The Real Battle (Eph 6:10-20)
Steve Simala Grant, November 24/25, 2001
Bridge from Mike’s Testimony into message. (Matt’s sermon also?).
Today brings us to the end of our study of Ephesians, just in time for the season of Advent which begins next Sunday, and which Pastor Sue will be speaking at. It has been quite a journey, for me at least. There have been passages that I have struggled to understand and to know how to apply, and there have been other passages that are so blunt and direct that I’ve wanted to duck! Two themes stand out for me from the past 5 months – first that God is awesome/powerful/exalted/worthy, and second that God has by His grace welcomed us into His family as His own, precious children, and thus we need to live like His children.
The passage we are going to study today incorporates those two themes and presents us with some climactic truths. Many scholars regard 6:10-20 as the climax – the high point – the place which Paul has directed his whole letter towards. Like any good writer, he saves his most pertinent point for the very end.
Read Eph. 6:10-20.
1. The call to be strong (vs. 10)
All through the letter, Paul’s desire has been to see us, his readers, mature in our faith – come to a deeper understanding and experience of God. And he articulates this here for us, in verse 10. He calls us to be strong. But note carefully where our strength is – it is “in the Lord and in his mighty power.” This is a key truth, especially as we launch into the most in-depth passage on spiritual warfare in the Bible. The strength is not in ourselves. On our own we are not strong, we are weak. On our own we will not be able to resist, to overcome, to live in victory. We are called to find our strength only in the Lord, not in ourselves.
How do we do that? This is a difficult concept for us: we value being in control, being able to handle things on our own, we see asking for help as a sign of weakness and we know weakness is scorned, ridiculed, and viewed as worthless. Our strength is in the Lord, not in ourselves. How do we live that? I believe it begins by recognizing the nature of the battle, which is the next main point. (I’ll come back to vs. 11 later on).
2. The real battle (vs. 12)
This is the key verse in the passage, setting the stage for the rest of the discussion. The words are familiar to many of us, yet the truth of them is one we too often forget.
The point is simple: we are in a spiritual battle. Our struggle is a spiritual one. It is not with each other, it is not with other people, our struggle is with the devil and with his forces of evil. (screwtape #7 p. 39?). Paul is going to equip us for this battle in just a moment, but for now I want to pause and explore this concept a little further.
We are predominantly people who believe that which is tangible – which we can see, touch, taste, hear, smell. We rely on our physical senses to prove what is real and what is not. We have a culturally conditioned skepticism towards anything that doesn’t fit into our essentially scientific worldview – we hear of faith healings and scoff, of miracles and doubt, of evil spiritual attacks and dis-believe. We even doubt some of the moments of faith we experience – must have been something I ate, perhaps I am just particularly emotional today, maybe it was just a coincidence.
And yet the very fact that we are here today tells me the opposite – that we are a people of faith. Faith by its very nature is un-provable, un-verifiable by scientific analysis. Now don’t hear me as being anti-science, rather I am merely saying that it is by faith that we come to know about the reality beyond the physical. About the spiritual reality that is all around us and is part of us. Science teaches us about the physical world, faith about the spiritual.
It is here, in the spiritual, that the battle is fought. That is the message of vs. 12. We see evidence of this battle in tangible ways, of course. We see it every time a child dies for lack of food. Every time someone has an idea or a dream get crushed and become depressed. Every time a bomb drops on innocent civilians, killing them. Every time we come to worship and leave without being effected by the Holy Spirit, or every time we start to pray but get quickly distracted by something requiring immediate attention, or every time we find things to complain about rather than things to rejoice in. Yet despite these tangible evidences, it is still difficult for us to live daily in this knowledge that the battle is a spiritual one.
