[Transcript represents full sermon's text]

       Well, today, we come to Ephesians chapter 6 and we're going to do verses 10 to 17. That means we're going to be talking about the armor of God. And I think a lot of us have been looking forward to this message, I think really since the beginning of this whole Ephesians series. We've probably had this one on our minds. And indeed, we do have quite a bit to talk about, as would be expected. We've even got a lot of cross-reference verses and just things that tie into this as we try to articulate it, as we try to understand it in a good fashion.

       Without further ado, let's go ahead and get into the text. I'll read verse 10 to get us started. Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10, Paul says, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (ESV).

       One thing I do want to point out as we enter into this section of the text is, let's remember to not just think of this whole section about the armor of God in the individualistic sense, Although, obviously, it does apply in that sense, but Paul also likely has in mind the collective picture of the church. I think most of us, most of the time, tend to read this passage individualistically as it applies to us as Christian individuals, and while that's true, it also applies to the picture of the church on the whole. Let's keep that in mind. Paul is telling the church of God to have that courageous, courageousness, that strength as a collective body. And let's look at Joshua chapter one in the Old Testament, because this is one of my favorite verses when it comes to just being strong in the Lord. God told Joshua in Joshua chapter 1, we're going to read verses 6 and 7. “Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go” (ESV). So there it is. It's very commonsensical.

       It's very obvious that the church should have, in our context today in Ephesians, the word of God at front and center, right? I mean, if you're a church and the Bible is number two, number three, number four on the list, if that's even possible, it doesn't make sense. We don't want our churches to be community centers, which will then inevitably lead to being a worldly type body. That's not what we want. Individualistically, we do want to be strong and courageous. And we're going to get in to some of the reasoning as to why that is in a second. But the second point I want to point out from this verse in Ephesians, is Paul said, in the strength of God's might. And that's the thing God gives us his strength as a church, as individuals, to carry out what God wants us to carry out, whether that's just holy and righteous living, like we just touched on there in Joshua, whether that's our specific calls, our specific responsibilities within the church body, whatever that is. And Paul touched on this way back in Ephesians chapter 1. If we look specifically at verse 19, Paul said, “and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might” (ESV). So there it is. There's that power from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within us. God uses his power to work through us. And I think we feel that power in day-to-day living from time to time, right? I mean, I think for most of us, that's probably an experiential reality. We can bring up a situation probably in recent times where we weren't feeling quite up to the task and we just got that burst of power, that burst of drive, that strength, that will even to do whatever it is we needed to do.

       Now let's go to verse 11 and I will read verses 11 and 12, so I'll chew off quite a bit. Verse 11, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (ESV).

       Wow. A lot going on here. Let's just start taking it one piece by one piece. So Paul says, “put on the whole armor of God.” Everything he's about to talk about in our next several verses, it's all equally important. And it's not that we pick three pieces and go with that and we're good to go. No, we want the whole thing. And we can note, right off the bat, that the devil has plans. Paul calls them the schemes of the devil. And I think a lot of us, most of us, if not all of us, are aware of that by this point, especially if we've been in the faith a while. We understand that things can happen in our lives. Sometimes they come out of nowhere, right? And it's a scheme of the devil. It's something bad. It's something that Satan and his fallen angels or even demons are launching against us, whether that's against the church problems arising. and as they try to proceed with certain plans, things they've plotted out, and then this resistance comes. It comes in our lives. It can even come, it's not just spiritual things. It can even come, with a couple buying a house. It can be even just basic general life things, but for whatever the reason, I guess they get a kick out of it, They send us a problem, right? They put a stumbling block in our way as we're trying to accomplish what really God wants us to accomplish, even if it is an earthly thing.

       Paul says, do not be deceived. That's the basic idea. We've heard Paul say that elsewhere. We've heard Paul say, do not be deceived. That’s a common phrase of his. He doesn't come out in this text and say that, but that's basically what he's saying. Problems that churches face, problems that we as individuals face, it's not just always randomness of the world. It's not just bad luck, though it can be. I do believe in luck. I do believe that not everything happens for a reason. But sometimes, at least, when bad things do come our way, they are a result of satanic powers. He says—he goes through a rank here—and he calls them the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers, the spiritual forces of evil. There's four different categories. We really don't know what that means. I mean, I could speculate. I could try to guess. But I think the only thing I can really infer from that is some type of ranking system and Satan's structure.

