«　WEEK 1　DAY 2　»

　　Eph. 6:11 Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil.

　　13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

　　When God created man, He spoke of what He needed. He revealed His need to have man rule and reign over all His creation and proclaim His triumph. Ruling for God is not a small thing; it is a great matter....This is God's work, and this is what God desires to obtain.

　　If man has not restored the earth from the hand of Satan, he has not yet achieved God's purpose in creating him....Saving souls solves man's need, but dealing with Satan satisfies God's need. (CWWN, vol. 34, "The Glorious Church," p. 11)

　　Brothers and sisters, [dealing with Satan] requires us to pay a price....Preaching the gospel demands that we pay a price, but a much greater price must be paid to deal with Satan.

　　This is not a matter of a message or a teaching. This requires our practice, and the price is extremely great. If we are to be men whom God will use to overthrow all of Satan's work and authority, we must obey the Lord completely and absolutely!...We may hold on to something of ourselves in our study of the Scriptures, in preaching the gospel, in helping the church or the brothers, but when we are dealing with Satan, self must be utterly abandoned. Satan will never be moved by us if self is preserved. May God open our eyes to see that His purpose demands that we be wholly and absolutely for Him. A double-minded person can never deal with Satan. May God speak this word to our hearts. (CWWN, vol. 34, "The Glorious Church," pp. 11-12)

　　Ephesians 6:10-20 reveals that the church, which is the new man, needs to fight against the enemy of God....The warrior is not a status of the church but an aspect of the church as the new man. The new man has the obligation of fighting against God's enemy. This is indicated in Genesis 1, where we are told that when God created the old man, He commissioned him to bear His image for His expression and to have His dominion for His representation to deal with the enemy....The new man in the new creation also has the twofold obligation of bearing God's image to express Him and of fighting against God's enemy. Therefore, the church as the new man is a warrior fighting against God's enemy, for the new man is now fulfilling God's purpose to express God and to fight against God's enemy for God's dominion, God's kingdom.

　　In Ephesians 6:12 Paul says, "Our wrestling is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies." Blood and flesh refers to human beings. Behind men of blood and flesh are the evil forces of the devil, fighting against God's purpose. Hence, our wrestling, our fighting, must not be against men but against the evil spiritual forces in the heavenlies. The principalities, the authorities, and the world-rulers of this darkness are the rebellious angels who followed Satan in his rebellion against God and who now rule in the heavenlies over the nations of the world. This darkness refers to today's world, which is fully under the dark ruling of the devil through his evil angels. The world-rulers of this darkness are the princes Satan has set up to rule the various nations. Because of the working of Satan, who is the authority of darkness, the earth and its atmosphere have become "this darkness." The spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies are Satan and his spiritual forces of evil in the air. The warfare between the church and Satan is a battle between us who love the Lord and who are in His church and the evil powers in the heavenlies. We must fight against these spiritual forces. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 2321-2322)

　　Further Reading: CWWN, vol. 34, "The Glorious Church," ch. 1; CWWL, 1972, vol. 2, "The Kingdom," ch. 7