It is not the same in other cultures – there the spiritual battle is far more open and obvious and tangible. But in our culture the battle is not so evident. Yes, there is a growing openness to spiritual things, but no longer any sense that some are evil and out to destroy while only God is good. The Biblical stand that God is good and the devil is evil is no longer an accepted dichotomy in our culture – instead the common understanding is that anything spiritual is essentially neutral, that there is no cosmic battle between spiritual forces, that there is no True God battling a deceptive devil. Now the underlying current is that all roads lead to God, so long as you are genuine. So while we may, when pushed, acknowledge a spiritual dimension in our lives, it is now something completely individually defined – and no one has the right to affix a label such as “right” or “wrong” to this spiritual experience.
The depth of deception is baffling. It is like Big Tobacco which for years denied that smoking was harmful to your health. Now the devil’s big smokescreen is that there is no good and no evil in the spiritual realm, no battle taking place with our eternal destiny at stake.
But make no mistake – Scripture is plain. There is a battle. It is a spiritual battle between us as God’s children and the devil and his lies. At stake is not our eternal state anymore – all of us who have accepted Christ as our Savior and Lord have our salvation sealed in the Holy Spirit – but it is the eternal state of those around us as well as the quality of our lives. The devil knows that he can’t make us miserable for eternity so his is going to try to make us miserable now. And he does this by trying to get us to sin.
This battle is a daily thing. I’m not sure we are really aware of that. Our expectation is that the battle will only really touch us at a couple of places or times in our lives, when something “really spiritual” is happening. But that is not true! The battle is ongoing day in and day out, in every decision we make and in every temptation we face. This is not a big scary alarmist idea, it is simply the reality. We need to see our daily struggles and opportunities as a part of the cosmic struggle which Paul is describing here.
Illustrate. (soldier not believing he is part of a battle?)
3. Equipping for the battle (vs. 13-20)
Verse 11 works like a kind of title for the rest of the passage. Notice that Paul tells us to “put on” the armor of God. This connects us back to the last half of chapter 4, where Paul told us to “change clothes” – to put off our old self, which he describes in detail, and to put on the new. It is here in chapter 6 that Paul provides us with a detailed picture of what the new clothes are to look like. They are battle dress.
A. The point of the Armor: to enable us to stand.
Verse 13 tells us why we need to put on the armor – so that we can stand. That word is repeated twice here and once again at the beginning of the next verse – 3 times in 11 words. Obviously this is an important point.
Why is this the goal? Why doesn’t it tell us to put on the armor so that we can win the fight? So that we can be victorious? Doesn’t it seem kind of passive, kind of defensive? The reason is simple: the battle has already been won. The battle belongs to the Lord, and He has already been victorious. Our job is now simply to be faithful and to stand firm in the midst of the mop-up skirmishes, to avoid casualties while waiting for peace to break out in force.
You see, the devil has been defeated. 1 Peter 5:8 tells us that he is still roaming around like a roaring lion, looking for some meat, but he is a lion on the run. The next verse, 1 Peter 5:9, tells us to resist him and he will flee. He is on the run but still looking to inflict whatever damage he can with the little time he has left. That may mean he is even more vicious, but the end result is already known.
B. The parts of the Armor:
So how do we stay protected? Paul uses an extended analogy to teach us what the things are in the spiritual realm that protect us. As a proud Roman citizen now imprisoned, he grabs a picture from the soldiers around him and uses this to teach us some important principles.
i. Truth
Paul likens this to a belt. Roman soldiers wore two belts, an outer one which held their sword and dagger, and an inner one which kept their clothing in tight so that they could move about freely. It is this inner belt that Paul is talking about. Truth is what makes us free – Jesus taught us that in John 8:32. The spiritual principle here is that we learn and know the truth of God, and it frees us to stand firm in the fight. We cannot get tripped up by the lies of the devil if we have the truth firmly fastened around our waist.
ii. Righteousness
The breastplate covered the upper torso, and as such protects all the vital organs except for the mind. The lungs, the heart, all of the other key organs in our bodies would be protected by this piece of armor. The “righteousness” in mind here is not the righteousness of Christ which saves us, but refers to our pursuit of righteous living in the power of Christ. It is an ethical righteousness. In other words, Paul tells us that by living obediently we will protect our hearts. It is reminiscent of Paul’s command that we not sin in our anger lest we give the devil a foothold (4:27). When we sin, we open up a crack in our armor and give the devil an opportunity to cause us injury. Righteousness protects us in the spiritual realm from the most deadly of attacks – sin.
