Standing Firm Amidst Satan’s Schemes

Transcript

GRM 806
9/08/2002
Standing Firm Amidst Satan’s Schemes
Ephesians 6:10-18
Gil Rugh

Turn in you Bibles, if you would, to the book of Ephesians, chapter 6. Just a little word on how we get to where we are. My thinking when I was planning on what I would do when we came back from vacation, thought I wanted to pick up with a passage in Ephesians 6 with you. As I reflected on that passage that drew my attention to Romans 12 as I reflected upon the presenting our bodies to the Lord as God’s people. That got my mind thinking on the call to commitment and what was the commitment that was made as we became followers of Christ. So instead of starting with Ephesians 6 this trilogy ends with Ephesians 6.

I want to talk about the matter of the believer’s warfare or conflict. Remember when we committed ourselves to become followers of Jesus Christ, we were challenged to count the cost. Salvation is a free gift; the price has been paid in full for our redemption. It is given to us graciously by God as a gift, but in the receiving of that gift we must let go of everyone and everything else and place our faith in Christ alone. Salvation costs us nothing, it is a free gift. But it costs us everything, not because we can purchase it or own it or contribute to it, but because we must let go of everything to take hold of the salvation God has given us by faith. Then as those who have committed ourselves to be followers of Jesus Christ we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice; this is what is acceptable and pleasing to God.

As Paul wrote to the Ephesians, the church at Ephesus, he’s written many great truths to them. He started out by telling them that they had received every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. In chapter 1, verse 3 Paul says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." What grace has given us, “every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies." But you know where he’s going to end up the letter? That we have an intense spiritual warfare as God’s people. You know where it takes place? In the heavenlies. The heavenlies, or the heavenly places, is the place of our greatest blessing and also the place of our greatest conflict.

One of the difficulties in the Christian life is to keep up the intensity, to maintain the passion, to not lag or grow weary in the conflict. Paul is concerned that these Ephesian believers do not think that the greatest trials, the greatest battles, are behind them; that they can ease up, that they can expect that things will be easier and not harder. So, he closes this letter with a strong exhortation and warning; and you know we know from a later letter in the New Testament they did not take it to heart as they should have. Thirty years later Jesus Christ will send a letter to this same church, and He’ll commend them for areas they have been good and faithful and then He will very harshly rebuke them for being unfaithful also. This is a serious matter. We read the letter to the Ephesians and think what a wonderful church, what great blessings they have. What a tragedy to think 30 years later the Lord of the church not only gives them commendation, but He has to sternly rebuke them to the point He threatens to put them out of business, remove their candlestick, in the letter in Revelation, chapter 2.

Paul takes this very seriously. He’s going to exhort them to step up, maintain their vigilance and their diligence, because we are not in a war against other human beings. We are in a war against very powerful and intensely committed spirit beings who are determined to bring ruin and destruction to the people of God.

You’ll note in Ephesians, chapter 6, verse 10 Paul says, "Finally," and this is going to be the last main section of the letter. Let me wrap everything up for you. We won’t have time to do it, but if you would go through verses 10 to 20, then go back and look at what he has covered earlier in the letter, you would see he has picked up many of the items and issues, themes he has addressed in the letter. Now he is putting them into this final exhortation, and it is really a call to faithfulness, a call to stand firm. I want you to note something, four times we have as an expression, stand firm, is used in these verses. Just note them and then we’ll pick them up as we move through. In verse 11, "Put on the full armor of God that you may be able to stand firm." Down in verse 13, "Therefore take up the full armor of God that you may be able to resist," and that word translated "to resist" is basically the same word translated "stand firm," or to be firm. This is another use of that exhortation to be able to stand firm. At the end of verse 13, "having done everything to stand firm." How does he begin verse 14? With a command, "Stand firm therefore." His concern is that these believers will maintain their position, they will stand firm, they will be found faithful.

