Lets Get Ready to Rumble
Text: Ephesians 6:10-18
By: Ken McKinley
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How many of your remember what happened on September 11th 2001? Let me re-phrase that. How many of you remember how you felt when you witnessed the events of September 11th 2001? If you’re anything like me then you probably felt shock, anger, confusion, and you were barraged with a whole slew of other emotions. I’ve thought about this for some time now, it’s now 2008. Seven years have nearly passed us by since that day, and I’ve done a lot of thinking, wondering why I felt the emotions I felt, and I think the reason for the emotions I felt that day were not due to surprise that the United States was attacked. They were not due to the methods used to carry out the attack. No, I was shocked, stunned, because in my 35 years on this earth I have never seen evil so boldly show itself. I have never seen evil so brazenly declare that it is still here and that it’s still operating on this earth. I am too young to have seen the Holocaust of WWII, and I barely remember Vietnam. I’ve seen my share of evil deeds done and their consequinces, but I’ve never seen it on such a scale as I saw it on September 11th 2001. And I remember the President making his declaration of war against terror, and at that time he didn’t mince words. He called it an evil act perpetrated by evil men. Of course soon after-words the rhetoric changed. It wasn’t evil men who did it, it was misguided fanatics, or hijackers of the so called “religion of peace.” And this came about because of our relativistic culture where tolerance is the supreme virtue. We are supposed to be tolerant of every thought, belief, and behavior out there. We now live in a culture that has dismissed the idea of Satan and sin and have adopted a view which sees humanity in purely materialistic terms, and because of these changes that have taken place in our culture over the past few decades our text this morning might seem irrelevant to many.
Today, there are more and more people who do not see humanity as in a spiritual battle between sin and righteousness, between Satan and Christ. Instead they see us as basically good people who just need direction. And so reform is sought through legislation and education.
Laws seek to control the external behaviors, to stop evil with the threat of punishment, but laws cannot change the human heart. Education targets the mind, where laws and legislation cannot touch, but since our mind is twisted by sin, education seems to only create a more clever form of wickedness. Now I happen to believe that we are in a time when people are starting to realize that laws and education and no amount of money will get rid of the evil that is in this world. But the problem is that a lot of churches and a lot of the people in churches bought into the idea, and today, since we’ve exchanged the notion of sin for science, we’ve lost the ability to deal with evil. The evil in this world that has been here since Adam’s fall is still here, but we got rid of the idea of sin and ourselves as sinners. And so when evil and sin show themselves we seem to have no way of dealing with it.
How many of you have seen the movie The Silence of the Lambs? If you think it’s a sin to watch that kind of thing you don’t have to raise your hand, but I will confess that I have seen it. There is a part in that movie where the psychopath Hannibal Lector (Played by Anthony Hopkins) is speaking with Clarisse Starling (Played by Jodie Foster) who is an FBI agent, trying to get Lector to help her solve a case. She listens to his horror stories about his life and then asks him, “What made you like this? What happened to you?” That is a modern question that assumes we are the sole products of our environment and upbringing. She’s asking, “What sociological, biological events made you like this?” He looks at her and says, “Nothing has happened to me, Clarisse. I happened. Nothing has happened to me, you can’t reduce me to a set of influences. You have given up good and evil for behaviorism, officer Starling. You’ve got everybody in moral dignity pants. Nothing is never anybody’s fault. Look at me, officer Starling, can you stand to say I’m evil?” And to many people, that was why the movie was so frightening. They could not answer the monsters question, they were unable to cope with evil because it was an outdated, unfathomable notion to them.
But God’s word can answer the question, God’s word accounts for evil, the evil of men like Hannibal Lector, the evil we saw on September 11th, the evil of everyday events that take place in our country and in our world. Ephesians 6 opens the door into a world which for too many of us has been shut by a culture that refuses to account for Satan and sin.