       Now, we can notice two domains of which Satan operates. He says, “over this present darkness.” That would be the earth, right? The earth is affected by the fall. It's obviously affected by satanic power. And then Paul even points out the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. That's the other domain. And this could just ever so vaguely show a differentiation between fallen angels and demons. Demons would be in the earthly realm. Fallen angels, that one third group of angels that left with Satan when he was cast down to the earth, when he rebelled against God. Those beings are in outer space. They're in the second realm of existence. If we call the earth the first realm, outer space the second realm, and heaven the third realm, if we were to say heaven is outside the universe, they would be in the heavenly places, the outer space realm. Notice the word “cosmic” there, “cosmic.” Those beings, the fallen angels, who appear to have different levels of power, they're not all equal. Jesus called Satan the most powerful of the fallen angels. I'm trying to remember that's in, I think, Matthew. He called him the most powerful. So Satan is the chief fallen angel, and there's fallen angels under him that rebelled. And then there's perhaps a third group or third series of beings called the demons.

       This shows why Satan is able to be so disruptive on our earthly realm because there's a lot of beings on his side. I think a lot of times it's assumed that the good beings, God’s angels, way outweigh Satan's side. But not necessarily if we count fallen angels and demons as two separate groups of beings. It could even be that they're more equal. I don't know what the exact numbers would be but it makes you wonder a little bit and it makes sense because all you got to do is turn on the news, launch that news app and you see a lot of the destruction that's being caused out there a lot of the demonic influence that's coming over people to do crimes, just to have certain ideologies, whatever it is, we can see that. This is why things in our lives, in the church's life, this is why things don't always go as we want them to go. And it's not always these primitive answers. It’s not always that we would say sometimes if we have repeated bad luck in life, we might say, “Well, man, I am just cursed in this area. You know, I just every time I try to do something in this certain area, I just don't have any luck.” Well, I think calling it a curse, I hope, would be going too far. But is there demonic, fallen angel disruption in those areas? Sure.

       And to point that out, to bring up a good passage to show that principle, I would say would be Luke chapter 13. I'm going to tap over there. And if we go to verse 11, I don't want to read this whole passage just because we got so much to talk about. Luke says, “And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.” And if we jump down to when Jesus is replying to the Jewish people who don't believe, he says, verse 16, "And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?”” (ESV). There are things in our life that Satan and his forces can interfere with and interfere with for a long time, as this passage demonstrates with this woman. The hope in this is that just like this woman got unbound, Jesus took care of the situation. The hope is that if we have been struggling in a certain area for a long time, that eventually we will have success, right? That having that optimistic attitude that one day things will change. It's not a permanent state. And I think we need to keep that in mind. We need to grab a hold of that because we don't want to get that pessimistic permanent attitude that this problem is never going to go away. I'm just done for. It's not going to get better for me kind of thing. Not so.

       That's why, remember in Luke chapter 18, in verse 1, I want to say, Jesus said, told the disciples to keep praying and never give up. Why? Well, if we view things from the realm of time, you might pray, pray, pray, and then let's say one day, Satan moves his forces around. There's an opening that one of God's angels or a group of God's angels can get in there and change something. Well, if you pray that day, bam. The door is open, they can take it, the change occurs, success. Now we have what we want, right? That's why you have to keep praying and never give up because it's time based. does have a say in these things. It's not always that I just pray today and I'm good for the next 50 years. Some things take repeated prayer and that way when the angels, the good angels do go to move in on that operation, if you've prayed and they have a door open because Satan did something else, then there it is. And I know people probably think, well, that's too simplistic of an answer. That sounds too good to be true or whatever it is. But really, that's, I think, a fair assessment of the kind of things that are going on. And let's also look at 2 Corinthians chapter 10. A lot of us are familiar with this verse. 2 Corinthians 10 verses 4 and 5. Paul says to the Corinthians, “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (ESV).

       Back in Ephesians chapter 6, let's read verses 13 and 14. “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness” (ESV).

       I actually have a prop here. I got this teddy bear and he's got the different pieces of armor from God. I got this, man, I got this a long time ago. I would say over 20 years ago. And I have it sitting in my bedroom just as a reminder in a kind of more laid-back way of these pieces of armor. And obviously Paul has in mind the picture of a Roman soldier. I think we all pretty much know that. And I think we've seen enough movies, we know enough about what that probably looks like to be able to draw that up in our minds for those who can't see this. But the first two pieces that Paul brings up is first the belt of truth. We probably think when we hear that for the first time, we're probably thinking, “Oh, he's talking about the Bible,” right? Well, not necessarily, because he's going to get to that later on. I think more what we want to have in mind is the fact that a belt tightens everything up, brings everything in, right? Nothing is out of sorts. We're fitted tightly.

       And what comes to my mind when I think about that is it's the idea that we're good in our characters. And a good reference for this would be Revelation chapter 3 of all places. Let me bring this little passage up. We go to Revelation chapter 3, and we read verses 15 and 16. Jesus is talking to a specific church, to the church in Laodicea: “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth” (ESV). So a little strong there. The idea is, if we draw that in for our passage today, the idea is we need to have that cultivated character of Christian righteousness, of becoming more like Jesus, of taking the Christian life with a level of seriousness, right? And not just being lukewarm, being kind of half in, half out, kind of do a half job with things. We're not really taking the things of God seriously. Well, that don't work. Jesus don't like that. He wants us to be fully committed.

