It's Battled With a Diabolical Vengeance - The Armor

Tonight, we want to continue our series and int with the master by discussing the armor of God. And over in Ephesians chapter 6, verse number 12. Paul says this. He says, 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. The point is this: that the believer is on an absolute and constant collision course with Satan. A Christian who does not recognize that nor understand that.

Will be victimized by Satan's schemes. So, what do we do? How do we handle all this? How do we fight the battle? How do we get ourselves prepared? Well, Paul says over in Ephesians chapter 6. Verse number 13, these words. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything to stand firm, stand. Firm. How do you deal with the cunning craftiness of Satan and all of his devices? Concentrate on what You need to be doing, not on what Satan does.

Concentrate on what the Word of God says about how you should respond. To what is there. Remember, last week I told you that the whole aspect of the armor is summed up in one word: obedience. If you understand what it means to obey the word of God, And act in accordance with it, then you're able to understand the whole armor of God and appropriate that armor. In your life, the charge is a command. You stand firm, and if you stand firm, you will be able to resist Satan in the evil day. There's a promise associated with that.

Paul says, if you do these things, if you understand them, and if you stand firm, you will be able to resist Satan. And you'll be able to walk off that battlefield, not as a wounded soldier. But because you have fought the fight. You have fought the good fight, the noble fight. And the fight that we're engaged in is a noble fight, is it not? Isn't that what Paul said? I have fought the good fight. It's a good fight. So, don't ever think that the battle we're involved in is a bad thing. It's a good thing.

It's a noble fight because you're fighting for a noble purpose. You're fighting for the sake of the glory of God and His honor and His kingdom. So, without any further ado, let's look at this armor and look at the pieces that are there.

So, first of all, let's look at the belt. Ephesians chapter 6. Verse number four. Paul says, Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth, the belt. Is very important. There's a reason why Paul begins with this: having girded your loins with truth. That's a Hebrew expression indicating read or preparedness. It was used over in Exodus chapter 12, verse 11 of the Jewish people as they left the land of Egypt. At the time of the Passover, they were instructed to gird up their loins. Peter would use that same expression over in 1 Peter 1, verse 13, when he said, Wherefore, gird up the loins of your mind.

In other words, prepare your mind for the things of God. When the Jewish people were getting ready to leave the land in which they were in, and the Lord told them to gird up their loins, you got to realize that the garments that they wore. were hanging loose. In order for them to travel effectively, to travel without tripping over their garments, they had to bind them up, gird them up, and tie them with the belt. All right, so they were able to move freely. The same thing was true for a soldier. He had to wrap his cloak, he had to wrap his clothes with a belt so that he would be able to fight effectively.

And the Apostle Paul is telling us that we must be prepared and committed for battle. The very first thing you got to do is you've got to gird up your loin.

With truth. You got to be wrapped up in truth. You got to bring everything together with truth. Down in verse number 11 of Ephesians chapter 6, it says this: Put on the full armor of God that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. Circle that word schemes and then turn back to Ephesians chapter 4. And read this. As a result, verse number 14, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful.

Scheming. The word deceitful scheming is the same word used in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 11. That deals with various kinds of doctrine and various kinds of teaching. What Satan does is he will send teachings that are cunningly deceiving. He's a master at this. He will send things out that look and sound really good, but they're very deceptive. And if you're not careful, if you had not girded your loins with the belt of truth. If you had not enra yourself with truth, you could be very easily led astray.

There are many people. Here today, or listening by way of tape, who need to tighten their belts with the truth of God's Holy Word. To reg yourself with truth, to fill yourself with God's truth, and then submit to God's truth so that you instinctively obey the truth of God's holy word. So important. That's the bell. That we've got to put on so we can stand firm. Number two is the breastplate.

Back to Ephesians chapter 6. Stand firm, having girded your loins with truth and having put on the breastplate of right. The breastplate was that piece of armor that the soldier would put on. That would cover all of his vital organs. It would cover his heart, it would cover his lungs, it would cover his intestines. Okay? And he would never take that piece of armor off. That was his breastplate. And it would be used to ward off the deadly blows of the short sword that would be used in battle. So, when that short sword would come on, there'd be hand-to-hand combat, it would hit that breastplate and bounce off.

