Putting on the Armour of God. (Ephesians 6: 10-20)

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Episode Notes: Putting on the Armour of God. (Ephesians 6: 10-20)

I think there are several ways to describe the Christian life. Even the bible describes it in different ways. 

If you just started reading the Bible in Genesis and continued through the Old Testament, you might conclude that what God really just wants is for us to obey him. Keep reading; you'll discover that, in the New Testament, in places like John, it refers to the spiritual life as living in Christ. 

Get to Luke's, and it seems to emphasize being filled with the Holy Spirit and thereby living the Spirit-filled life. However, here in the book of Ephesians, Paul uses the metaphor to describe the spiritual life as a walk, and he uses that image over and over again. 

If spiritual life is described as a walk in which we obey God's revealed word, living in Christ and walking in the power of the Holy Spirit, what should that walk look like? 

We are told there is not just difficult terrain to navigate, but there are dangers in the spiritual life. The Bible tells us there are wild beasts along the way waiting to attack and destroy. In addition, the New Testament warns us that we have an adversary who stalks the believer’s life journey like a hungry lion seeking to devour us. 

The question we are going to consider in this passage is: how do we protect ourselves along the journey that is the spiritual life? If there's a lion about to pounce on us, is there any kind of defence system that we have? 

Well, I believe if we study this passage closely, we will find the answer is an emphatic yes.  Paul describes the defence system for us in vivid detail in Ephesians chapter 6, beginning in verse 10. 

Let’s hear what it has to say….

Transcript

Putting on the armour of God. (Ephesians 6: 10-20)

 Transcript:

I think there are a number of ways to describe the Christian life. Even the bible describes it in different ways. 

If you just started reading the Bible in Genesis and continued through the Old Testament, you might conclude that what God really just wants is for us to obey him. Keep reading; you'll discover that, in the New Testament, in places like John, it refers to the spiritual life as living in Christ. 

Get to Luke's, and it seems to emphasize being filled with the Holy Spirit and thereby living the Spirit-filled life. However, here in the book of Ephesians, Paul uses the metaphor to describe the spiritual life as a walk, and he uses that image over and over again. 

If spiritual life is described as a walk in which we obey God's revealed word, living in Christ and walking in the power of the Holy Spirit, what should that walk look like? 

Is it a stroll down a pleasant path in a stately home or a Botanical Garden with beautiful flowers and singing birds?

My immediate response to that idea would be, wake up and smell the coffee. Life is much more difficult than that, and at times it can be more like climbing a mountain with boulders along the way. Sometimes it even feels like we are trying to navigate difficult terrain in the dark. 

However, even that is not the complete picture of how difficult the Christian walk can be. We are told there is not just difficult terrain to navigate, but there are dangers in the spiritual life. The Bible tells us there are wild beasts along the way waiting to attack and destroy. In addition, the New Testament warns us that we have an adversary who stalks the believer’s life journey like a hungry lion seeking to devour us. 

The question we are going to consider in this passage is: how do we protect ourselves along the journey that is the spiritual life? If there's a lion about to pounce on us, is there any kind of defence system that we have? 

Well, I believe if we study this passage closely, we will find the answer is an emphatic yes.  Paul describes the defence system for us in vivid detail in Ephesians chapter 6, beginning in verse 10. 

Let’s hear what it has to say….

10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 11 Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 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. 14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints— 19 and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

(Eph 6:10-20)

As I read this passage, I notice there are three basic instructions given to us. Guidelines that, if we take them on board and apply them, will enable us to stand against the devil. 

The first is found in the opening, verse 10, when he tells us to be “strong in the Lord in the power of His might”. (Eph 6: 10b) 

In the original Greek word used for strong is the word from which we get the word “dynamite”, so the idea behind this word is simply the ability to perform what God requires with dynamism. 

Being strong in the Lord, not being strong in our own strength, but in his strength. One of the most important things I could say to people who are earnest about living a Christian life is to tell them very clearly how they should do this.