But here’s the amazing thing. Paul not only tells us that we are in a battle with these supernatural forces, he tells us how to win it. He says that we are to be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. He tells us to put on the full armor of God so that we can stand against the devils Schemes; because we are not fighting against flesh and blood, but against Satan and his demonic host.
You see we are in a war. It’s not a war on terror. Terror is a tactic, not an opponent. It’s really not even a war against evil. Evil is the result of the tactics our enemies use. We are in a war against principalities, powers, the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. In other words we are in a war against Satan, his demons, and against sin.
Paul was writing this from inside a prison, he was being watched around the clock by guards. He could’ve easily imagined that his problem was that guard who was keeping an eye on him, or maybe the Roman Empire, or the Pharisees in Jerusalem, but he realized that the evil manner in which people act is only the result of a greater evil that influences minds and behaviors. He realized that the behavior of men went beyond biological, sociological or psychological sources. Modern philosophers believe that if we could just fix the family, society, neurology we can create a man made utopia. But God’s word tells us that the evil in our world goes beyond those things.
Now the NIV says for our struggle is not against flesh and blood… but it misses the Greek metaphor that is used here. The better translation is wrestle. In other words it’s up close and personal. Paul had in mind the arena of wrestling. In other words evil is upon you, looking to do you harm. When you wake up to evils hand around your throat, you are wrestling, when you feel that temptation to sin, evil is maneuvering to try and get a hold, when you feel that you are about to succumb to temptation evil is trying to pin you. Our battle is up close and personal. It’s not a shootout, or a tug of war, or a game of football. It is hand to hand combat in the spiritual realm.
You see; the devil never comes to you whispering, “Hey lets commit a really terrible sin today.” He’s a complex and crafty opponent. If he can’t get you into a head lock, he’ll try for an arm bar, and if he can’t do that, he’ll try for a takedown.
So how do we fight him? How do we combat the enemy of our souls? Well Paul tells us first to be strong in the Lord. This tells us that the power we use to fight our enemies lies outside of ourselves. Paul doesn’t say put on YOUR spiritual armor. He says, “Put on the armor OF GOD.” Every piece is something that God has given to us. Jesus Christ is the way the truth and the life and it is the truth that holds our sword in place and girds us up. We have become the righteousness of God in Christ, and it is this righteousness that guards our heart, not our own righteousness which is as filthy rags, but the righteousness of Jesus Christ Himself, for it is only in Him that we are seen blameless and forgiven. The gospel of peace is the good news of reconciliation. The news that even while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. And we should not be ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation. If you think about it, the gospel itself is a gift from God given to us in grace and mercy. God could’ve said, “You know what, figure it out on your own.” He didn’t have to write us a book. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world. It’s our shield. It stops all the fiery darts that are thrown at us. We are saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves… it is a gift from God. For God has given to every man the measure of faith. Faith is our shield. When Satan attacks you and your world is upside down, and the storms of life seem ready to destroy you, faith lets you stand up and say, “God I may not understand why this is happening, I may not know where this is leading, but I trust you regardless.” Faith lets you stand up with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and say, “O’ Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O’ king. But if not, let it be known to you, O’ king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.” Faith lets you stand up with Job and say, “Even though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” The helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit round out our armor. Many of the attacks directed against us come at our mind, “Did God really say?” But we must know who we are and Whose we are. We must know that our old self was crucified with Him that the body of sin might be done away with so that we should no longer be slaves of sin, we must reckon ourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And when we are attacked God doesn’t just expect us to take up a defensive position, but we are to counter attack with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. “IT IS WRITTEN!”
Why would God save you? – It is written: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Your faith is weak. – It is written: “Jesus is the author and finisher of my faith.”
You’ll never make it through this situation. – It is written: “All things work together for good to those who love the Lord and are the called according to His purpose.”
You’re too big of a sinner – It is written: “That I have become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.”
You’ve really messed up now. – It is written: “That if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
IT IS WRITTEN: “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
ALTER CALL
