CO-LABORING WITH GOD
God has a will. Yet He wants man to pray according to His will. When man does this, He will immediately accomplish the work that His will has ordained. If there is no prayer from His children expressing their oneness with Him in His work, no matter what His will may be, He will not execute it independently. God’s goal is to remove the work of the devil, and surely His will is to avenge the believers. But God is waiting for His children to pray. As the judge would not have avenged the widow without her crying out to him, in the same way, without the Satan-accusing prayer of the believers, God will not avenge them. We do not know why, but we do know that God is pleased to see His people working with Him. However, there must be a basis to our accusing. The ones who are persecuted by Satan are the believers. Hence, the believers can accuse him before God based on Satan’s treatment of them. In this way, he will receive his deathblow.
THE END TIME
After the Lord finished this parable, He concluded with this word: "Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" (v. 8). It seems as if the Lord was saying that at the time when He is about to come, this kind of prayer will be greatly lacking. Believers do not pray because they do not have faith. They think that it is too great and too difficult a thing to cast Satan out of heaven and into the abyss and, eventually, into the lake of fire. "Now the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly" (Rom. 16:20). Concerning this verse, they may think, "If this promise has passed through twenty centuries and has still not yet been fulfilled, how could we hope to see Satan punished by God merely by our prayer?" The Lord’s word implies that when He is about to come, man will not have the faith to pray for this matter. Yet, the end time is exactly the time that we need this kind of prayer. Can we be the faithful minority that offers up prayers to oppose and attack Satan at this unprecedented hour, prayers to hasten his abdication of his position and his authority? We know that the end time is the time when Satan and his evil spirits are particularly active in their work. For this reason, we should all the more oppose him and overturn his government by prayer. Strictly speaking, at the present time, there is no greater work for God’s children than this. Who is willing to pray the prayer that opposes Satan, for his own sake and for God’s sake?
Strive, O Jehovah, with those who strive with me;
Battle against those who battle against me.
Take hold of shield and buckler,
And rise up as my help.
Draw out also the spear, and close up the way
Against those who pursue me;
Say to my soul,
I am your salvation.
Let those who seek my life
Be put to shame and humiliated;
Let those who devise evil for me
Be turned back and confounded.
Let them be like chaff before the wind,
With the angel of Jehovah driving them on.
Let their way be darkness and slipperiness itself,
With the angel of Jehovah pursuing them.
For without cause they hid their net for me in a pit;
Without cause they dug a hole for me...
Awake, and stir Yourself for my cause,
For my contention, O my God and my Lord.
(Psa. 35:1-7, 23).
(Collected Works of Watchman Nee, The (Set 1) Vol. 01: The Christian Life and Warfare, Chapter 12, by Watchman Nee)