iii. Readiness from the gospel of peace
The imagery in this section comes first from the Roman soldiers, but Paul is also making allusions to a number of passages in Isaiah, and that is why this next part of the armor is phrased the way it is. He is referring to Is 52:7 “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, announcing peace…”
If our goal is to stand, then obviously footwear will be important. Just like in this afternoon’s Grey Cup Game, having solid contact between feet and ground is critical. Here the spiritual element is the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. Let me extend the football analogy a little. You can tell an experienced quarterback by watching his feet – a rookie will often be kind of dancing around, feet moving around all over the place, jittery. The experienced quarterback will have quiet feet – peaceful feet – because he is ready and knows what he has to do. The principle is that we need to be prepared, we need to know the truth of the gospel, and be ready for action – ready to share the good news of peace, or ready to rest in the good news of peace and the promise of peace when we are facing attack.
iv. Faith
Faith is likened to a shield. The shield Paul had in mind was a big one – it was made of solid wood and covered with metal and animal hides that could be soaked in water. That way, when an enemy would shoot arrows they had lit on fire the shield could withstand them. Paul says that our faith is the spiritual element that will protect us from all of the devil’s “flaming arrows.” Like what? Doubt is one – the devil will launch a thought at you – “if God were real he wouldn’t let such and such happen… God doesn’t really love you or else this wouldn’t have happened… God isn’t powerful enough to help with a problem as large as the one you have…” And our response is faith. Feelings can be another arrow in the devil’s quiver: “you went to church and didn’t feel anything, must not be important…” or, “so and so really disappointed you – that is what all Christians are like…” or, “you have a right to get angry and hold a grudge and look for revenge after what that person did to you…” or “I don’t feel like loving others today so it is ok if I treat them poorly.” And the response to all of these arrows is to stand in faith – to stand in what we know to be true even when we don’t feel it is true.
v. Salvation
The helmet is the thing which protects our heads, likewise salvation is what protects our minds. We know we are saved. This is one of the great truths of Christianity that most other faith systems cannot even touch – we know for certain that once we have repented of our sins and accepted God’s free gift of salvation, we are saved. Secure. Our inheritance is guaranteed, as it says in Eph. 1. And there is nothing that the devil can do about our eternity. That is the spiritual protection for our minds – the knowledge that we are saved by God’s grace.
vi. The Word of God
The sword is both an offensive weapon and a defensive weapon – used to attack and to counter an attack. In the spiritual battle, that weapon is the Word of God. Simple question: what good is a weapon that sits on a shelf and never gets read? If you and I are not spending time regularly reading God’s word, meditating on it, learning it, memorizing it like Allan Vail used to, then we will not be properly equipped for the spiritual battle. Notice how the foundation for all the other parts of the armor is God’s Word – it is here that we find the truth, here that we learn how to live a righteous life, here that know of the gospel of peace, here that our faith finds its solid foundation, here that we learn first how to be saved and then find security in that salvation. Jesus’ response to temptation was to quote Scripture. This is the Word of God, to us. Do you love it? Do you spend time in it, reading and meditating and studying? I urge you to do so, and so find strength, encouragement, and equipping for the battle.
vii. Prayer
The last thing that Paul teaches us is the importance of prayer in the battle. The last three verses are devoted to this. He tells us several things:
- pray in the Spirit
- on all occasions
- with all kinds of prayers
- pray for each other
- then some requests for personal prayer
Prayer is a spiritual act – it is one of the disciplines through which we actively connect with the spiritual realm. And that is why it is so crucial. (return to Screwtape #6 p. 24ff??). I don’t intend to take the time this morning to talk about how to pray, I’d rather simply implore you to do it. Pray in the Spirit, on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers, and including prayers for one another.
Conclusion:
And that is where I want to conclude today – in prayer.
(Pastoral prayer? Body prayer? Corporate prayer?)
