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“It’s a war out there!” This is a phrase that has often been used to prepare people in one setting for the reality that they are about to be faced with in a soon-to-be setting. A football coach may recite these words to his players in a pregame speech. A commanding officer would undoubtedly tell his troops of the vast difference that exists between the transport and the battlefield using these words. Students are given similar words during their training, prior to entering the workplace. All of these examples carry with them various levels of severity when it comes to interpreting the term “war”. However, there is perhaps no more right or immediate usage of that phrase than had Paul used it here in our text. You see, he was preparing the Ephesian Christians for a war. But unlike most other wars, this war had been ongoing since almost the beginning of the earth, and will continue until the establishment of the new heaven and new earth that we read about in Revelation 21. This war, while being played out physically, is really a war that is being waged within the hearts and minds of every human being. Paul was preparing these Christians for what is known as spiritual warfare. He wanted them to know just how real it was and is and exactly how they should prepare for battle.
If you remember, he’s been telling them about the Church and about their relationship with God. He began by telling them about their being chosen by God and kept in Him through faith in Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. He told them of the great unity and togetherness that we as Christians are to have in being united in Christ. He’s talked about how the truths that all Christians are made to understand are some of the greatest treasures that we could ever hope to have. Paul has talked about how God not only calls us to a new way of life, but He actually delivers us to that new way. God not only tells us that we ought to be better, but He shows us exactly how we are to be better. God works in our hearts and causes us to want to shed the old self and put on this new life that is found in Jesus. If you recall, I summed up the last few Sundays last week by saying that what we really need in order to grow closer to God is to just submit and understand that it is God and God alone who is rightly in control of our lives. Well, lest someone get the idea that what I’m calling for (or more importantly what Paul is calling for) is some “Jesus take the wheel” type of approach to life, where all we have to do is just sit back and wait for Jesus to take care of everything, our text for today tells us otherwise. Our text for today is the words of preparation that we need to hear and take to heart if we are going to lives as Christians in this fallen world.
Paul doesn’t want either the original audience or futures audiences (us) to read the first 5½ chapters of this letter and think that everything about the Christian faith is easy. He doesn’t want us to get the impression that once we have Jesus in our lives, once we take off the old self and put on the new, once we submit fully to Christ, that things are going to be easy. Paul doesn’t want us to mistakenly think that because we have done exactly what he has called us to do that our days will be filled with nothing but sunny skies and calm weather. Paul knows that it’s going to be hard, and he’s trying to prepare us as best he can for that reality. He tells us to “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” You don’t need armor for just walking around during times of peace. You only need armor when you are in the midst of a battle, and Paul is telling us to be sure and have the full armor of God on at all times.
Now, we’ll look at the armor itself in just a moment, but I want to take a minute and talk about the most important thing in any battle: the enemy. Verse 12 says, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Now, don’t be confused and think that Paul is saying that we are at war with governments here. What Paul is doing is he’s building an escalating list of enemies. He’s starting with things of the lowest magnitude (our own flesh and earthly forces) and going all the way up to spiritual forces of evil. Are we going to struggle with our own flesh, corrupt rulers, and unjust authorities? Absolutely; but the struggle against them is nothing but an offshoot of the real struggle that we have against our primary enemy of Satan. Yes, we struggle with sin, but sin is ultimately just a tool used by Satan to find us at our weakest moments or in our most vulnerable places so that he may work at driving us farther away from God. So, we’re not fighting against some unknown enemy, but an enemy that is quite well known. Sure, we may be able to physically see evil sometimes, but not always. We need not mistake unseen for unknown.
The question then becomes, “how do we go about fighting this unseen enemy?” The answer is that we fight him using the armor of God. “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.” There are two things I want to point out very quickly before looking individually at the pieces of God’s armor. The first is that we are to put on the WHOLE armor of God. We can’t just place importance upon one area of our faith, but have to be concerned with the entirety of it. This point will become clearer after we look at the pieces of God’s armor. The second thing that I want to point out is that even though we are going out into war, the majority of this armor is defensive. In fact, 5 of the 6 pieces of the armor of God are more defensive than offensive. Plus, just look at some of the reasons that we just saw for putting on this whole armor: to withstand, to stand firm. These are more indicative of standing one’s ground than moving forward.