Believers often understand that they should be strong in their faith. But some don’t understand where the source of that strength comes from. They may decide that being strong in their Christian life is about being obedient to a bunch of commands. But I would like to submit that “being strong” requires us to be strong in the grace of the Lord. 

This means coming boldly to him and saying Lord I need your help right now.  When you get in a real hard place, being strong in the Lord is about learning to turn to him for help and strength so that it becomes second nature every day, all day, in good times and bad.

If you are in a foxhole being shot at, it probably does take much more motivation to be encouraged to pray and trust in the Lord. But we should be doing this all of the time.

One Victorian Bible commentator I read said,

“Like a branch separated from the vine or as a limb severed from the body so is the Christian separated from Christ.  Therefore, anyone who rushes into the conflict without thinking of Christ, without putting his trust in him and without continually looking to him for strength and regarding him as the source of all life and vigour, knows not what he is doing. He has not the strength even to reach the field of battle, and without him the whole conflict is a sham”.

There is no other way to say it: if you're trying to live the Christian life without turning to Christ for help, you're deluded, and your faith is not the real thing. Christians love to turn to the Lord for power, and that’s good, but the first command in this passage is that you be strong in the Lord in his grace as well as his power. The second instruction is in the next verse, 

“Therefore, put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil”.

(Eph 6: 11)

I mentioned in the opening chapter that Paul was in jail when he wrote this book; he was under house arrest. Jump ahead and look at verse 20, and you will notice he says, “I'm an ambassador for Christ in chains”.  Being under house arrest, meant he was chained to a Roman guard day in, day out, and they changed the guard, I believe, every four hours. 

Some say he may well have looked at one of his guards and saw his armour was inspired to write this passage. He then takes that soldier with all that armour, and he gives each piece of armour a spiritual designation as if to say that armour is symbolic of the spiritual protection that every believer ought to have.

He does this in order to tell us that this will help us “be able to stand against the wiles of the devil”.(Eph 6: 11b) The Greek word “wiles” means the deceptions and deceits. 

So, what are the deceptions of the devil? In Second Corinthians Chapter 11: 4, Paul talks about “Those who come and preach another Jesus”, and those who have “receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel”.

This tells us that Satan can deceive believers concerning all things, religious. Paul talks about something he calls false Apostles who may deceive you concerning who Jesus is, or they may deceive you concerning the Holy Spirit.  Christians get deceived all the time about what the gospel means. People say everything about it except what the Bible says about it. 

The Bible is very clear; it says it repeatedly. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes”. That believe word appears at least 150 times in the New Testament.  It says Salvation is by faith, but you listen to some church ministers, they often say all kinds of wrong-headed things about the gospel. 

The most common one is so close to the real gospel truth that people hardly even notice the difference. They say you have got to stop sinning in order to be saved. That’s like saying I'm going to take my car to the car wash, but before I do, I'm going to wash it

The whole point of coming to Christ is that he cleanses you of sin and gives you the power to deal with it and live a life in victory over your desire to keep on sinning. You are first saved, then afterwards God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, enables you to live a life wherein you are not controlled by your urges to sin. sanctification that process is called.

So, to say that you have to turn from sin to be saved is nothing more than a deception of Satan. The name of that false doctrine is Salvation by works.  The only thing you need to do to be saved is to make Jesus the Lord of your life.  Its job done, and that’s not me saying this; this is what the bible says is all you need to do. 

But Satan deceives people by saying the Bible says that in order to be saved, you need to stop sinning.

The purpose of this teaching in this closing passage of Ephesians is given in order to help protect Christians from falling into to sin again once they have made that commitment to try and follow God’s plan for their lives.

This is a self-defence system against Satan for believers, and it’s called putting on the whole armour of God, and by doing that, we can stand against the schemes of the devil.

Paul unpacks this idea further when he says.

“We do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against rulers, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places”.

At no time is the word attack the devil used; instead, he chooses to use the word “stand”  five times. The picture is one of standing before Satan in defence, not attack, but just standing our ground.

I don’t believe we are meant to act as spiritual stormtroopers kicking down the enemy's doors and kicking out the demons. I think there is a real danger of becoming prideful if we approach things that way.