In some of the writings we have that have been passed down from biblical times in the days of the Roman Empire, one of the prime things that they look for in a Roman soldier, Roman centurion who was going to command a group of Roman soldiers, was a man who would stand firm, who would maintain his position even in the most intense conflicts. You’ve all seen pictures or movies where you have a line of defense and all of a sudden, the enemy hammers in an area and that area collapses and all of a sudden disarray occurs as people abandon their position and begin to run and there is chaos. The picture here is Paul uses the picture of a Roman soldier and the armor God has provided is of men and women of God who stand firm and maintain their position in the face of the onslaughts of the devil and his demonic host.

Paul begins by saying, "Finally brethren be strong in the Lord and the strength of His might;" command given here. We are to be strengthened in the Lord. It’s the Lord who provides our strength. Repeated emphasis through this is we cannot fight this battle in our own strength. Doesn’t matter how long you’ve been a believer, how much you’ve grown in the Lord, how well you know the bible. You are not able; you do not have the strength to engage in this battle on your own. You must be strengthened in the Lord, in the strength of His might. You get the sense of Paul building up words here to emphasize his point. Be strengthened in the Lord, in the strength of His might. He did the same thing in Chapter 1, back up there. As he prayed for these saints in verse 19 of chapter 1. He says he wants them to know "what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might that was demonstrated in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." You have to know about His power, His strength, His might, that same mighty power and strength that brought about the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now that awesome, supreme power of God is what we need to do and engage in the battle that we are in as followers of Jesus Christ.

That being the case, he instructs them back in chapter 6, verse 11, "Put on the full armor of God," put on the full armor of God. He’s emphasized in verse 10 that we need to be strengthened in the Lord, we need to have His strength, His might. In order to be strengthened how are we to be strengthened in the Lord? We put on the full armor of God, it’s God’s armor. We’ll say more about that in a moment. We put on the full armor of God. It’s not like here’s a room and here are pieces of armor, go through and pick out the pieces you would like. No, you have to have the full armor of God, everything He has provided for you in this conflict. This is the armor that comes from God and interestingly, it is the armor that characterizes God Himself. In the Old Testament the Messiah is viewed as the King of Israel and the warrior who comes, and He is clothed in armor. God Himself stands and acts on behalf of Israel and He wears the same pieces of armor.

Back up to the Book of Isaiah, we’ll just take two examples. First, Isaiah, chapter 11, somewhere about the middle of your bible, those middle large books, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, those prophetic books. Open your bible to the middle two or three times and you’ll hit Isaiah, I’m sure, and then go to chapter 11. Here you have a great Messianic passage relating to the coming of the Messiah and His rule and reign one day yet future. But you’ll note verse 5 of Isaiah 11, and "righteousness will be the belt about His loins, faithfulness the belt about His waist." The picture there, that belt which you use to bind up your garments as well as hold the weapons, picturing the readiness for activity and strenuous work. Messiah comes and He is characterized by righteousness and faithfulness. Turn over to chapter 59 of Isaiah. As God arises to act on behalf of Israel note what He says in verse 17 of Isaiah 59, "And He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head." So, you see as God comes in the deliverance of Israel He has the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation. It’s the God of righteousness who brings His righteousness, the God of salvation was bringing His salvation. So, this is the background as Paul talks about putting on the full armor of God, it is the armor that characterized God in the Old Testament revelation, and it’s the armor that God is providing for His people. It is absolutely essential in the warfare in which we are engaged.

You come back to chapter 6. We are to put on the full armor of God, the armor of God in its entirety because we are involved in a spiritual conflict. It’s so that we may be able to stand "against the schemes of the devil." Here he gets directly to the point. We need the full armor of God and His strength and might acting on our behalf so we can stand against the strategy, the schemes, the craftiness of the devil himself. Now immediately drawn to our attention that the enemy we have to deal with is not another human being. We’re not going to wage a war of intelligence with another person, we are in the battle against a supernatural being, a being who has power and resources far beyond us as limited human beings restricted to ourselves.

