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Spiritual Hunger And Other Sermons
Spiritual Authority
The Holy Spirit ā The Missing Ingredient
Spiritual Direction (Wisdom For The Long Walk Of Faith)
The Gift Of Prophecy
Who Am I, Why Am I Here
Uprooting The Spirit Of Fear
Destiny Clinic
About the Book
"Waging Spiritual Warfare" by Richard Ing is a guide to understanding and confronting spiritual battles. It explores the importance of spiritual warfare in the Christian faith, provides practical strategies for recognizing and overcoming spiritual attacks, and offers biblical wisdom for strengthening one's spiritual defenses. Overall, the book aims to empower readers to stand firm in their faith and actively engage in spiritual warfare.
Eric Liddell
Eric Henry Liddell was born on 16th January 1902 in Tientsin (Tianjin) North China, second son of the Rev. & Mrs. James Dunlop Liddell who were missionaries with the London Mission Society.
He was educated from 1908 to 1920 at Eltham College, Blackheath, school for the sons of missionaries. Eric, with his older brother Rob, were left at their boarding school while their parents and sister, Jenny, returned to China.
During the boysā time at Eltham College, their parents, sister and new brother Ernest came home on furlough two or three times and were able to be together as a family ā mainly living in Edinburgh.
Although born in China and educated in England, Eric Liddell lived in Scotland at various times during his life.
In 1920, Eric joined his brother Rob at Edinburgh University to read for a BSc in Pure Science.
During this period he played rugby for Scotland and trained to run at the Olympics.
Athletics and rugby played a large part in Ericās University life. He ran in the 100 yards and the 220 yards for Edinburgh University and later for Scotland. He played rugby for Edinburgh University and in 1922 played in seven Scottish Internationals with A.L. Gracie.
Eric Liddell was a gifted rugby player and played for the Edinburgh Univerisity 1st XV team.
He also played international rugby for Scotland and gained seven international caps as a wing-threequarter, scoring four tries thanks to his searing pace.
As a result of having insufficient time for both running and rugby, he chose the former, aiming for the 100 meters in the Paris Olympics. When he learned that the heats were to be run on a Sunday, he switched to the 400 metre competition as he was not prepared to run on a Sunday.
He won a gold medal for the 400 metres and a bronze medal for the 200 metres at the Paris Olympics.
He also travelled briefly to the USA in 1924 to compete in an athletics tournament. He returned to Edinburgh after the Paris Olympics and he graduated from Edinburgh University.
Eric Liddell lived for a short time in Gillespie Crescent before moving to a house in Merchiston Place.
Recollections of Eric Liddell By Sir Arthur Marshall
The Cambridge University Athletics Club had an invitation from Pennsylvania to take a team of seven to the Pennsylvanian Games in March 1924, and I was one of the seven. Eric Liddell, the Scot from Edinburgh University, the 1923 AAA 100 yards Champion, had been personally invited and travelled with us. We stayed at the very comfortable Pennsylvanian Cricket Club. I am afraid none of, including Eric Liddell, managed to win an event at the Pennsylvanian Games.
We travelled back in a small slow ship of the American United Line called āThe Republicā ā a ten day crossing. Eric Liddell entered in the fun and games on the boat, including the Fancy Dress Dance. Whilst he was very strict about religion. Eric and I became good friends and saw much of two American sisters, Freddie and Edith, who were travelling to ādo Europeā, including the UK. They said they were going to be in Paris for the Olympic Games, and we said if we were there at the same time we hoped we could meet.
Harold Abrahams had set his whole life on winning the Olympic 100 Metres ā it had become and obsession with him. Liddellās achievement in winning the 1923 AAA 100 Yards in the record time of 9 7/10 seconds was a devastating blow to Abrahams and shook him to the core. To date Abrahams had been a consistent 10 seconds 100 yards winner but had only slightly broken 10 seconds on one or two occasions. He knew in the Olympics he would be up against overseas competition, particularly from the Americans, but this new and very serious opposition out of the blue and on his doorstep had come at a time when Harold had established his 100 yards supremacy in the UK. To achieve level pegging with Eric Liddellās new record time, Harold had to improve his performance by two or three yards with the help of his trainer Sam Mussabini. It must have been a tremendous relief to Harold when it became known early in 1924 that Eric had decided to concentrate on the 400 metres and, because of his religious principles, would not compete in the Olympic 100 metres as first heats were always run on Sunday.
Eric had in turn become completely dedicated to winning an Olympic Medal within the restrictions of his faith. He was a famous Scottish international rugger player, and gave up his rugger to enable him to concentrate on his Olympic ambitions, which became very deep-rooted, and his work suffered. Winning an Olympic Gold Medal became a priority, second only to his religion, and the ambition to win this event became part of his religion.