Putting on the whole armour of God is our defence system; it's our armour against all the evil forces mentioned here, even against principalities, against powers, against rulers, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 

The devil is always on the job; we are constantly bombarded by Satanic ideas, and none of us are exempt.

Another false doctrine many adopt is a religious belief system that denies the resurrection of Christ. 

People can adopt a doctrine initiated by Satan and influenced by him every step of the way along that religious journey. Satan is alive and well on planet earth, and in this day and age, he is particularly alive in the realm of ideas and doctrine. 

We are constantly bombarded with this teaching all the time. Paul says that to defend yourself against such spiritual deceptions, we need to put on the whole armour of God. 

Paul wants to warn us that our minds are being attacked by satanic ideas, and he wants us to be equipped to stand up to them.  To “Stand, having girded our waist with the belt of truth” (Eph 6: 14) 

Paul says the belt represents the truth, and if we want to withstand Satan, the first thing we have got to have is the truth. 

We need to understand truth because truth is the polar opposite of Satan’s lies and will protect us against deception. The indispensable qualification for a Christian soldier to enter a spiritual conflict is truth. 

To be ignorant or doubting would be to enter a battle blind, already injured, and without strength. If we don’t have truth, we don’t doesn't have on the whole armour of God. Truth in the form of divine knowledge can give strength and confidence even in the everyday conflict of the Christian life.

My experience in talking to non-Christians and, sadly, also to some Christians is that they really don't want to know the truth. They want to have their opinion validated, and that is never more evident to me than in a pastoral situation. 

“Having put on the breastplate, of righteousness”.

(Eph 6: 14)

The breastplate of righteousness is an interesting piece of armour.  It went from the shoulders to the thighs, covering both the back and the front of the soldier. This was an effective piece of equipment in protecting a soldier. 

The closest thing we have to this today is a bulletproof vest. 

How would you like to be bulletproof against the wiles of the devil? 

Paul looks at the soldiers guarding him, and he sees that breastplate; he says that is what righteousness is like. If you start with truth, and as a result of knowing the truth, you live a right and just life, a righteous life. 

In the book of Ephesians. He spends a lot of time talking about simply obeying what God says to live a righteous life. The point Paul is making now is that living that kind of righteous life will also protect you from the wiles of the devil. 

It is said that Napoleon once engaged a workman to make him a bulletproof jacket. The workmen took a lot of pain to construct it and finally completed it and arranged for a fitting. The craftsman put on the jacket himself to show the emperor what a good fit it was and how it would protect all the vital and vulnerable parts of his body. After careful examination of the armour, Napoleon stepped back a few feet, drew his pistol, and pointed it right at the metal worker standing in the armour. The man immediately cried out, “Don't try it on me”. To which Napoleon said, “But you told me it was perfectly safe”, and with that he fired his pistol. Fortunately, the Armour was bulletproof, as the workmen claimed, and he wasn’t harmed. 

That's what Paul is saying here. Righteousness will work practically for you. If you put on righteousness, then you will be able to stay protected and safe from the wiles of the Devil. If you've got truth. In your head. And righteousness in your life, that is what protects you against Satan. It is your bulletproof defence system. It is your vaccination against the works of the devil and the ways he will try to infect you. 

But there is more, look at verse 15.

“Having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace”.

(Eph 6: 15)

In other words, the foundation of your life should be the good news of the gospel. Paul said in Romans chapter 5 verse one, “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God”.  So that is the foundation of my life. I stand before the Lord knowing that because of Jesus, I have peace with the Lord.

Then he says,  

“Above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one”.

(Eph 6: 16)

The shield that I think is one of the most fascinating pieces of armour in this whole passage. The Roman soldier had a shield that consisted of two layers of wood, 2 1/2 feet wide and four feet high. They were glued together and covered with linen and leather. It was then bordered with iron around the edge and iron studs affixed to it.

A soldier could crouch behind it and be completely covered, which was necessary when flying flaming arrows, spears, and darts were coming at him. You could crouch down behind it, and you were completely covered. When you have truth and righteousness, you have peace and security. Because no matter what Satan hurls at you, you are protected.