       To bring up the second piece, Paul says “the breastplate of righteousness.” Well, there's two different texts we can bring up to talk about that. And the first, they're both in Romans, but the first will be Romans chapter 6. So 2 through 4, Paul says:

“How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (ESV)

We don't want to be participating in sin anymore, right? I mean, I shouldn't have to say that, but I probably should. Because we know, we probably are familiar with, hopefully we're not, a Christian who is half-participating in sin some of the time. We're that lukewarm person where we're just half-obedient, but we got some sin going on. We don't want that.

       If we scroll down to Romans chapter 8, let's consider verses 1 and 2. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus who walk not according to the flesh (but according to the Spirit). For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” (ESV). It's not that if we do slip up and sin, that we should have this really negative condemning attitude towards ourself and always have that sort of attitude going on. To be strong in the Lord, we want to acknowledge any kind of sin, repent of it, get rid of the guilt, and move on. That's what we want to do. We don't want those things to become weights that wait us stand. Now, that doesn't mean we deliberately live in sin and just confess it every week. We're not to take advantage of the system, as Paul was talking about there in Romans 6. But this isn't to say people don't genuinely struggle with certain sins that they keep falling back into. That's one thing, right? But it's another thing to willingly sin, knowing it's wrong, but just because you want to do it. That's a different issue. It's not only just not sinning, but it's also not carrying around that overwhelming guilt all the time.

       And what's the problem with sin in the first place? Well, to tie into this whole discussion of Satan, when we sin, we're giving Satan more power in our lives, right? And I think that, obviously I said, I don't know if it was last week or recently, I said, sin starts in the mind. It's not that our behaviors are sin before we even thought about it. It all starts in the mind. One resource I want to bring up is we're discussing this, And I think this book, the title of this book makes perfect sense because this is what it really boils down to. This is Joyce Meyer's ‘Battlefield of the Mind.’ It's kind of a Christian classic. Written quite a while ago, I don't know, probably 20, 30 years ago by now. But that's what it really is—this whole battle with Satan, with sin—it starts in the mind. This is a really good book. It's a Christian book that tells us how we combat sin from a mind perspective.

       Let's go to verse 15. Let's keep it moving: “and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace” (ESV).

       Our shoes. The bear here does not have shoes. I don't know why it's more on his legs. It says peace. But the idea, I think, is that a Roman soldier, my understanding is a Roman soldier, Their shoes had cleats, like an NFL football player or a sports athlete, that we're all familiar with. That gave them that firm standing in the ground. Well, it's not sharing the gospel that I think Paul has in mind directly. But he brings the focus of the sentence on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. So that might include sharing the gospel. It's like Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:2, he said, “be ready in season and out of season” (ESV). I think that's more the idea. It's that when we are living righteously, when we're living like God wants us to live, we're always ready, right? We're not taken, caught off guard by something. And whether that is problems that arise, whether that's opportunities to share the truth with people, whether that's an opportunity to provide comfort to someone, or whether even in the most extreme case, that's our own physical death. We're ready for that. We're not shoulders down, head hanging down—“Oh no, this is terrible. I didn't want this to happen.” I mean, sure, we're all human, right? But if we know God, if we're close to God, we have that readiness. We have that peace that comes from knowing that we're always with God. Nothing can separate us from God. We present the gospel in a peaceful way. We try to live peaceful and quiet lives, as Paul would say elsewhere. and we try to share that peace that we live by with those around us, whether that's through our behaviors, through how we act, or whether that's through words themselves.

       Let's look at verse 16: “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one” (ESV).

       Now, it's not that everything that comes into our life is ordained. It’s not that storization of life. It's not that because we did bad three years ago, now this bad's coming into our life. It's not that Hindu karmic stuff. It's not that Calvinism, where God's preordained every little thing. It's going to happen that he's foreordained it, and this is our lot. This is what the cards we've deliberately been dealt by God's will. It's not that. But Paul tells us that we need to have that shield of faith. The shield is obviously for protection against those flaming darks. So bad things are going to come from who? Well, from Satan in this text. And of course, things come from the world, from the earth. A storm might come that had nothing to do with Satan, but due to the fallen nature of the world, something bad comes our way. Whatever it is, we have our faith, so that no matter what happens, whatever thoughts come to our minds that are negative (Battlefield of the Mind), whatever thoughts come to our mind that are negative, we're able to extinguish those because we know our position with God. We know our position in Christ. We're grounded in that.

