490 The Spiritual Man
has been commissioned by the Lord and has labored for eight or ten
years without achieving any results. Can he continue to labor
faithfully simply because God has commanded it? How many saints
are there who serve purely because it is God’s command? Or how
many work just to produce fruits? Since God’s work is eternal in
nature, He demands men with faith to labor for Him. It is difficult for
human beings who live in time to perceive and to understand the
work of God, for it is replete with eternal character. How, then, can
those who live by feeling ever join in God’s work since nothing in it
can please their feeling? Unless the death of the cross cuts
penetratingly into the soul of a believer so that he reserves nothing
for self, he cannot follow the Lord in work except to a limited extent.
Beyond that he is unable to go. God asks for men who are totally
broken and who will follow Him even to death to work for Him.
In Battling the EnemyThose who live by feeling are even more worthless in spiritual
warfare, because to battle the enemy in prayer is truly a self-denying
work. What incalculable suffering is involved! Nothing for satisfying
one’s self can be found here; it is pouring out one’s all for the body
of Christ and the kingdom of God. How unbearable must be this
resisting and wrestling in the spirit! What pleasure is there for the
spirit to be laden with indescribable burden for the sake of God? Is it
interesting to attack the evil spirit with every ounce of strength one
can summon? This is a prayer warfare. But for whom is the believer
praying? Not for himself surely, but for the work of God. Such
prayer is for warfare which is thoroughly lacking in interest one
usually encounters during ordinary prayer. Is there anything in this
that can make him feel comfortable when he must travail in his soul
and pray to destroy and to build? No element in spiritual warfare can
gladden the flesh—unless of course one is contending merely in his
imagination.