And so he would protect his heart and lungs and intestines so that he would not become injured and then end up dying. And Paul says, look, as a Christian, you got to protect your vital areas. Because if the vital areas aren't protected, you will be wounded. You will fall by the wayside. In ancient Jewish thinking, the heart. Represented the mind, and the bowels were considered the seat of emotions and feelings. Remember what Proverbs twenty-three: seven says? For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

Christ would say over in Mark 7: out of the heart pour the evil thought. And so the Jewish people understood that the heart would represent the mind, and the bowels were that which represented the emotions. John said it well over in 1 John 3, verse 17. That if you see your brother in need and shut up your bowels of compassion, how dwelleth the love of God in you? If you are emotionally numb to your brother who is in need, How does the love of God dwell in you? And is it not true that Satan's major attacks come against our mind and against our emotions?

Is that not true? And so, if we are not ar with the breastplate of righteousness, then he will be able to distort our thinking. He will be able to take our affections and all of our emotions and move them off of God and distort them in all kinds of ways. He feeds your mind and emotions with false information. He wants to cloud your mind with false doctrine and lies. He wants to elicit evil emotional responses and pervert your emotions. So you've got to protect them. How do you do that? With the breastplate of righteousness.

What is that? Well, simply, it's God imputed righteousness. Let me explain that to you. In and of ourselves, there is no righteousness, right? All our righteousness is as filthy rags. Romans chapter 3 says, There is none that does God. There is none who is righteous. There is none who seeks after God. So where does that righteousness come from? It comes from God, who, as theologians say, imputes His righteousness to us. So the only way we can live a righteous life is to be clothed with His righteousness.

Then everything we do as a result of that then becomes a righteous act because it's empowered. By the King who is righteous. And so, when you put on the breastplate of righteousness, what you're doing is you are matching what you do with who you are in Jesus Christ. Before you became a Christian, you matched what you did with who Satan was because you were a slave to Satan. So everything you did was of a sinful nature. But now that you've become a child of God and He's imputed His righteousness to you, then what you do as a result of that is m what you do.

With who you are and with whose you are. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ. The third piece of armor are the shoes.

The shoes, the boots. You know as well as I do that, I mean, you can't do anything in the area of athletics or anything without the right shoes, right? If you recall back in the 1996 Olympics with Michael Johnson, we all know what kind of shoes he had, right? He had those gold Nikes. And every time you ran him on that track, you saw those gold shoes, man, just glowing in night. And he had to wear the right shoes, right? And we watched him and we rooted him on. We admired those gold shoes that he had because they had to be the right size and the right specification because he was going to set a world record.

He did. But we go to play a football game, a baseball game, a basketball game, we got to be fitted with the right kind of shoes, right? Well, if you're going to go into battle, you got to have the right kind of shoes on. And if you don't know what those shoes are, if you can't fit your feet into those shoes, then you're going to have trouble on the battlefield. One author said it this way: The Roman soldier wore a thick-soled, hob-nailed semi-boot. It had straps that tied around the foot so that it was tight.

On the bottom of the soles were hobnails, little pieces of metal that protruded like a football track or a baseball shoe, to give them a grip on the soil. And this shoe gave him firmness of footing so he could stand in the battle. So Paul pictures a Roman soldier standing firm, able to hold his ground and make quick moves without slipping, sliding, or f. So Paul says in Ephesians chapter 6 that we have to shod your feet or fit your feet with the preparation of the gospel Peace. Now, follow very carefully with me here because there will be very few commentators that you will read that will agree with what I'm going to tell you this evening.

All right? The word preparation. Is a word that means to make ready, to be equipped. Our feet need to be made ready. They need to be fitted. All right? The context is very important. Whenever you translate a passage of scripture, you must understand the context in which it was written, right? And so, to understand the context of Ephesians chapter 6, you must understand that Paul was not talking about preaching. He was not talking about teaching the gospel. That's important to understand that. What was he talking about?