Now, as quickly as I can, I want to cover the pieces of the armor of God. And I want you to notice that each of the pieces described here by Paul correlates to a piece of armor worn by a typical Roman soldier of the day. First, we have the belt of truth. A soldier’s belt would have supported and protected his lower abdomen, gathered his tunic together, and held his sword, giving him confidence. We could draw a connecting line to the confidence that comes from having a certainty about the truthfulness of God’s Word. Next, there is the breastplate of righteousness, which allows us to be able to withstand accusations of the devil and gives us a certain level of protection against Satan. A righteous life will go a long way to protecting our hearts from being pierced by Satan. We’re then told of shoes for the readiness of the gospel. A Roman soldier’s sandals gave him stability and protection during battle. The shoes in God’s armor protect and prepare us for the battle that is at hand. Then there’s the shield of faith, protection from the darts of Satan. The shield of a Roman was quite sturdy and made to cover his entire body during an onslaught of arrows. Our faith in Christ is what covers us completely and protects us from falling victim to a fiery arrow from Satan. The fifth piece of the armor of God is the helmet of salvation. For Paul, salvation is a present experience as well as a future hope. The believer’s final ground of confidence is the faithfulness of God to complete the salvation He has already begun. Finally, we come to the only purely offensive weapon in the armor of God, “the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.” We see Jesus use God’s Word as a weapon at various points in his earthly ministry. We see Paul do the same during his missionary travels as well. You see, it takes the Word of God for a heart to truly be changed. It takes the seed being planted by the Word. The only hope that we have of combating the forces of evil in this world is to rightly wield the sword of the armor of God, the sword of the Spirit, His Word.
It’s pretty easy to understand that if a soldier went out into battle without having all of his pieces of armor that he would be quite vulnerable. Neglecting any area of protection for the body would leave him open to an increased chance of being injured from an attack leveled by the enemy. For us to neglect any one area of the armor of God would leave us increasingly vulnerable to an onslaught of sin from the evil one. So, we can’t place importance upon one piece of armor over any other. However, I ran across this quote this week that I have read before, but in preparation for this sermon I found it quite meaningful. Of God’s Word, Dr. R.C. Sproul says, “I think the greatest weakness in the church today is that almost no one believes that God invests His power in the Bible.” Now, there’s more to Dr. Sproul’s quote, but this part speaks to just how neglected the Word of God is in our modern Christian worldview. Can you imagine a soldier going out into the midst of a battle without a sword? Even if he has all the other pieces of armor, the best he can hope for is merely survival without making really any impact. When we go out into the world without the Word of God, then the best that we can hope for is survival without any impact for the sake of the gospel. Does that sound like what we’re called to do? Are we merely called to survive the onslaught of attacks, or are we called to go out and have an impact upon the world?
I think that all we have to do is look at Paul’s further instructions to see that our calling is much more than mere survival. He gives instructions to pray at all times, the keep alert, to persevere, and to proclaim “the mystery of the gospel.” Our goal is to weather the attacks that are going to come our way, but to also seek to push forward. I know that it’s a shame when we compare modern-day athletics to warfare, but there are some good analogies that can be found there. Think if you will about the offensive line in football. The number one job of an offensive line is to protect, they are to prevent an opposing team from entering your backfield so that you can attack them offensively. When an o-line does their job (providing proper defense), then it allows for those offensive “weapons” to progress and move the ball down the field. So, we see from this that there is a certain amount of defense that goes into an offensive strategy. For us, in our Christian faiths and our daily living, we are adorned with the armor of God to protect us so that we may go on the offensive with the Word of God; so that we may take the Gospel outward and into the world and fulfill the Great Commission.
So, why is Paul using this analogy of armor in his epistle about the Church? Well, where do you think that we are fitted with this armor? Where do you think it is that we are trained in how to use this armor to its utmost effectiveness? You could give me the latest in combat gear, but unless someone trains me on how to use it, then it’s pretty much just a lot of bulky clothing that might protect me from some attacks, but not all that it was designed to do. If we look back at what I said is the central verse of this epistle, Ephesians 4:12, we find these words, “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up the body of Christ.” That’s why we exist as a church, to equip the saints for the work of ministry. And the way that we equip them is by adorning them with the armor of God and training them to rightly use this armor.
We serve no greater purpose as a church than to prepare Christians for what awaits them in this world. We serve no greater purpose than to equip Christians for spiritual warfare. We serve no greater purpose than to teach and instruct and train each and every person who walks through those doors about how to anchor themselves to Christ as a means of overcoming the evil that exists in this world. It’s not just enough to make sure that we know how to use the armor of God, but to make sure that everyone is rightly equipped and adorned with this armor. This world is tough and seems to be getting tougher each and every day. The only hope we have of remaining in Christ, of keeping off the old clothes and adorned with the new armor of God, is to rightly prepare for what’s at hand. Let this day be the day that you pledge either for the first time or pledge anew that you will rightly wield the armor of God and seek for all others to be adorned in it as well; that we may go out into this world and not only weather the storms, but fight for the kingdom of God.
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