Three commands are given in this passage; the first was to “be strong in the Lord”.  The second was to “put on the whole Armour of God”, which is then unpacked for us as to what that means practically. The third command is “to stand”, and this instruction he illustrates with what he calls “the helmet of Salvation”.  The Roman helmet was made of bronze, and it was quite heavy. They usually only put it on when they were in the midst of battle, as it was so heavy.

But in this instance, he is talking about more than spiritual salvation from sin; he is also talking about being delivered from the effects of the devil in your life…. So, the helmet is a helmet of deliverance. 

This is important: you have truth, personal righteousness, peace, and faith, and when you have all that in place, you can welcome complete deliverance from Satan.

Furthermore, when you have all these things in place, you can then weld; 

“The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”.

The fact that the sword of the Spirit is the word of God means that the ultimate truth is found in the scripture.  Now you take the sword of the Spirit and the word (logos), which in this case means the spoken word, and you use it to deflect and defeat the attack of the enemy.  

He seems to me to be saying that as you speak the word of God, it is like having a sword in your hand that can fall and cut, dividing truth from error. That is more powerful than anything Satan can say.  

So, pray in the Spirit by praying, claiming the words that the Spirit offered through the word of God, the scripture. 

In other words, the idea is. We should be constantly praying for ourselves and other Christians. That’s why he says, I want you to pray for everybody, but also pray for me.

“That utterance may be given to me, “that I may be able to speak like I just talked about, but I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mysteries bold for which I am an ambassador in chains”.

Interesting. He is in chains. And he doesn't pray that he gets out of jail. Instead, he prays that I may be able to speak to the soldiers he is chained to.

It appears God answered Paul's prayer because in Philippians chapter one, we find out that lots of the people in the Pretorian guard came to Christ. He led a bunch of these soldiers to Christ. He says that's what I want you to pray for, pray that I may have the freedom to speak the gospel. As I ought to speak.

When taking an overview of these 10 verses, the point of this passage is rather simple. It tells us that Christian believers are always in a spiritual battle with a formidable foe. We ought to be strong, and we do this by putting on the whole armour of God. 

If we do that, then we will be able to stand against the wiles of the devil and welcome the deliverance of God through the word and prayer. 

There are a lot of details in this passage, and it's easy to get caught up in those details. It's easy to get caught up in the armour. But we need to get past the armour because the armour is only a symbol of something that is real.

The armour of God represents truth, righteousness, peace, and faith. If you utilize the defensive strategies that God has given to us in the form of spiritual gifts, then we can welcome the deliverance of God in our lives. As we are concentrating on the word of God and prayer, you will be delivered from the attacks of the devil.

The point is. God has provided an adequate defence, and we need to be aware of and take advantage of it. Which means being concerned with truth, righteousness, peace, faith,  

We must live truthfully; we must live righteously.  We must live planted in peace. We must live by faith, and then we can welcome God's deliverance. God's word and God’s provision. 

To stand against Satan, we must do our part. 

We must be strong and put on the whole armour of God. We must take advantage of the armour that he's given us, because only then will we be able to stand. 

Notice that the only thing that is an offensive weapon mentioned in this passage is the sword.  The armour is mainly defensive. We don't have it to attack Satan. We just have to stand and put on the whole Armour of God.  The extent to which we don't put on the whole armour of God is the extent to which we protect ourselves. If you don’t put on the whole armour of God, you leave yourself vulnerable to attack. 

When David fought Goliath. He was up against a man. Who had a complete suit of armour? Goliath had a bronze helmet over his head.  He had on Shin guards and shoulder protectors. But he left one small spot exposed. 

Some bible commentators say he pushed that part of the helmet back to show his disdain for David, and that was his fatal mistake.

So, David, against the huge giant of a man, swung his slingshot and let loose one small smooth stone. And it landed in that one exposed spot.

The point of this passage is that you need to put on the whole armour of God.  The Christian has. Provision. To protect his head. His heart. His legs and his feet, leaving nothing as a target for the enemy.