He's talking about fighting a spiritual battle. He's not talking about preaching the gospel. Paul's not talking about traveling. Paul's talking about standing, right? In fact, three times, verse 11, verse 13, verse 14, he says, stand firm, stand firm, stand fir There is nothing in the text that talks about traveling. That's important to understand that in order to interpret what Paul is saying. His subject is not about evangelizing the lost, his subject is about fighting the devil. So, once you understand the context, you can get a better grasp on what he means by having shod your feet with the read of the gospel of peace.

Certainly, the gospel of peace is to be preached. And the Bible tells us that how beautiful are the feet of those who share glad tidings of good news, right? That's what the Bible says, Romans 10:15.

And the Bible says we need to do that and commands us to do that. But Ephesians 6 doesn't talk about that yet. Most of your commentators will talk about the spreading forth of the gospel and telling people about the gospel of Jesus Christ as part of the armor. That's not what Paul's talking about in Ephesians chapter 6. At least I don't think that's what he's talking about. I believe that this is what he's talking about. You got to be ready with the gospel of peace, the good news of peace. This is a marvelous truth that you need to understand.

Romans 5:1 says this, we are justified by faith. Having been justified by faith, we have what? Peace with God. Okay? That's important to understand. Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. Life apart from God. Is total warfare. You're engaged as an enemy against God. In fact, Romans chapter 5, verses 6 to 10, speak of the war that we were engaged in before we ever came to saving faith. But having been justified by faith, now we have peace with God. When you give things over to the Lord Jesus Christ and begin to pray to Him.

The peace of God is going to protect you. It's going to guard you. It's going to be like an armor. It'll surpass anything that you've ever seen on this earth. Jesus said, My peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives, give I unto you, but my peace I give unto you. What peace is that? The peace that has been tried and proven, the peace that has gone through the battle, the peace that has been tested, the peace that Jesus Christ had through those 40 days in the wilderness. The peace that he had as he fought against Satan every day of his life as he lived on this earth.

He was at peace. With his heavenly father. And because he was at peace with God, he could stand firm against anything that Satan threw his way. He never found himself having an anxiety attack. He never found himself in anxious moments. He never found himself uneasy or tense about what was going to happen next. Why? Because he was at peace with God, the Father. And he experienced the peace of God because he is the God of peace, right? He's the prince. Of peace. And so, when you have peace with God and you experience the peace of God, your feet are shod with the preparation.

The gospel of peace. If your mind is stayed on Jesus Christ, the Lord God of the universe, if you're focused in on Him, He will keep you in the perfect kind of peace, and you'll be able to stand firm. In the battle and not waver in your commitment to God. That's the armor that God grants us. The first three pieces.

Are for our protection, never to be taken off. But the next three, we're to take up. When the battle becomes ferocious, take up these babies, man. Put them on and be ready for battle. In the fourth element, or the fourth piece of the armor, is the shield, the shield of faith. Verse number 16. Paul says, in addition to all, Taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. When these Roman soldiers were in battle, there would be flaming missiles flying through the air.

And they'd have these big shields, four feet high, two and a half feet wide. They're not the kind you wear, the little piece you wear on your forearm to ward off the short swords. These are the big pieces of armor, the big ones, that when the arrows would come, they would stick into those shields and you'd be protected. You could bow down behind it and protect your entire body by the shield. In your battle. 1 John 5:4 says, And this is the victory that has overcome the world. What? Even our faith.

That's it. The victory that overcomes the world is our faith. The shield of faith we are to take up. And faith is not just belief, but it's belief plus trust. It's trusting obedience. That's what faith is. Psalm 18:3. As for God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord is proven, he is a shield to all those who trust in him. Him. As long as you believe in God, your shield is up. You're trusting Him. But the moment you doubt God, the moment you start to distrust Him, The shield goes down, and in come all the darts.