Look back in Ephesians, chapter 4. Paul talks about the importance of maturity in Christ, which really is basically the theme of the armor of God in chapter 6. He’s picking up the theme that he’s already talked about of the maturity that we must have in Christ, and maturity is manifesting the character of Christ in all that we do. In Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 14, as a result of growing up to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ, maturity in Christ, "As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves, carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming." Now we find that the craftiness and the deceitful scheming that comes to delude and deceive us may be brought in human form by human instruments, but there is a supernatural power behind those who oppose us. That is the power of the devil. We need to be firmly established in Christ, we need to be protected with the armor of God, which we will see as we move through it, I take it as saying the same thing as manifesting the maturity we have grown to in Christ. That we may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

Turn back in your Bibles a few pages. Before Ephesians is Galatians, and before Galatians is II Corinthians. In II Corinthians chapter 10 Paul is under attack in the church at Corinth and part of what he’s doing is beginning to unfold in defense of himself. But in chapter 10, verse 3 of II Corinthians, "though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh." Paul says I’m living in this physical body, I conduct my life in this physical body, but I’m engaged in a warfare, and I don’t carry on this warfare according to the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, they are not physical, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. Paul saw beyond the human opposition that he constantly faced, that behind that there were the spiritual forces of the devil, and he would not think of trying to take on the forces of Satan in his own strength with the weapons of his own intellect and so on. We need the divinely powerful weapons.

So back in Ephesians, chapter 6. We must be able to stand firm against the schemes, the strategies, the crafty plans of the devil. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, not against mere mortal human beings, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." See we’re in the heavenly places. That’s where we’ve been blessed with every spiritual blessing, and now that’s the place where our most intense spiritual conflict takes place. I take it when he talks about in the heavenlies, we’re in heavenly places as we have it. He’s talking about in the spiritual realm where our conflict is being waged, it’s not being waged in the physical realm. Now I realize that much of what the devil uses is drawn from the physical realm. He uses people, but he is motivating those people, he is raising up the doctrines that those people preach that are opposed to the truth of the Word of God. That’s why Paul will write to Timothy about the doctrine of demons, the teaching of demons. Not because demons personally were there preaching it, but they were the motivating power behind the human instruments that were preaching those doctrines. We don’t want to be deluded into thinking look, they’re just a human being, they’re not any more intelligent than me, they may be less intelligent than me. They’re not as clever as I am, I can outwit them, I can win a battle with them. You’re a fool. The power behind them is far greater than any power you have on your own. We’re dealing with the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenlies; they’re described. We’re battling not against “flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the powers, the world forces of this darkness." He’s really saying we have the whole host of the demonic world arrayed against us. You’ll note, Paul doesn’t write about this as though it is a hypothetical situation or a potentially possible situation. He’s writing to believers, to the church at Ephesus. This is reality. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you have come to recognize your sinfulness and have turned from your sin and placed your faith in Christ alone. You are engaged in an intense war. Now the danger is in any war there are times of a lull. You know there may be war being engaged intensely over here, but it seems in this part of the war it’s relatively calm for now. But we ought not to delude ourselves into thinking we’re not in a war. Part of what you have to be careful of is what? That proverbial lull before the storm. You know you see war pictures and there are soldiers there. It seems quiet and peaceful, and somebody will say it’s too quiet. What do they mean? The enemy's got to be planning something. We know he hasn’t packed up and gone home. You know, we ought to have that kind of spiritual alertness. The devil does not compromise. So here we are all the forces of evil. How can you express it? They’re the rulers, they’re the powers, they’re the world forces of this darkness, they’re the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenlies. This is a serious matter. We have to be equipped to stand firm against the devil and all the forces of the demon world.

