that if really by faith in Jesus Christ you have, with both hands, apprehended the righteousness of God as yours, you are in the heavenlies, you are above Satan morally.

Your business is to hold your position. Satan is not out to keep us down, he is out to hurl us down. We are there. This is a position we have to hold to by faith. 

So that to dislodge, to displace, will be his object. 

But oh, just as his ways for corrupting or bringing accusation and condemnation are countless and always beyond our power to anticipate, so are his ways to bring us down, to bring God's people down spiritually and morally from their heavenly position.

~T. Austin Sparks~