Recollections of Eric Liddell By Sir Arthur Marshall
The team travelled to Paris days before the Olympics started and had a big send-off at Victoria Station.
The silence at the start of the 100 metres and 400 metres was quite electric. Harold Abrahams won the 100 metres in a new Games record time.
In spite of all that has been said about Abrahamsā 100 metres, the 400 metres in some way provided the greatest thrill of the meeting with the world record being broken by Eric Liddell three times in two days. It was thought that Liddell had some chance of winning, but nobody thought Liddell capable of the amazing performance he achieved in the final. As far as the crowd were concerned they were well informed about Liddellās dedication to his religion and his refusal to run in the first round of the 100 metres on the Sunday; they also knew of his determination to win this event. The occasion was enlivened by the support given to Liddell by the pipes and drums of the Cameron Highlanders.
The silence and pent-up excitement at the start of the race could be felt. Liddell went ahead at the start and maintained his pace throughout, finishing in what at the time was described as āa most lion-hearted mannerā winning by three yards from Fitch, an American. This was probably the greatest achievement of the VIIIth Olympiad, and superlatives were showered on Liddell by the press of the entire world. Liddell was short and not a pretty runner but just pounded along virtually at the same pace all the way, with a finish as if he was making a final dash for a try in a rugger match with an opponent bearing down on him and about to tackle from behind.
After Eric had won the 400 metres Gold Medal, Eric and I made contact with Freddie and Edith, the American sisters, and took them to a Tango Tea Dance in the Champs Elysees.
Footnote: Along with sacrificing his place in the 1924 Olympics 100m, Eric Liddell also gave up two other races in which Great Britain held high hopes of winning gold that year ā the 4 x 100m and 4 x 400m, whose finals also took place on a Sunday.
After the Olympics
After the Olympics and his graduation, he returned to North China where he served as a missionary from 1925 to 1943 ā first in Tientsin (Tainjin) and later in Siaochang. During his first furlough in 1932 he was ordained as a minister.
1930 - 1932
On furlough from China studying at Congregational College. After completing his studies he was ordained as a minister on 22nd June 1932. During this time he lived in a hostel in George Square which belonged to the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society.
During these periods Eric Liddell attended Morningside Congregational Church at the corner of Chamberlain Road and Morningside Road.
Morningside Congregational Church
The Church building (pictured here on the right) was originally built for North Morningside United Presbyterian Church who used it until 1881 when it became too small. They then built a new, larger, church on the other side of the road (which is now the Eric Liddell Centre).
From 1881 the old church was home to the Morningside Athenaeum Club before the Congregational Church purchased it in 1890.
In 1928 this church was demolished and a new one erected (which is now Morningside United Church).
Eric Liddell would have attended meetings in both buildings during his two extended stays in Edinburgh. The old church from 1920 to 1925 and the current building (Morningside United Church) from 1930 to 1932. He also preached at the church on a number of occasions.
On his return to China, he married Florence Mackenzie (of Canadian missionary parentage) in Tientsin in 1934. They had three daughters; Patricia, Heather and Maureen, who now all live in Canada.
Living in China in the 1930s was potentially very dangerous and in 1937 Eric was sent to Siaochang where he joined his brother Rob. He was now crossing the Japanese army lines.
In 1941 life in China was becoming so dangerous that the British Government advised British nationals to leave. Florence and the children left for Canada.
During 1941 ā 1943 Eric stayed in Tientsin, then in 1943 he was interned in Weishien camp until his death in 1945.
The Eric Liddell Centre
The United Presbyterian Church merged with the Free Church of Scotland in 1900 and then, in 1929, this merged with the Church of Scotland.
The United Presbyterian Church built in 1879 became known as Morningside North parish Church. By 1980 the building was no longer in use and became the Holy Corner Church Centre.
This was an initiative of the three remaining churches at Holy Corner: Morningside United Church (a merger between the Congregational and Church of Scotland congregations and in joint membership of the United Reformed Church and Church of Scotland), Christ Church (Scottish Episcopal Church) and Morningside Baptist Church.
As the project developed the centreās name was changed to The Eric Liddell Centre in recognition of his involvement in the life of one of the founding churches and the local community during his time living here.