"Therefore," verse 13 "take up the full armor of God." You see he’s repeating what he just said in verse 11. But you know what happens. We say take up the full armor of God. Yes, of course. But he elaborated on the seriousness of this matter, why you must take up the full armor of God. You must be able to stand firm against the full forces of the demonic world. "Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist (or stand firm) in the evil day." A lot of discussion in writers on what is the evil day. Can be just the day in which we live, the day in which the devil is operating. He is the god of this world, the whole world lies in the power of the evil one, I John 5 says. It is an evil day. It also could be referring in the singular here to the fact we have to be prepared for the most intense attacks, that we are able to stand firm in the evil day. You know when things are going calm, like maybe they are now for some of you; no visible problems, no heat, nobody attacking you, no trouble at work being stirred up and on it goes. Because the area that Paul has covered in Ephesians covers a wide area, all be involved in the areas the devil would attack. You know what happens? The evil day comes, the devil intensifies his attack. All of a sudden, Lord, what is happening? Lord, things are coming apart; Lord, I can’t take it. What the armor of God is to do is to enable us to stand firm when all the forces of hell, so to speak, are loosed against us. When the fiercest attack of the devil is over, we’re standing firm. We haven’t been moved, we haven’t been driven back, we haven’t been thrown into panic and disarray.

So, in the evil day you may be able to stand, to resist. Isn’t that a great blessing? People have all these doctrines of demons today and demon warfare, commanding the devil this and speaking the devil that. But you find no support for it anywhere in Scripture. Do you know what God’s plan for dealing with the devil is? Put on all the armor I’ve given you so that you have My strength at your disposal. You can give the devil commands all day long, doesn’t matter. You need the full armor of God to stand in the evil day. If you are a believer, the attacks will come. If you are in the war, the enemy knows who you are, the enemy has targeted you and he is determined to get you.

Having done everything to stand firm. Not only in the evil day, but you know what? When all is said and done there you stand. Having done everything, you stand firm. See that’s what this passage is about. You’re standing firm, having been faithful. The dust clears. What? There you stand. But the full forces of the devil have been thrown against you, but you stand. When all is said and done, you’re left standing firm. You know what happened to the church at Ephesus? They didn’t stand firm. Thirty years later the Lord of the church says I have something against you, and you better fix it, or I am going to put you out of business. So, we shouldn’t take this lightly; oh, it wouldn’t happen to us.

"Stand firm therefore," verse 14. What is this section about? Well, if I were going to give it a title, I’d probably say Stand Firm. "Stand firm therefore." How do you stand firm? You have the full armor of God. Let me break it down for you, Paul says. Having girded your loins with truth. Remember the Messiah who came with His loins girded? A picture of the belt that they wore in those days because they wore flowing robes and garments and that, and if you fall over your own clothes, how are you going to fight? They had a belt and they bound everything up and they used that also for their sword and so on. When you girded up your loins, bound the clothing up and your belt, you secured it, you were ready for strenuous activity or a fierce fight. The picture here, your loins are girded with truth. I take it the truth of God; His truth is what has prepared us for the conflict and living according to His truth.

A lot of discussion, are these objective or subjective, is this the truth of God as He has revealed it to us or is this truth as we live it out, truthfulness? I don’t know that you can make a difference. I mean when you see the God of heaven acting on behalf of Israel when He has the breastplate of righteousness on, that’s His righteousness, that’s what He is and that’s the way He functions. Here God’s truth has become ours and we are prepared, and we live according to that truth. You see how crucial it is, that’s where he starts, the truth of God. Very simple. Puts the emotion of the moment in its place, puts relationships in its place. Because remember to be a committed follower of Christ may divide us from family and dear friends. The truth shapes my life, determines my actions, directs me in decisions. My loins are girded with truth so that I can be prepared for battle. Yeah, but what about your friends? I love my friends. What about your family? I love my family. My loins are not girded with friends, with family, they’re girded with truth. We take the truth of God, and it becomes part of our lives. It can become a pervasive idea through this. Obviously, these elements are part of the character of God. It's hard to radically disassociate them from one another, they blend, they overlap. Jesus Christ said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." Become partakers of the one who is in His very nature, Truth. Jesus said to His enemies in John, chapter 8, "You are of your father the devil," he was a liar from the beginning. There is no truth in him. But our loins are girded with truth because God is our Father and He in His very nature is Truth. His truth has become part and parcel of our life and our being and now it shapes all that we are and all that we do.

