Second Factor: the Opposition of the Enemy (continued)
People get cross with one another, and that gets on top of us, and we begin to direct our attention to them, and we get out with them and there is a distressing situation, and we see afterwards how foolish we are to allow the devil to swing us off into a human track when it is a spiritual issue. It has not really been the fault of persons, or just in-consequential happenings; there has been a spiritual issue at stake, and all these other things were brought about and used by the enemy to occupy us with the lesser, and so blind us to the real issue, thus keeping um out of prayer, and preventing our standing with the Lord for His rights which were at some point or other being challenged.
It is the realm of unceasing conflict, and it would seem that we have come into that part of the age when the enemy takes no rest, and we find we can take no off-times. Anything you do must be done deliberately with God, and you must never act out of, or apart from, God; that exposed movement has been watched for by the enemy, and you have to pay for it.
The Fourfold Ministry
Recognize the fourfold aspect of the ministry of these instruments used of God. Daniel is the first to start this movement towards recovery in Babylon, and it is interesting and significant that it was started in prayer. Daniel took up the testimony of God in Babylon in prayer. God reacted through an instrument of prayer. Daniel's outlook is towards Jerusalem; he is praying that God would recover that which He has lost. His concern is for the place of the Name, and he gets through in prayer.
"From the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to humble thyself before thy God, thy words were heard: and I am come for thy words' sake. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days" (Daniel 10:12-13). Through Daniel's praying hell's forces had been stirred to their depths, even to the withstanding of one of the highest archangels of Heaven - "Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me."
Do you notice Esther comes next, and it is as if the devil said: "Daniel has prayed to get a people out and back to Jerusalem; I am going to make it impossible for them to get back," and so we see him, through wicked Haman, seeking to wipe out all the Jews, determined to have no remnant to go back.
Today the enemy is out to prevent a remnant getting out to God, by bringing death, pressure from all quarters, in such force as to almost paralyze them. God sovereignly over-rules, and the devices of Haman are brought to nought.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 7)
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