Very few passages in the Bible are as well known or as highly esteemed as this exhortation to stand against the wiles of the devil. And certainly it has an immediate bearing today when the outcome of the battle between good and evil is crucial for the very existence of civilization.

But this passage has a potentially misleading character about it which may have a disastrous effect upon the waging of the battle. Much of it sounds purely defensive. "To withstand in the evil day", "to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked"—the word "armour" even has the connotation of protection. All this can easily play into the hands of those who have the notion that the main duty of a Christian is to keep himself unspotted from the world. Like the three famous monkeys of the East, who see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil, it is thought that evil itself will somehow cease to exist if it is merely avoided. Of course there is some truth in this point of view in as much as the Christian must have adequate defensive equipment, but it must be forever emphasized that the vital element in the armour of God is the last one that St. Paul mentions, namely, the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. For we can be sure that all the breastplates, helmets, and shields ever made will be of little effect by themselves in defeating the principalities, the powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world. That is like building a tank of the most shell-proof armour but not putting in a powerful engine and a hard hitting gun. It just won't win battles.

Indeed, the most alarming sign of these times is the tendency to go onto the defensive, to try to side-step problems which appear to be too great to solve. It is a sign that the end of our era may be at hand. When the French Army came to the Marne in its retreat on Paris in the first world war, defeat seemed imminent. At that moment General Foch made his memorable decision. "My center is giving way, my right is pushed back—excellent! I'll attack."

As we know, that attack saved France. And as we also know, the lack of attack in this last war brought France's downfall. Without the sword of the Spirit, which is the spirit of the offensive, the most that can be hoped for is that defeat may be delayed. But it will surely come.

And defeat will surely come to this nation unless we take the offensive in solving the titanic problem of power that we have suddenly found in our hands. It cannot be hid under a bushel, it cannot be evaded, it cannot be kept to ourselves. It must be shared, for that is what the offensive means in this case—the exploration and achievement of new methods of cooperation which have never yet been tried. Small-minded and fearful men think only of retreat—retreat into self-protection. But the alternative to one world now is one Hell, or even more accurately one complete annihilation.

It may seem like an anti-climax to say that your own personal defeat will come in the same way if you put your faith in defensive armour and fail to acquire and use the sword of the spirit. It may have been possible in years gone by to live blandly in the Puritan house on the hill where all questionable literature was carefully banned, where temptation was kept at a minimum; where the turmoil, poverty and disease of the factory-filled valley could not be seen. But that is no longer possible because the ways of the valley and the hill have met. It never was Christian, it was merely rationalized egotism, to escape the problems of evil and call it purity. The Christian paradox must never be forgotten that dirty water washes clean when used in the service of God.

The time has come both personally and nationally to put on the whole armour of God in order to take the offensive against the powers of darkness of this world.