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Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
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.
Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil
day, having done all to stand firm.
Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, having put on the breastplate of
righteousness, and at shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel
of peace in all circumstances.
Take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the
evil one.
And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying
at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.
To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.
And also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim
the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare
it boldly as I ought to speak.
The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever.
Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the proclamation of His Word.
Well, Heavenly Father, we pray that by Your Spirit, You would be present in the preaching
of Your Word this evening.
We pray, Lord, that You would make us open and receptive to that which the Spirit has
revealed in this portion of Your infallible Word.
We would ask, O Lord, once again, that You would be gracious to us.
We thank You that You have spoken to us clearly.
We ask that You would give me, Your unworthy servant, the grace to speak forth Your Word
with clarity, with grace, with the assistance of Your Spirit for the edification of Your
saints, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of Your name.
In Jesus’ name we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen.
You may be seated.
As I mentioned, the title of my sermon this evening is Preparing for Spiritual Battle,
and there’s four words you can be listening for tonight, strength, armor, foe, and faith.
Well, dear ones, I have some frightening news for you.
Somebody is out to get you.
In fact, this is someone who would find no greater pleasure than to see your life and
indeed to see your very soul utterly destroyed.
Now, I’m not saying this to emotionally manipulate you or because I’m paranoid or because I’m
trying to fill you with irrational fear.
Rather, dear friends, I am saying this because it is the objective sober truth based upon
the objective reality revealed in God’s Word.
You see, whether we realize it or not, we have a sworn enemy, an enemy who is powerful,
an enemy who has vast resources at his disposal, an enemy who has a huge network of sympathizers,
an enemy who wants you and me dead.
Who is this terrifying enemy that I speak of this evening, of whom I speak this evening?
I think many of you probably have some idea of what I’m driving at here, but in God’s
infallible Word, the Bible, this enemy is identified in passages like 1 Peter 5 verse
8.
In that passage, we read this about this enemy of our souls, 1 Peter 5 verse 8.
It says, be sober-minded, be watchful.
Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.
Resist him firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced
by your brotherhood throughout the world.
So obviously, this enemy of our souls, this arch enemy of our souls is none other than
the devil.
Now, I know that many today in our skeptical and secular age, many today scoff at the idea
of the literal existence of a personal spirit being known as the devil.
But friends, as Bible-believing Christians, we know that the Holy Scriptures reveal, clearly
reveal him to be a real being.
Scripture reveals that his sinister goal is to destroy as many souls as possible, to
see as many people as possible end up with him in hell.
Dear listener, God’s Word teaches that the devil wants to destroy our soul.
He wants to see us end up eternally damned.
And those Scripture teaches that the devil cannot ultimately destroy your soul if you
are a true believer in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
And that is the case because of the perfection of your Savior’s work on the cross and because
of your security in his everlasting, electing, saving love.
Nevertheless, friends, the devil will do everything in his power to harass you.
He will do everything in your power, in his power rather, to ruin your Christian testimony
and render you useless in the service of King Jesus, the captain of our salvation.
Dear listener, have you prepared yourself to meet the assaults of the enemy of your
soul?
Have you armed yourself for battle against the arch enemy of your soul?
The purpose of my sermon on this Lord’s Day evening is to help prepare us, brothers and
sisters, to fight against the enemy of our souls so that we might be good soldiers of
Jesus Christ, as the Scriptures call us to be, and so that we might stand our ground
for God’s kingdom against the devil and his minions.
Our passage for this evening is a most helpful place for us to turn to if we desire to be
well prepared for the spiritual battles that we face against the fallen world system, against
our own sinful nature called in Scripture our flesh, and also against the spiritual
forces of wickedness in the house, namely the devil and his demons.
And as we turn to our text for this evening, the first thing we learn here is that we must
find our strength in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the power of his might.
Brothers and sisters, let us find our strength in the Lord Jesus Christ in the power and
in the power of his might, because we have no strength to resist the devil in and of
ourselves.
We do not have the resources.
We do not have the experience.
We do not have the intelligence in and of ourselves, no matter how gifted we may be,
no matter how spiritually mature we may be, no matter how long we may have been walking
in union with the Lord Jesus.
Without the strength of the Lord, we cannot stand against this arch enemy of our souls.
And so the Apostle Paul says, finally, as he’s wrapping up this marvelous epistle, he
says, finally, be strong in what?
Or I should say in whom?
Be strong in the Lord.
The Lord there means the Lord Jesus Christ.
Be strong in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the strength of his might.
One of the most important things for us to realize, brothers and sisters, is that apart
from Christ, we can do nothing.
We are powerless.
We are weak in ourselves.
