To the foe my word is always, No

The self and Satan match each other and work together. If a single brother begins to be anxious about marriage, Satan will suggest that it would be foolish not to forsake his service in order to take care of his marriage. We often do not discern the source of our thoughts. A serving one must beware of himself. When an anxious thought comes, we need to call on the name of the Lord, tell the self to be silent, and tell Satan to get away from us. Hymns, #880 says, "To the foe my word is always, 'No, ' / To the Father it is, 'Yes. '" This hymn was written based on experience. We are constantly bothered by the self and the self's companion, Satan.

We have a hymn in our hymnal which says, "To the foe my word is always, 'No,'/To the Father it is 'Yes'" (Hymns, #880). We have to learn to say "yes" to the Father and "no" to the devil all the time. But often our experience is the opposite of this. We say "no" to the Father and "yes" to Satan. When the sisters see something on sale in the newspaper, there is a struggle within them. Something within is urging them to go buy it, and something within is telling them not to go. Thus, they have to decide what to say. Will they say "no" to Satan and "yes" to the Father? They may say to the Lord, "Lord, I ask You to give me the freedom to go this one time. I will never do it again." All of us have this same "illness." We read the Bible, but do we keep the word of the Bible? We should be those who keep the Lord's word with absoluteness.

Our being, our self, our natural life, our flesh, sin, and Satan are all one entity. They are like many eggs in one nest. In a nest a mother bird may have a cluster of eggs. When these eggs are hatched, they will form one family, one entity. Our being, our self, our natural life, our flesh, sin, and Satan are like one family in a nest. To die to self means to die to the entire family.

For this reason the Lord said in Matthew 16, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me" (v. 24). To deny the self is to die to self. The first two lines of a hymn translated by Brother Nee express this same thought: "To the foe my word is always, 'No,' / To the Father it is 'Yes'" (Hymns, #880). To say "No" to Satan is to die to self. When we die to self, our natural life, our flesh, sin, and Satan are finished. When we die to self, Satan is defeated. This is why Satan is afraid of the cross.

There was another brother whose relative was sick. This sister again wrote and said, "You have to be responsible for prayer. You should not allow this sickness to go on." Consequently, this brother also received help from her. Once she herself was sick in bed. Her co-worker was away in another place. She was out of money, and her cook also went home for some reason. She prayed continuously, asking God, "Why does this sickness come upon me?", and God showed her that this was not from Him, but this was Satan's attack. She said, "If this is due to my own problem, I can remain sick. But if this is Satan's attack, let the sickness be gone." She had been ill for four days with a high fever, but she stood up right after she prayed. At this time she wrote a song: "To the foe my word is always, 'No,' / To the Father it is 'Yes.'" We have this song in our hymn book. When she finished writing this song, she went out to work, and her sickness was over.