Having put on the breastplate of righteousness. We saw that breastplate in Isaiah 59 when God rules on behalf of Israel. Righteousness. We have received the righteousness of Christ credited to us and now that righteousness is to be the characteristic of our lives. We all know of more examples of public situations where well-known Christian leaders have failed to maintain righteousness and brought disrepute on the testimony for Christ. What did Nathan say to David after his sin? You’ve "given occasion to the enemies of the Lord." That failure to maintain the breastplate of righteousness gave the enemies of God an opportunity to attack more effectively. We must maintain the breastplate of righteousness. The breastplate of the Roman soldier covered the vital organs. I mean, you were open and vulnerable without the breastplate. You get cut on the arm or the leg you could continue to fight, if someone stabs you in the liver the battle is over. The breastplate is crucial, His righteousness. Not only the righteousness we received in Christ, but then the outworking of that righteousness because these are things we are to put on. We just don’t have doctrines that we’ve enjoyed learning about, but these are assimilated into our lives and become part of us. You know that picture that Peter wrote about, like newborn babes we long for the pure milk of the Word that we might grow in respect to salvation. In Ephesians 4 we grow up into Christ "who is the head." So that His truth and truthfulness, His righteousness provided in Christ and now lived out by us characterizes us.

Remember Paul spent about three years chained night and day to a Roman soldier; the last thing he saw at night before he went to sleep and the first thing he saw in the morning. Oh, my goodness, here I am looking at a breastplate. Oh my, yeah, he’s got the belt on. Everybody in the Roman Empire was familiar with the attire of a Roman soldier, Paul perhaps more so, having had close association for a number of years. He had the breastplate of righteousness; we are to be a people of righteousness.

We have to have our feet shod with the preparation, the readiness of the gospel of peace; the gospel of peace is the message of the peace with God that comes through faith in Christ, the message of the gospel. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Then the peace of God that has become our portion as those who have entered into peace with God. We now enjoy the peace of God, and we are firmly planted on that gospel of peace. We stand firmly, unshakable, and that’s the message we have to proclaim. We stand on it, we proclaim it, it is the message. In Isaiah, chapter 52, verse 7, don’t turn there, that’s where this passage comes from, and there it’s talking about those who come across the mountains to Jerusalem. As they come across the mountains to Jerusalem, they are proclaiming the message of God’s salvation, the message of peace with the coming Messiah. In Romans, chapter 10, Paul took that passage to talk about the blessedness. How blessed are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, and that’s what we are doing. So here as he uses it with the Ephesians, I take it that’s our message. We are those standing on the gospel, we proclaim the message of peace with God through faith in Christ.

"In addition to all," not only do you take these items of the armament, but you need a shield." In addition to all. taking up the shield of faith. Now the Roman soldiers had used two different kinds of shields; the smaller shield that you used on your arm, and you know you moved around, a lighter shield. Then they had that shield that we’ve all seen again in movies and pictures. It was a high shield, and they could get down behind it. We call it a door shield because the Greek word for this shield is basically, comes from the Greek word for door. It’s like a door when you get behind it. You can duck down behind it, and it protects you from head to toe. You set it on the ground, and you just crouch down behind it if you need to. That’s the picture here, this shield that can protect our whole body. In addition to the armor in the individual places in the body, we have a shield that can cover us from head to toe, and what is this shield? It is the shield of faith, not just the initial saving faith, but that on-going faith that we have in our Savior, in our God. We continue to trust Him. What immediately weakens when we get under attack? No matter what the devil does, using the example of Job, you know, close family members die, his wealth is lost, his health is taken away. Any of these kind of areas come, what do we think? Oh Lord, where are you? Oh, I don’t think the Lord loves me anymore, and so on. Well wait a minute, wait a minute. What happened to my faith? Is He not the same yesterday, today and forever? What has changed? I am being attacked terribly now. Oh, I see. But what has changed in God? Nothing. Why would I not continue to trust Him? Part of the way the devil works, and this was a problem for Roman soldiers.