He Saw God Through His Pen: George Herbert
If you go to the mainstream poetry website Poetry Foundation and click on George Herbertās name, what you read is this: āHe is . . . enormously popular, deeply and broadly inļ¬uential, and arguably the most skillful and important British devotional lyricist of this or any other time.ā This is an extraordinary tribute to a man who never published a single poem in English during his lifetime and died as an obscure country pastor when he was 39. But there are reasons for his enduring inļ¬uence. His Short Life George Herbert was born April 3, 1593, in Montgomeryshire, Wales. He was the seventh of ten children born to Richard and Magdalene Herbert, but his father died when he was three, leaving ten children, the oldest of which was 13. This didnāt put them in ļ¬nancial hardship, however, because Richardās estate, which he left to Magdalene, was sizable. Herbert was an outstanding student at a Westminster preparatory school, writing Latin essays when he was eleven years old, which would later be published. At Cambridge, he distinguished himself in the study of classics. He graduated second in a class of 193 in 1612 with a bachelor of arts, and then in 1616, he took his master of arts and became a major fellow of the university. āHerbertās aim was to feel the love of God and to engrave it in the steel of human language for others to see and feel.ā In 1619, he was elected public orator of Cambridge University. This was a prestigious post with huge public responsibility. A few years later, however, the conļ¬ict of his soul over a call to the pastoral ministry intensiļ¬ed. And a vow he had made to his mother during his ļ¬rst year at Cambridge took hold in his heart. He submitted himself totally to God and to the ministry of a parish priest. He was ordained as a deacon in the Church of England in 1626 and then became the ordained priest of the little country church at Bemerton in 1630. There were never more than a hundred people in his church. At the age of 36 and in failing health, Herbert married Jane Danvers the year before coming to Bemerton, March 5, 1629. He and Jane never had children, though they adopted three nieces who had lost their parents. Then, on March 1, 1633, after fewer than three years in the ministry, and just a month before his fortieth birthday, Herbert died of tuberculosis, which he had suļ¬ered from most of his adult life. His body lies under the chancel of the church, and there is only a simple plaque on the wall with the initials GH. His Dying Gift Thatās the bare outline of Herbertās life. And if that were all there was, nobody today would have ever heard of George Herbert. The reason anyone knows of him today is because of something climactic that happened a few weeks before he died. His close friend Nicholas Ferrar sent a fellow pastor, Edmund Duncon, to see how Herbert was doing. On Dunconās second visit, Herbert knew that the end was near. So he reached for his most cherished earthly possession and said to Duncon, Sir, I pray deliver this little book to my dear brother Ferrar, and tell him he shall ļ¬nd in it a picture of the many spiritual conļ¬icts that have passed betwixt God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus my Master, in whose service I have now found perfect freedom; desire him to read it: and then, if he can think it may turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul, let it be made public; if not, let him burn it; for I and it are less than the least of Godās mercies. (The Life of Mr. George Herbert, 310ā11) That little book was a collection of 167 poems. Herbertās friend Nicholas Ferrar published it later that year, 1633, under the title The Temple. It went through four editions in three years, was steadily reprinted for a hundred years, and is still in print today. Though not one of these poems was published during his lifetime, The Temple established Herbert as one of the greatest religious poets of all time, and one of the most gifted craftsmen the world of poetry has ever known. āThe eļ¬ort to say more about the glory than you have ever said is a way of seeing more than you have ever seen.ā Poetry was for Herbert a way of seeing and savoring and showing the wonders of Christ. The central theme of his poems was the redeeming love of Christ, and he labored with all his literary might to see it clearly, feel it deeply, and show it strikingly. What we are going to see, however, is not only that the beauty of the subject inspired the beauty of the poetry, but more surprisingly, the eļ¬ort to ļ¬nd beautiful poetic form helped Herbert see more of the beauty of his subject. The craft of poetry opened more of Christ for Herbert ā and for us. Secretary of Godās Praise On the one hand, Herbert was moved to write with consummate skill because his only subject was consummately glorious. āThe subject of every single poem in The Temple,ā Helen Wilcox says, āis, in one way or another, Godā (English Poems of George Herbert, xxi). He writes in his poem āThe Temper (I),ā How should I praise thee, Lord! how should my rymes Gladly engrave thy love in steel, If what my soul doth feel sometimes, My soul might ever feel! Herbert's aim was to feel the love of God and to engrave it in the steel of human language for others to see and feel. Poetry was entirely for God, because everything is entirely for God. More than that, Herbert believed that since God ruled all things by his sacred providence, everything revealed God. Everything spoke of God. The role of the poet is to be Godās echo. Or Godās secretary. To me, Herbertās is one of the best descriptions of the Christian poet: āSecretarie of thy praise.