PUT ON THE FULL ARMOR OF GOD
Ephesians 6:10-20 - August 28, 2005 - Pentecost 15
Dearest Fellow-Redeemed and Saints in the Lord:
Are you ready for battle? Are you ready to rumble? That is what Paul reminds us of today. In our Christian living and in this world our life is a battle. This life, the Christian life, is a battle against au-thorities and principalities and powers that we cannot even see. These powers are almost beyond our imagination. But we are not alone, are we? Instead we are well equipped. A couple of times in our text you may have heard Paul say: "Put on the full armor of God." It does not say a piece here and there, but the full armor. The Lord says then you will be ready to face every enemy. With God’s full armor the be-liever will be able to stand the test that comes. Paul wrote another letter to the Romans which we heard part of today. He says: "The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light" (Romans 13:12). Again, our God gives us more equipment to battle those who live in the darkness, who live in the shadows of this dark world. The world of ours is becoming darker every day, with every generation. Believers in Christ are left in this world as beacons of light. Today’s text reminds us that we need to put on that armor of light in order to defeat the darkness. Put on the full armor of God is going to be our theme this morning.
PUT ON THE FULL ARMOR OF GOD realizing
I. Enemies will attack
II. Believers will stand
II. ENEMIES WILL ATTACK
Chapter 6 is the last chapter of the book of Ephesians. Previously Paul listed many things people were to do and follow because of their Christian faith, and because God gave them strength. Now Paul writes: "Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in his mighty power." God’s people were not going to be left on their own. They were going to have the power of God on their side, his strength. Paul writes this en-couragement even though the enemies of the gospel had attacked him.
At the end of our text you may have heard him say: "For which I am an ambassador in chains." Paul was in prison in Rome. The enemies of the gospel had attacked, and Paul was no longer free to go to all of the cities he had visited before to spread God’s word. But Paul was not powerless. He still had the opportunity to preach the gospel. He still had the full armor of God at his disposal. Paul did not give up in despair. Instead he said to pray for him. As Paul continues, mentioning how he is in prison, he de-clares that he is not out of commission. Paul states that these believers are also going to face the enemies. Paul proclaims: "Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes." The devil is going to scheme and plan for the downfall of mankind. After all, the devil came into God’s perfect world at the very beginning of all things. In God’s perfect creation Satan deceived Adam and Eve and they sinned. The history of mankind was changed forever. Imagine that! Satan in a perfect world attacks God’s perfect creation — and – is victorious.
Paul writes: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood." He wanted to remind the believers of that fact. These believers felt that the government put Paul in prison and their greatest concern was op-posing the government that opposed Christianity. Paul said there were greater enemies than that. He said: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." He wanted to remind these believers that Satan was alive and well. Satan would continually tempt them. Sa-tan would try to destroy the church of God and always will to the very end of time. Paul’s advice was: Put on the full armor of God that you may stand.
Satan is alive and well today. Our struggles are the same struggles that these early Christians faced, the very same struggle that Adam and Eve faced. Today our struggle might even be harder, isn’t it? Adam and Eve lived in a perfect world with no sorrow, no sadness, no pain, no suffering, and no heart-ache. It was perfect. Yet, in that perfection Satan was so deceptive that he caused them to disobey. To-day, thousands of years later, you and I can well imagine as we live in an imperfect world how the devil deceives us. Peter says: "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roar-ing lion looking for someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8). If we saw a lion outside, we would stay inside. We would say there is danger there: danger, danger, danger because of this roaring lion. Satan wants to devour our souls. But Satan does not always attack us like a roaring lion, does he?
Satan also comes to us very craftily like the slippery serpent that caused that first sin in a perfect world. Satan can make things seem in this world as if they are the most important things in our lives. He creeps into the church. Some of today’s churches for many have simply become a gathering place to meet friends, a gathering place for business connections. The word of God is misplaced, overlooked, and for-gotten. A very astounding poll came out this week concerning evangelical Christians. "Evangelical" is in our church name, Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church, and Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Evangelical means preaching the gospel. This latest poll said 68%, more than half; of evangelical Chris-tians do not believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven. They do not believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. There are other ways to get to heaven.
There are a lot of lessons to learn from that. You and I are evangelical Christians, so we are lumped into that 68% category. I don’t believe that. I believe what John tells us when Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." I believe what Luke writes in Acts, and I know you do too. There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. Satan creeps in, and he gives the whole church, especially the Christian church, a big, black eye saying, "See, they don’t believe in Jesus for everything." The devil is deceptive. The devil is our great enemy. Paul wrote in Corinthians: "The god of this age (in other words Satan and his deception and false teachings) has blinded the minds of un-believers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" (2 Corinthians 4:4). Today we also add believers are blinded because almost 70% of the church do not trust in Christ for salvation. He has blinded the minds of believers and unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel (evangelical) of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. The enemies of the church will continue to attack. Satan will constantly continue to attack. The Lord says to us, "Put on the full armor of God."
Satan is bold. He attacked a perfect creation. Satan is daring. When Jesus walked on the earth and was in the wilderness for 40 days, Satan came to him and tempted Jesus three times. That is how bold the devil is. Satan did not win. Satan is going to tempt us day after day. The devil is going to try and distract us from the path that leads to heaven. He is going to cause us to get all worried and upset about things that do not matter at all in eternity. We are often easily distracted by the devil’s deception. Jesus described with the parable of the sower. At the conclusion when the disciples could not understand, Jesus explained it to them and us: "Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the wor-ries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful" (Mark 4:18,19). Those are the temptations you and I face. Those are the things that our great enemy, Satan, uses to distract us, the worries of this life. Maybe from time to time, we can worry ourselves almost sick, can’t we? The deceitfulness of wealth--who has enough money? If we hon-estly look, we have more than we need; but the world says we never have enough. Scripture warns that Satan uses many things of this dark world to torment us, to deceive us, to attack our Christian faith.
