Winning Your Spiritual Battles: The Armor Of God As A Guide Series

"John Paton was a missionary in the New Hebrides Islands. One night hostile natives surrounded the mission station, intent on burning out the Patons and killing them. Paton and his wife prayed during that terror-filled night that God would deliver them. When daylight came they were amazed to see their attackers leave. A year later, the chief of the tribe was converted to Christ. Remembering what had happened, Paton asked the chief what had kept him from burning down the house and killing them. The chief replied in surprise, "Who were all those men with you there?" Paton knew no men were present--but the chief said he was afraid to attack because he had seen hundreds of big men in shining garments with drawn swords circling the mission station."

-Today in the Word, MBI, October, 1991, p. 18.

John Paton’s wife knew that the real struggle was spiritual, not physical. So she got to work praying and praying that fateful night. God answered those prayers, and he sent his angels to protect them.

We too must remember that our struggle is not physical, but spiritual. We must fight our battle in the spiritual realm, which is just as real as the physical world.

To that end we’re going to be delving into a scripture today that will give us specific instructions for how to fight and win our spiritual battles.

Spiritual warfare is something we Christians understand to be events in our lives that are sent from Satan and his demons to try to disrupt our lives, harm us, confuse us, discourage us, or lead us off course in our walk with Christ.

God allows these attacks for the purpose of testing and refining our faith. Satan and his demons can’t do anything without God’s permission. God gives permission, in certain circumstances, and at certain times, to test our faith.

Many things in life are not spiritual warfare. They are just simple life problems. Your car breaks down, life problem. You get into a fight with your spouse, life problem. You forget to pay a bill, life problem.

But there are also events that are more than that. They are spiritual in nature. We will usually be able to sense that this is an attack from the enemy. I have a discernment, where I can tell that it’s from the enemy. You will probably be able to tell pretty quickly as well, this was from the enemy.

But I don’t want you to be afraid. Because God has given you everything you need to win the spiritual battles you face.

And we find that formula in the classic structure of the armor of God. Let’s delve into that structure now.

It says in verse 10, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.”

Verse 10 is the end goal, this is where we will arrive. If we obey all the instructions in verses 11-20, we will have the solution, which is to "be strong in the Lord."

A big part of that solution is going to be verse 11, which says, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”

What’s the purpose of the armor? To stand against the devil’s attacks. The enemy is trying from time to time, to get me to want to quit the ministry. He wants you to leave the church. He’ll sometimes use an incident to try to make you mad so you want to quit. He will try to cause drama in your friendships. He’ll try to hurt you financially. In all this, we want to put on the armor of God and stand.

It continues, (verse 12) “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.”

And again in verse 13, “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.”

Four key commands here:

1. Be Strong!

2. Understand our struggle is spiritual

3. Put on God’s Armor

4. Stand your ground (continuously)

If we understand that our struggle is spiritual, against Satan and the demons, we will want to put on the armor of God daily. If we don’t, and we’re too focused on the physical world, we will end up not even bothering with it. That’s why it’s so important we understand the spiritual world is real.

My biggest worry is that we’ll all see this and think "hey that’s cool" and never actually use this formula. This is real stuff. We need to fear God and obey it completely, or we will lose our spiritual battles, and end up on the run in life, naked and fleeing for our lives. The devil isn’t playing around. He wants to drive you out of the church, get you away from the word, isolate you, and destroy you with addictions and sins. That’s his goal. But if we put on this armor, we can stand against the enemy’s schemes.