       And it's another way, another way we could apply Paul's saying to Timothy—“be ready in season and out of season”—well, that can include having our faith. And we can trust that negative voice that's inside our heads too much. Whether that's originating from our inner sin nature or whether that's demonically influenced or influenced by a fallen angel, wherever those negative thoughts come from, it doesn't really matter per se the origin of them. But what matters is our response, right? And if we're listening to that negative inner voice too much, we're going to have a bad life. It's just that simple. Everybody gets those thoughts. Everybody to some degree, now maybe some more than others, but everybody gets negative thinking. And we have to be trained in righteousness to be able to respond to those negative thoughts in a way that's effective. And we're going to talk in a minute a way we can do that.

       Let's read our final verse for the day. Verse 17, Paul says, “and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (ESV).

       The helmet protects us, right? The helmet of salvation, and as I was just saying, we're protected because we know it's not that in some manner, in some situations, yes, God is able to protect us totally from evil. And we go out unscathed, right? But in some situations, it doesn't mean that we're not going to experience harm. Or even a physical death. We can pull up the famous verse from Luke again. This time in chapter 12, Jesus says, remember, verse 4, “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!” (ESV). Then he says, verse 6, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows” (ESV). There's the contrast, really, of Satan's operations or Satan's perspective versus God's perspective. So God values the church. He values each and every one of us with a great value. Satan, on the other hand, may try to harm us or even take our life. That's the reality of the situation. And the helmet of salvation means that we're always grounded in our security, our inner security with God. We know where we stand with God, and that's our true helmet. Even if something happened where things didn't turn out all so well for us, we know where we ultimately are going. We know where we stand with God. Nothing can change that.

       And, of course, our final piece of armor, helmet of salvation, and then the sword of the Spirit. And Paul says that is the Word of God. So there's the Word of God. That contrasts with where we started with the belt of truth, right? Here's where the Word of God comes into the picture. And of course, that's the Bible. That’s the New Testament. That's the Old Testament. That's the totality of the Bible. 39 Old Testament books, the 27 New Testament books, a total of 66 books. Obviously, if we grew up in a Christian atmosphere, we probably are familiar with memorizing verses. That's a terrific, good thing. But we should memorize the ones that have the impact on us, that speak to our hearts, the ones that are most beneficial for us. And just as Jesus modeled for us during his temptation with Satan, we can speak those verses back to the tempter, whoever that is, and have victory by being grounded in God's word. We know what God's will is. We know what he says. We stand in that and oppose what the evil forces say. Obviously, we can make lists of Bible verses that pertain to a certain topic and memorize those verses and read those verses and have a habit of saying those verses back when we need to. And we can create different categories, whatever it is we're struggling with, whether that be lust or anger or whatever it is, we can make a list of Bible verses that correspond to that problem. And even if we only have three or four memorized, we've got something that we can bring to our minds, that we can say out loud when we can, and that we can work to combat those spiritual forces of evil.

       One more resource I will bring up where the work's already been done is this book called ‘The Secret Power of Speaking God's Word.’ Another Joyce Meyer book, little book. This one's a great one. I think it was done about 20 years ago. And this one has a list of different areas, different categories. I open it up here. There they all are. It starts with anger, alphabetical order. Goes through all the different things. We got fear there. We got patience, stress. It ends with worship. The work's already been done for you. If you don't want to sit down or don't feel you have time to sit down, you can get that one, I think, on your digital reader, Amazon, or whatever. And, of course, the physical copy there. That's a really good resource. And the verses have been put into the first person to make it even easier. And that's another practice I would encourage, whether you get this resource or whether you just compile the list yourself, putting them into the first person can have even greater impact. I wouldn't be so much concerned about having the verse memorized word for word for how it is in the text. It might even be more beneficial for you, especially if you're struggling with an issue, to put that verse in the first person. And that makes it even more powerful, more impactful when you're fighting that temptation. So that's going to do it for today.

       And I do want to say quickly if there's anybody out there and they're hearing all this stuff for the first time and they recognize they have sin in their lives or they're struggling, you can come into God's family today. You can be part of God's church. You can be part of his body of believers and gain access to all these resources that God's provided us with, with the whole armor of God, to be able to fight these wicked powers, these strongholds that work against us. It's no joke. It's no movie type stuff. It's no fantasy type stuff. This is the real deal. And if you're struggling with that stuff today and you say, “You know, I need to be on God's side. I need God's help.” Well, he can forgive you of all your sins. He can bring you into his family. And you, by your free will, have the freedom to make that choice. If that's what you want today. Just go to God in prayer. Tell him, hey, I do believe Jesus has forgiven my sins. I do believe in the power of his resurrection from the dead. And I want that for you. I want to believe in you, God, through Jesus. And I want to be indwelled by the Holy Spirit. And I just need help. God will answer that prayer for you today and bring you into his family. It's just wonderful things, and it's all available to anyone who will believe.

- Daniel Litton