And actually, the scriptures call us to recognize that weakness and even to glory in it.
The Apostle Paul himself gloried in his weakness that the power of Christ might be displayed
in him.
For example, I think of what he says in 2 Corinthians 12, 2 Corinthians chapter 12,
verses 7 through 10.
Paul writes this, he is speaking of the revelations of the Lord and of the heavenly realities
that he had received.
And he says this, so to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness
of the revelations of thorn was given me in the flesh and commentators wrestle and debate
over what particular what specifically Paul means when he talks about this thorn in his
flesh.
But whatever that thorn in the flesh might have been, he describes it as a messenger
of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.
But he said to me, notice these words, 2 Corinthians 12 verse 9, he said to me, my grace is sufficient
for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ
may rest upon me.
For the sake of Christ then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions
and calamities.
For when I am weak, then I am strong.
This is sort of the paradox and the irony of God’s kingdom and of the power of the gospel
in our hearts and lives as believers is that it is when we come to an end in ourselves,
that’s when the Lord really gets to work.
It is in our weakness that his strength and power is displayed through us.
And what is this power that Paul refers to in our passage for this evening when he says,
finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might?
We need to understand, brothers and sisters.
This is the same power that God the Father worked in Jesus Christ when the Father raised
Christ from the dead and when he raised us from spiritual death to spiritual life in
the gift of the new birth.
It took an omnipotent work of God the Father to raise Jesus from the dead and it took an
omnipotent work of God the Holy Spirit to raise us from spiritual death to newness of
life in union with Jesus Christ.
Conversion is not in our power.
It’s not in your power to convert that unbeliever in your life that you’re witnessing to, that
you’re trying to share Christ with.
And certainly God uses means.
We should confess Christ before others.
We should seek to engage in gospel conversations.
We should seek as we have opportunity to sow seeds of the word in the hearts of unbelievers
that God in his providence has brought within the sphere of our lives.
But we need to realize we can’t convert anyone.
And this, by the way, is a great relief.
You know, if you’re sharing the gospel, having a gospel conversation with someone and then
you look back, as this often has happened to me, I’ve looked back and I said, oh, I
should have said this or I should have said that or boy, I really was kind of muddled
in this expression.
And I think, oh, if they’re lost, it’ll be my fault.
No, thank God.
God is sovereign and He uses even our stuttering attempts to confess Him.
He uses even our weaknesses to display His strength.
He uses even our deficiencies to display His glorious sufficiency.
So let us remember that.
Let us be encouraged, my friends.
Let us be encouraged.
That same resurrection power of Christ is at work in us.
And it is available to us, dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
Resurrection power abides in you because the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit who raised
Jesus from the dead abides in you and in me.
And one day that Spirit will raise us physically from the dead in the final resurrection.
And as being those in Christ, we’ve already spiritually been raised from the dead.
The reason that you love the Lord, the reason that you hate your sin and are convicted of
sin, the reason that you throw yourself upon Christ and Christ alone for your salvation
is because the Lord has raised you from spiritual death to newness of life in union with the
Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, Paul speaks of this resurrection power elsewhere in Ephesians.
If you go back to chapter one and look at verses 19 and 20, we read these words.
He’s speaking of the glory of Christ and the love of Christ.
He says, let me start at verse 18, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you
may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious
inheritance in the saints and what is the, notice this, what is the immeasurable greatness
of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might that he
worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the
heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name
that is named not only in this age, but also in the one to come.
And by the way, notice there, not only does does Paul reference God’s great power in
raising Jesus from the dead, but we also see the power of the ascension.
You know, Christ’s ascension to the right hand of the Father is also part of the gospel.
Not only did Jesus live for us, not only did he die for our sins, not only was he raised
for our justification, but he ascended for us and he intercedes for us at the Father’s
right hand.
He ascended for us and we ascended in union with him and we are seated in the heavenly
places in Christ Jesus.
Realizing this can help strengthen you in your weakness and we all in our flesh and
our fallenness, we have weakness, but we are more than conquerors through what?
Through our great theological giftedness, through our merits, through our religiosity?
No, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us and gave his life for us and
rose from the dead for us.
Again, that same resurrection power that was at work in Christ is at work in us and
available to us, dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
As John Calvin writes in his commentary, if the Lord aids us by his mighty power, we
have no reason to shrink from the combat.
Dear ones, we cannot again, we cannot stand successfully against the devil unless we are
in the Lord, in union with the Lord.
It is only through the power and grace of Christ that you and I can defeat the evil
one.
In fact, he’s already been defeated, already conquered Satan on the cross.
And this present age, as we await his return, is sort of a mopping up operation.
We are more than conquerors through Christ.