ā O Sacred Providence, who from end to end Strongly and sweetly movest! shall I write, And not of thee, through whom my ļ¬ngers bend To hold my quill? shall they not do thee right? Of all the creatures both in sea and land Only to Man thou hast made known thy wayes, And put the penne alone into his hand, And made him Secretarie of thy praise. God bends Herbertās ļ¬ngers around his quill. āShall they not do thee right?ā Shall I not be a faithful secretary of thy praise ā faithfully rendering ā beautifully rendering ā the riches of your truth and beauty? Saying Leads to Seeing But Herbert discovered, in his role as the secretary of Godās praise, that the poetic eļ¬ort to speak the riches of Godās greatness also gave him deeper sight into that greatness. Writing poetry was not merely the expression of his experience with God that he had before the writing. The writing was part of the experience of God. Probably the poem that says this most forcefully is called āThe Quidditieā ā that is, the essence of things. And his point is that poetic verses are nothing in themselves, but are everything if he is with God in them. My God, a verse is not a crown, No point of honour, or gay suit, No hawk, or banquet, or renown, Nor a good sword, nor yet a lute: It cannot vault, or dance, or play; It never was in France or Spain; Nor can it entertain the day With a great stable or demain: It is no office, art, or news; Nor the Exchange, or busie Hall; But it is that which while I use I am with Thee, and Most take all. āThe craft of poetry opened more of Christ for Herbert ā and for us.ā His poems are āthat which while I use I am with Thee.ā As Helen Wilcox says, āThis phrase makes clear that it is not the ļ¬nished āverseā itself which brings the speaker close to God, but the act of āusingā poetry ā a process which presumably includes writing, revising, and readingā (English Poems of George Herbert, 255). For Herbert, this experience of seeing and savoring God was directly connected with the care and rigor and subtlety and delicacy of his poetic eļ¬ort ā his craft, his art. For Poor, Dejected Souls Yet Herbert had in view more than the joys of his own soul as he wrote. He wrote (and dreamed of publishing after death) with a view of serving the church. As he said to his friend Nicholas Ferrar, ā[If you] can think it may turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul, let it be made public.ā And this is, in fact, what has happened. People have met God in Herbertās poems, and their lives have been changed. Joseph Summers said of Herbertās poems, āWe can only recognize . . . the immediate imperative of the greatest art: āYou must change your lifeāā (George Herbert, 190). Simone Weil, the twentieth-century French philosopher, was totally agnostic toward God and Christianity but encountered Herbertās poem āLove (III)ā and became a kind of Christian mystic, calling this poem āthe most beautiful poem in the worldā (English Poems of George Herbert, xxi). Love (III) Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back, Guiltie of dust and sinne. But quick-eyād Love, observing me grow slack From my ļ¬rst entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning If I lackād any thing. A guest, I answerād, worthy to be here: Love said, you shall be he. I the unkinde, ungratefull? Ah my deare, I cannot look on thee. Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, Who made the eyes but I? Truth Lord, but I have marrād them: let my shame Go where it doth deserve. And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame? My deare, then I will serve. You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat: So I did sit and eat. Herbert had struggled all his life to know that Loveās yoke is easy and its burden is light. He had come to ļ¬nd that this is true. And he ended his poems and his life with an echo of the most astonishing expression of it in all the Bible: The King of kings will ādress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve themā (Luke 12:37). You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat: So I did sit and eat. This is the end of the matter. No more striving. No more struggle. No more āspiritual conļ¬icts [passing] betwixt God and my soul.ā Instead, Love himself serves the poetās soul as he sits and receives. Words as a Way of Seeing Worth George Herbert found, as most poets have, that the eļ¬ort to put the glimpse of glory into striking or moving words makes the glimpse grow. The poetic eļ¬ort to say beautifully was a way of seeing beauty. The eļ¬ort to ļ¬nd worthy words for Christ opens to us more fully the worth of Christ ā and the experience of the worth of Christ. As Herbert says of his own poetic eļ¬ort, āIt is that which, while I use, I am with thee.ā āThe poetic eļ¬ort to speak the riches of Godās greatness gave Herbert deeper sight into that greatness.ā I will close with an exhortation for everyone who is called to speak about great things. It would be fruitful for your own soul, and for the people you speak to, if you also made a poetic eļ¬ort to see and savor and show the glories of Christ. I donāt mean the eļ¬ort to write poetry. Very few are called to do that. I mean the eļ¬ort to see and savor and show the glories of Christ by giving some prayerful eļ¬ort to ļ¬nding striking, penetrating, and awakening ways of saying the excellencies that we see. Preachers have this job supremely. But all of us, Peter says, are called out of darkness to āproclaim the excellenciesā (1 Peter 2:9). And my point here for all of us is that the eļ¬ort to put the excellencies into worthy words is a way of seeing the worth of the excellencies. The eļ¬ort to say more about the glory than you have ever said is a way of seeing more than you have ever seen. Therefore, I commend poetic effort to you. And I commend one of its greatest patrons, the poet-pastor George Herbert. Article by John Piper