God says to us through the Apostle Paul: "Put on the full armor of God." Those enemies will at-tack, but believers will stand. The Christian church will never fail. The gates of hell cannot overcome it.
II. BELIEVERS WILL STAND
We are going to take a brief look at that armor of God. There is so much there. Paul reminds again we need this armor of God, because our struggle is not against the things of this world but against the authorities, the spiritual evil in the heavenly realms. Put on the full armor of God. "Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place." The belt of truth, of course, is the truth of the gospel of God. The belt that he talks about was a big belt. It wasn’t merely for keeping the tunic in place or to look fashionable. This belt was meant to hold their weapons. Today, we might call it a utility belt. God says that this belt of truth is very, very important. When a per-son had that belt on, it meant he was ready for battle. He was going to go fight. The breastplate of right-eousness--we picture that as a protection for the front part, the bullet-proof vest of Jesus’ day.
"And with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace." We might not think much of our feet being ready. During Jesus day they didn’t have a closet full of shoes. They maybe had one or two pair of sandals. They had to have very special footwear for fighting. Those fighting would not simply use sandals. They strapped fighting footwear onto their feet with a strap that wound up sometimes almost up to the knee so they wouldn’t fall off. They did not want to slip and fall in battle. Paul says, this gospel of peace is to be on your feet.
"In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one." The original says "the fiery darts" is what Satan throws, the temptations. With that shield of faith you can fend them off. They hit the shield of faith and fall harmlessly to the ground. Finally, he says, "Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Put on that helmet of salvation which comes to you by faith, by grace. The full armor of God protects from head to toe. A Christian is ready to fight and defeat Satan and his dastardly dominions. The only offen-sive weapon mentioned here is the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.
Then he ties it altogether, doesn’t he? There is one more thing. "And pray in the Spirit on all oc-casions with all kinds of prayers and requests." Then he gives them direction how to pray. "With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints." Then specifically Paul says, "Pray for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should." We know Paul did boldly preach. The prayers of believers everywhere strengthened him.
The full armor of God is ours. This armor is found in the word of truth, the word of truth which has never failed us. The full armor of God is this word of truth which has always been there from the very beginning: From the time of Adam and Eve through the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt. It is this word of truth which Jesus himself used to defeat Satan. When Jesus was in the wilderness, Satan came to him and said, "Worship me and I will give you all the kingdoms on earth. Pray to me and I will give you bread to eat." Satan misquoted Scripture. Satan said, "Cast yourself down and angels will protect you." Jesus’ simple answer was to correctly quote what the Lord said, what Scripture said, and what this word of truth really said. Satan then left Jesus in defeat. We have that very same sword of the Spirit that we can wield to cut Satan in half and to extinguish his temptations. Listen to the words from Hebrews: "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12).
Paul, even though in prison, realized and said: "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand." Even though Paul was in chains in prison, he was still standing his ground. Paul was there and knew he had to be there. God had told him that he would be there. When Paul was there, what hap-pened? He got to testify to governors and kings and the emperor that Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. This was not a bad thing for Paul to be in prison. Paul boldly stood with the full armor of God cov-ering him, and God’s word was preached. Joshua writes: "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wher-ever you go" (Joshua 1:9). We are never alone. The Lord is with us. We need to remind ourselves of that because we are never alone though sin is always near us. God is more powerful than that. Satan is always there trying to tempt us, but God is more powerful than that. We are will-equipped us with the full armor of God.
In the first verse of our text Paul says, "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power." Be strengthened in the power of God. If feel alone and tempted, then the Lord says to pray. This too is a very vital part of the armor of God. It is not put in that list, but at the end of the list. Prayer is important. Jesus took his disciples before he was betrayed and crucified to pray in the Garden. The disciples went to sleep. Jesus came back, and they were sleeping. Again, he came back and they were still sleeping. Jesus had to say to them as he says to us: "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak" (Matthew 26:41). Our flesh is weak and Satan can tempt it. Our spirit is willing so we need to pray to the Lord to give us strength and to give us wisdom to realize that the ene-mies will attack.
Paul writes the day of evil will come. Each one of us faces our days of evil--discouragement, de-spair. Our loving Lord says to us, Put on the full armor of God. Pick up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and be encouraged and not discouraged. The Lord God Almighty promises us salvation and protection. From Satan comes damnation and destruction. Yet, what are we told--that there are many in this world that pick damnation and destruction. They give up eternal salvation and divine protection for Satan’s damnation and destruction.
Put on the full armor of God. Recognize those enemies that will attack and try to take away our very salvation. Rest assured that as believers you can stand firm in the word of God as those who love that sword of the Spirit. You will stand until you are face to face with Jesus at the Last Day. Paul gives advice to Timothy. He lists all sorts of sins to avoid and then he said: "Flee all those things." Then Paul continues: "Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called" (1 Timothy 6:11b, 12a). These at-tributes also could be attached as medals or awards, I suppose, on that breastplate of righteousness. This is part of your armor. God has called us to eternity and salvation. God has given us his full armor, protec-tion from head-to-toe, to protect us from every evil enemy. Our Lord has promised us his victory and the believer will stand. Amen. Pastor Timm O. Meyer
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Readings, Pentecost 15(ILCW-A): JEREMIAH 15:15-21; ROMANS 12:1-8; MATTHEW 16:21-26