You note, you have this shield, so you’ll be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. Now he was called "the devil" at the end of verse 11, and here he is called "the evil one." He launches flaming missiles. You know where they dip the arrows in oil or wrap them in rags and lit them and then shot them. You know, they did a lot of damage. You get hit with a flaming arrow and the damage is great. So, they would prepare their shields, often they covered the front with leather, they would dip them often in water before they’d go to battle to extinguish those flaming missiles. Sometimes there would be an occasion where soldiers would get hit with so many their shields would catch fire, then under fear and the pressure of the moment they’d drop their shields. Then they’d become totally vulnerable. You know whatever the devil is shooting at me I need to stay behind the shield. You know it’s like you’re watching a movie like this and somebody hiding behind something that protects them and they’re going to make a run. You say don’t run, stay where you are. That’s what they’re doing in the picture you know, don’t move, and you’re there watching the movie. You think oh I hope they don’t move. They’re safe as long as they stay there. But what happens? As soon as they get out from behind the protection they’re done.

So, it is. We’re behind the shield, as long as our faith is firmly settled in our God. What can the devil do? Beat on me, shoot at me with everything he has, but I am secure in Him, my faith is unshakable. I appreciated an elderly man who's a believer, lost some people precious to him. What did he say? His response when somebody asked how did he take it. He said there were no questions yesterday (think of the last part of this), here are no questions today. I didn’t question God yesterday; I don’t question God today. There were no questions yesterday when things were going well, there are no questions today when things are not going well because I trust my God. Seems so simple and elementary, but it is so foundational. When our trust in God is shaken, when we lay down the shield, then we find ourselves getting hit again and again and again and it goes from bad to worse.

"And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God." "The helmet of salvation." In I Thessalonians, chapter 5 Paul talks about the helmet of salvation as" the hope of our salvation." Obviously, we have our salvation, we don’t have to put on salvation in the sense we don’t have it yet. But we put on the helmet of salvation, perhaps in the context of I Thessalonians 5, “the hope of our salvation," our salvation in its full implications and ramifications, not only of the past deliverance from the penalty of my sin, but from the present deliverance of the power of Satan and sin, and the future deliverance even from the presence of Satan and sin. The helmet of my salvation; He cares for me now and He has promised me glorious deliverance. That protects the vulnerable head. I know where I’m going. We’ve talked about what? Having your focus on the goal, your focus on the goal. The ultimate redemption of the body and the glorious presence of our Lord. It’s the goal and it’s a security for the head which is so vital.

You take the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. The sword there, two different kinds of swords the Roman soldiers used. You know those real long swords, you see them swinging them with both hands, almost like a club as they hack away. Then there was the shorter sword. They could be anything from the swords you see in one hand down to a dagger-length. It’s the shorter sword that is in view here. I think that fits when he talks about our struggle back in verse 12. Almost like our hand-to-hand combat when he talks about our struggles, the wrestling we’re involved with. We’re involved in hand-to-hand struggle, we don’t want to take this big, long sword because you see in some battles where everybody is pressed together, you’ve got your sword up here, you have to be able to move around. We’re talking about the battles we’re involved in being very intense, right up close. You need the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God. That’s not only a defensive item, but that is also an offensive item.

