Spiritual Armour

 Eph 6:10-17

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

We as Christians understand that there is a battle in the realm of the spirit which rages on today. Physical battles usually exist for property, land, or some other earthly possession. Spiritual battles occur because satan and his minions are after the souls of men, to keep them from the Truth, and on the slippery slope to hell, and the Spirit is providing salvation opportunities through the words and works of believers.

The souls of the lost are hanging in the balance, between the wooing of the Spirit to salvation in Christ, and the temptation of the Enemy to indulge in behaviors that will destroy them and keep them separated from the God who dearly loves them. They do not have the necessary tools to fend off temptations or ANY kind of spiritual attack. They do not because the only thing that

will

protect them is only given when they receive salvation through Christ. Once salvation has been received, men and women are then issued the armor of God that is critical in protecting them from the attack of the Enemy as they advance in the Name of their King to spread His Good News.They need the armor as they spread the Gospel, because that is what the Enemy attacks…any opportunity to share the Gospel. If the Christian does not have the armor in place, the Enemy will attack and weaken them spiritually and thereby destroy the witness of their personal lives. Weak armor means spiritual and moral weakness which equals poor testimony which means no souls saved.

EXAMPLE: TEMPTATION TO USE DRUGS….morally weak…witness to drug dealer….no conversion.

When it is all boiled down, Christianity is not a set of beliefs held, it is a lifethat is lived. It’s not merely what you believe in your mind, it is who you are on the inside. It is about a life that has been radically transformed. It is about your character, your spiritual fruit and degree of Christ-likeness that matters the most. If you are not maturing spiritually, producing the fruit of the Spirit, becoming more and more like Christ, it is evidenced by spiritual defeat which means lack of, or weakened armor.

The armor that God gives is given to protect from the attacks of the Enemy. Our text says that it will enable us to stand firm against the strategy of satan, a very real and very personal foe. In a sense the armor will assist us in “holding the fort” so to speak. When you “hold the fort” you are on the defense. There is a violently raging battle on the outside, but because of the strength of the defense, the point that the battle is at has been put on pause; there is no progress made by the aggressor.

In verse 13 it says to “

 

 

 

 

take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand

.” God has issued us the armor– we must put it on. We must put it on so that we will be able to resist in the evil day. Resisting here denotes a stand taken against great opposition, the great opposition of the evil day.Paul’s sense here is the evil of the last days that Christ foretold. The day of great persecution, worldwide natural disasters, the floodgates of evil giving way to every wicked thing, and great deception sweeping the earth. That is the evil day Paul is talking about, the day when evil is turned up to full blast, the day that the pure-hearted Christian Army will have its greatest battle against everything ungodly, immoral, and unholy.

But nevertheless, the successful spiritual warrior must have his armor in place for the lesser evil days. Every day is evil, so long as the Father’s patience lasts. He is patient in order to give Mankind a profuse amount of time to come to repentance and salvation through Christ. Until the Father issues the decree for His Son to return, and all the heavens and the earth have been burnt to a crisp, and sin no longer exists, until then, every day is evil. God has given us divine armor to shield and protect us from the evil of sin, and the destruction of the Enemy.

Again, “

 

 

 

 

take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand .” Paul realizes that there will be casualties of war. There will be those who have received salvation, fought valiantly in the spiritual war against the kingdom of darkness, and yet be destroyed. Paul writes in 1 Cor. 9:26-27, “Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified

.”Paul says that he disciplines himself spiritually because he does not want to be disqualified from receiving his eternal reward. Even though he has preached to countless multitudes, seen miraculous signs and wonders, eloquently wrote foundational theological works, he could still be denied access to heaven for the way he lived his life. If his armor wasn’t on, then he would succumb to temptation, and a lifestyle of unconfessed sin would separate him from his Saviour forever.

That is why the armor is so important, it gives us spiritual strength and protection in the heat of battle, and when the battle is over and we are one of the ones left standing, we will receive our eternal reward. But with all this talk of the importance of the armor, of what exactly does the armor consist?

 

 

 

 

We, as Christians, are admonished to stand firm, having girded ourselves with truth. In other words, having fastened around us the belt of truth. What does a belt do? It holds up our pants! It keeps everything together. When we have been surrounded with the Truth, we will be kept together. We will not be caught unaware.

Jesus told His disciples that He would send the Spirit of Truth who would guide them into all Truth. And it was the Spirit of Truth who inspired Paul, Peter, James, John, and Jude to write Scripture. And as long as we are girded with the Truth of Scripture we will not be caught unaware by doctrines of devils.

I understand Paul’s emphasis on desire the greatest of the spiritual gifts, which is prophecy. But I think that in these last days we need to seek the gift of discernment and pray that the Spirit will preserve us in the Truth. Because it is prophesied that great deception will come on the earth in the last days, and that there will be seducing, deceiving spirits, and doctrines of devils. So we, the End Time Army, should seek after the gift of discernment so that we will not be caught off guard, but remain secure in Christ. We need to surround ourselves with the Truth. We need to immerse ourselves in the Word of God, read it, study it, and meditate on it. It is crucial in protecting ourselves from deception and the lies of the Enemy. Truth is part of our spiritual armor.