Bam, bam, bam. Satan's going to have a heyday in your life. And how many times did that happen with us? Paul goes on to say this: verse number 17. He says, and take the helmet of salvation. The helmet of salvation. The helmet is that which protects our head from injury. The arrows ward off the blows. That comes our way with the shield. But that helmet's put on. Why? Because when the enemy came at you with that big broad sword that was three to four feet long, he came at your head. He wouldn knock your block off, man.

And so he came at your head. And so you had to keep that helmet on so you could protect all that's there. And Paul says, You take up the helmet of salvation. It does not refer to being saved. You're already saved, right? Or you wouldn't be in the warfare. You wouldn't be in the battle if you weren't saved. So, it's not talking about salvation in terms of you coming to saving faith, but it talks about this: Satan's biggest blows. Come to cause you to doubt your salvation and to discourage your life.

Romans 8:3 says this. Whom he justified, he also glorified. Because you have been justified, God will take you through the sanctification process to ultimately glorify your life. That's what God's going to do. And the helmet of salvation is this: being confident of this very thing, that he who hath begun a good work in you. Will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ. The helmet of salvation is my confidence. I had nothing to worry about. Paul would say over in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 8, that the helmet is the hope of sal.

He says that in the context of the day of the Lord. To those in Thessalonic who were worried about whether or not they were going go through the day of the Lord, Paul says you don't have to worry about that. You're different than those who are not of saving faith. Therefore, take up the helmet, which is the hope of your salvation. Things might look bleak. They might look bad. But you know what? You got a guaranteed future. And folks. That is the helmet of salvation. That's what's going to protect you from discouragement.

That's what's going to keep you in the race and not quitting. That's what's going to keep you doing and being obedient to the Word of God. Got your helmets on? Got your shields up? Is the breastplate secure? Have you got your loins girded with the belt of truth? Are you ready for battle? Not yet. You got to take up the sword. Verse 17. Not only the helmet, but the sword. It says, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. This is the offensive weapon. We talked about it on Sunday, right? The sword of the Lord, which is the rhem of God, the specific utterance of God.

And I'll say it one more time. No, I won't. I'll say it a million times between now and the day I'm dead. If you don 't know the word of God, If you can't utter the specific utterance at the point of temptation, you will be defeated. You've got to know the word of God, you've got to know it inside and out. The sword of the Spirit is the specific utterance of God. And also understand, remember the temptation? Christ uttered the specific utterances. In Matthew chapter 4, of God. That's a sword. If you don't know the word of God, you will not have the offensive weapon.

You need. Satan can't fight against the breath of God. This is the breath of God. He can't match God's word. And the word of God is sharper than any two-ed sword. Why? It's authoritative, that's why. It's alive, that's why. It's living. Everything else in the world is dead or dying. The world is one big cemetery, and the only thing that lives forever, that abides forever, is the Word of God. And we've got to know the Word of God more than we know anything else in the world. So that when the temptation comes our way and we stand in that battlefield in warfare against Satan and all of his devices, we can say, thus saith The Lord.

There is nothing more powerful than that. God's word says, pow. And that's what happens. Satan can't stand against that. If you don't know God's Word very well, you can't use it properly. You've got to know the word of the Lord. And lastly, prayer. Verse number 18, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit. And with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints and pray on my behalf. Prayer is part and parcel to the armor. You got to pray, man.

You can't expect to go into battle. Without prayer. It's woven in between each piece. Paul says, with all prayer, with all perseverance. At all times, you got to pray. Pray without ceasing. All through the procedure of arming ourselves and undergoing the demands of the battle. We are to be engaged in prayer. It is to permeate all that we do as we fight. Prayer is to be a way of life for us. Remember what Christ told the disciples in the garden? Watch and pray, lest what? You fall into temptation.

I mean, you can have every piece of the armor on: the loins girded with truth, you got a sword of the Spirit, the breastplate, the helmet. The shield of faith, you can have it all. Your shoes could be made ready by the gospel of peace. You're standing firm in your oneness with Christ. But if you don't pray, you'll lose.