We started out with the truth of God as our belt, we have the Word of God as our sword. The very character of God, all He is and all He has provided is what we need. The Word of God is a sword. It’s sharper than any two-edged sword. It pierces even to the innermost recesses of our being; it divides the soul and the spirit, it’s a discerner of "the thoughts and intentions of the heart," Hebrews 4:12 says. It is a powerful weapon; it is the only weapon we need. We ought not to be deluded into thinking we ought to lay down our sword because we’ve got this weapon, political action, and this weapon, social action, and this, forget it! There are all kinds of logical arguments for how successful that has been in this area and that area. It doesn’t work in spiritual battles.

Remember when Satan came and attacked Christ in the temptation in Matthew, chapter 4, and Satan even used Scripture. What did Christ do? He explained to him that he was misusing Scripture. Here's what the Scripture says. You must understand that portion of Scripture in its context of this portion of Scripture. We need to be careful; the devil even uses Scripture. But when he uses it, he misuses it, he twists it to delude and deceive people into thinking he’s genuine. Just like in war we have what? We have spies; we have those who infiltrate, and the devil delights to infiltrate, his workers dress up like true believers Delude Christians into thinking there’s something else, there’s something more effective. You can take everything else away, but we have the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God.

In all that provision we are privileged then to be always in prayer, verse 18 says, always in communication with the commander in chief, if you will, with the Lord Himself. We are to be in prayer "at all times," and that includes for one another, for all the saints. We are in a spiritual war. It would be frightening to think, you know, the forces of the devil and all the demonic world are allied against you. They know who you are, they know you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, and they’re determined to do whatever they can in whatever way they can; they are ruthless. There is no honor, they will do whatever; lie, cheat, whatever, to destroy you, bring ruin, dishonor to the testimony for Christ. We ought not to lull ourselves into thinking well it’s easy for us, we don’t have the same battles that believers in other parts of the world have, but you can be sure the devil and his forces are just as much here as they are anywhere. He tailors his strategy according to the need of the hour, what fits the place best. He is every bit as much at work here as he is in the most pagan, darkened place in foreign countries, and his goals are always the same.

But we have a God who has made enough provision. More than enough. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies, and He offers His strength, provides the might of His power for us to stand firm against the most intense onslaughts of the devil. What must we have? We must have the armor of God. What’s another way of saying that? We must have the character of Christ produced in us. Ephesians 4, we must grow up to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Ephesians 6, we put on the armor of God. That’s the picture. Our adversary, the devil, goes about as a roaring lion, to change the analogy, seeking someone to devour. Therefore, be on the alert. You understand that. The war is not over, the victory has been provided, but the war is not over yet. The outcome is settled, but the war is not over. The devil has power to inflict great pain, difficulty and trouble on the people of God. We must be prepared, not fool ourselves into thinking well we’ve been around long enough, we’re old enough. Our great battles are behind us. No matter how old you are, no matter how long you’ve walked with the Lord, your greatest battles may well be before you; and that’s fine. You know why? The strength of the Lord, the power of His might will always be sufficient. I just want to be sure I’m properly equipped; I have on all the armor. Then I’ll stand firm and be prepared to hear, well done good and faithful servant, you stood firm.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, that your salvation has transferred us from the kingdom and realm of darkness and Satan to the kingdom of your Son, Jesus Christ. We now belong to the one who will someday rule and reign in power and great glory over all the earth. Lord we are involved in a battle and a struggle with that one who hates you. He’s your enemy, would delight to destroy your purposes and plans if it were in his power. Lord, thank you that we have been delivered from the power of the devil and now you provide your strength, the strength of your might, the power of your character to enable us to stand firm. Lord, I pray for any who are here, delude themselves into thinking by being religious, by attending church, by doing good things that they can cease to live under the authority of the one who hates them, controls them, desires to bring them to the ultimate ruin of hell. Thank you that in Jesus Christ there is freedom and deliverance for all who believe. We pray in His name. Amen.