Next, we find that we should have the breastplate of righteousness in place. What does a breastplate protect? It protects the heart. In the last sermon I preached, “The Kind of Person God Blesses” Proverbs 19:23 was quoted as saying that “

 

 

 

the fear of the LORD leads to life, so that one may sleep satisfied, untouched by evil

.” The one who fears the Lord and obeys His commands, and does what is good, or in other words a person who has their breastplate of righteousness on, will be able to lay his head on his pillow in peace at night because he will not have to fear what this one over here will do to him because he cheated him, or what this one over there will do because he slept with his wife. His heart is protected from evil because he is a person who does the right thing.He is not going to suffer the turmoil of receiving the punishment for his sins in this life, because when tempted to sin, the breastplate deflects the Enemy’s blows, and thereby protects his heart. If he doesn’t have the breastplate on, or it is weak, then when the Enemy attacks will pierce him in his heart. And what is the heart really?

In the spiritual sense, since we are talking about spiritual warfare, it is the mind, will, and emotions of who we are…it’s the inner core, it’s what makes us us. If we are pierced in our hearts due to weak armor we will experience bitterness, anger, fear, etc. If we are doing the right thing, then we will be safe and secure; our heart will be protected. It will be protected from the turmoil and pain that follows a life full of sin.

Thirdly, a good soldier will have on what is phrased as “the preparation of the Gospel of Peace”. Jesus said that peacemakers will be called the sons of God. Not that we should get into everyone’s business, but when we are third party to a situation, we should try, by the Spirit’s help and the wisdom of God, to establish peace in broken relationships, lives, and hearts. As we pass through the lives of those around us, we should not leave bitterness, brokenness, nor strife in our wake, but rather healing, wholeness—a sense of peace. Paul also taught that we should live in peace with all men, as much as we could. Everywhere we go, people should sense the peace that we have in our hearts as believers, as sons and daughters of God. It should wet their appetite to investigate why we have the peace in our hearts that we have. It should give way to an opportunity to share the Gospel of Peace.

Everywhere we go we should be prepared to share the Gospel of Peace. If the Spirit nudges us, we should, as a natural reflex, be ready to give an account for the hope that lies within us. The verse tells us to have our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. Peace protects us from fear, anxiety, and upset. The Gospel of Peace protects us from hell. When we are prepared to share the Gospel of Peace, it then becomes an offensive weapon, and when received by others, they too receive the same peace that we have.

Another critical part of our defense is the shield of faith. This part of armor is unique in that Paul describes what its function is. He says that the shield will extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one. When we have faith, we are in essence abandoning ourselves wholeheartedly to God in that we believe that He will bring to pass what He has promised. Faith is knowing that God will come through for us. So, when the Enemy shoots the fiery darts of his lies at us, telling us that God has forgotten us, and that we are doomed to fail, that we are no good, it will just bounce off of the faith that we have in God.

Faith reminds us that Christ will never leave us nor forsake us, that He has a divine plan of destiny for our lives, that we can do all things through Christ, and that He loved us so much to sacrifice Himself on the Cross of Calvary. Faith reminds us that God is not a man that He should lie, that He is all-powerful and that there is nothing that He cannot do or is not capable of. Faith reminds us that all things are possible as long as we believe, and that no weapon formed against us shall prosper.

The final piece of armor is the helmet of salvation. Its importance lies in the fact that when all hell has broken loose against us, we need the assurance that our souls are hid in the cleft of the rock, that we are eternally secure because we have placed our faith in the Savior. We need the guarantee that no matter how hot the battle is, that no matter if we rise or fall, regardless if we hit or miss our target all the time, that as long as we are trusting Christ for salvation, in the end we will indeed win the war.

Isn’t the struggle of the new believer often about his salvation? Satan will say, “Oh, you’re not saved, you didn’t really mean that prayer, that uneasy feeling you had on Sunday morning wasn’t conviction, it was just your empty stomach b/c the preacher went past your lunch time”. How often they need the assurance of Romans 8:37-39 that says, “

 

 

 

 

in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord

.” They need the assurance of Proverbs 24:16 that the righteous man falls down seven times, and rises again…that its not important how many times you fall, but that you get up one more time in faith, believing God not to fall again!Paul lists five pieces of armor, and gives us only one weapon with which to both defend ourselves and inflict damage upon the Enemy. He says that we have been given the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. We find Christ’s use of the Scriptures during His temptation as the greatest example of swordplay.

 

 

 

 

Matt 4:1-11 “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, “MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’” Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU’; and ‘ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.’” Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, “YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.’”

Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, “YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.’” Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him.”

Every time Satan attacked Christ, Jesus deflected it with an “It is written”. And that is what we need to do. Every time satan comes against us, we need to say, 

“It is written…” But in order to do that we must know the Word! Memorizing Scripture is not just a cute thing little kids do for Sunday school. It is something that must be done by every soldier of Christ. If you are prone to temptations or attacks in certain areas, search the Scriptures to find out passages that deal with those topics and then commit them to memory. So when the attack comes, you can say, “It is written…”The battle that we are in is serious, its not child’s play. Scripture says that satan prowls about like a roaring lion seeking whom he can devour. We must have our armor on and at its maximum strength. We don’t need any more casualties of war.

The most important thing in this war is that without Christ, the Captain of the Hosts of the Lord’s Army, you are doomed to spiritual defeat and an eternal fiery hell. Without Christ you do not have a chance at defending yourself. I invite you to come to these altars tonight to make Christ your Savior.

For those who already know Christ, are you under attack? Does it seem like all hell as been issued orders to snuff you out? How’s your armor tonight? Do you have your belt on, and on tight? What about your breastplate? Are you prepared with the Gospel of Peace? Is your faith strong enough to shield you? How’s your helmet of salvation? Is your sword as sharp as it should be?

 

 

 

 

If your armor isn’t to maximum strength, or perhaps you’ve neglected to put it on, I invite you tonight to the altars to ask the Lord to help you put it on, to give you strength in the areas that you weak.