So if you are in him, then you are a victor over the evil one.
You need not fear him.
But we must be aware of his wiles and we must be strong in the Lord and in the strength
of his might.
How do we do that?
Well, this brings us as we continue to move through our passage, or at least a portion
of this passage, we learn in this passage that we must put on the complete spiritual
armor that God makes available to us.
We, brothers and sisters, must put on the complete spiritual armor that God makes
available to us.
It says in verse 11, put on the whole armor of God, not just part of it, put on the whole
armor of God.
Why?
That you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
We need to be armed for spiritual warfare so that we may be able to stand our ground
against the schemings of the devil.
And he is quite a schemer.
Now, what is this whole armor of God?
The Greek term is panoplyon in the Greek, from which we derive our word panoply.
Panoply means, according to one dictionary, the complete arms and armor of the warrior,
of a warrior.
Paul is using this illustration taken from military usage, panoply, referring to the
complete armor of the warrior.
And he applies this to the spiritual realm.
You see, this enemy of ours is so powerful.
He is so formidable that we must be fully armed with the panoply of God if we wish to
stand against him successfully in spiritual battle.
And life is a spiritual battle, and we are called to be good soldiers of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
But in order to be fully equipped and ready to meet the arch enemy of our souls, ready
to stand against him, we need to be aware of Satan’s schemes.
Paul references the schemes of the devil here in verse 11.
What do those schemes include?
Well, you got a couple hours?
There’s a lot of schemes.
His schemes are multiple.
Satan’s very smart.
Remember, Satan was created as a holy, glorious spirit being, a holy angel.
So were the demons who followed him in his rebellion.
But sadly, as the Scriptures indicate, he fell from that glorious estate into sin and
damnation, and he is out.
He is out for blood.
So what are his schemes?
Well, many of those schemes he concocts from outside of the church.
We see, for example, his schemes to discourage and weaken the church through external pressures
from outside, through things like ridicule, social pressure, worldly allurements, persecution,
and so forth.
But he also conducts schemes within the visible, organized church.
Satan’s schemes come to light, for example, in sowing the seeds of false doctrine and
heresy within the church.
He also schemes within the church, trying to create compromise, disunity, schism, the
planting of a root of bitterness, slander, gossip, complacency, and the list could go
on and on and on.
We need to be aware of the schemes of the enemy of our souls.
We need to be aware of his schemes, and we need to be resistant to them.
And we need to make sure that we’re not unwitting participants in his schemes, that he’s not
unwittingly using us to carry out his nasty plans.
So we must put on the full panoply, the whole armor of God that he makes available to us
in Christ and in the gospel.
We also need to understand the kind of foe that we face and the nature of the warfare
that we fight in the kingdom of God.
This is brought out in verses 12 and 13, where Paul writes this.
He says, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood.
Let those words sink into your hearts.
That unbelieving neighbor who’s hostile to the gospel.
At one level, yes, that is your enemy and mine, but that’s a fellow human being created
in the image of God.
That is a lost soul who needs the gospel.
Our job as Christians is not to win arguments with unbelievers, although we should bear
testimony to the truth of the gospel with gentleness and kindness.
But so often, and I notice this and I hope I don’t get onto too much of a tangent here
or onto a soapbox, but I notice the way that so many Christians today conduct themselves
on social media and online is really not very Christian.
So many are vitriolic towards unbelievers.
So many express anger, resentment, bitterness.
So many want to own, destroy, quote unquote, the arguments of the unbeliever.
Are you more concerned to win arguments or to win souls?
What is our concern?
Do we really love our enemies as Jesus called us to do?
And this is something that I have to acknowledge as well.
I’m not perfect in this area.
I struggle with that too.
I get up in arms and I get passionate about things and sometimes I have to back off and
say, wait a minute, before I post that thing, before I say this in the comments section,
maybe I just need to take a breath, take a deep breath and ask myself, is this really
going to honor Christ?
Is this really going to be a faithful testimony to the gospel?
Do I really need to say it?
We wrestle not against flesh and blood.
Our unbelieving neighbors are not ultimately our enemies.
They are lost souls who need Jesus.
Let’s seek to show them the love of Christ.
Let’s bring them Jesus.
Let’s not just try to shame them, embarrass them.
Yes, we need to bear testimony to the truth against the lies of the devil.
And sometimes that means standing for the truth against those who resist the truth.
But let us pray for God to give us a spirit of love even for our enemies, to do what Jesus
called us as disciples to do, to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us.
Verse 12 again, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against what?
Against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present
darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Understand, beloved, that this battle is spiritual, not carnal or earthly in nature.
Now, hear this language of wrestling.
This imagery of wrestling connotes intense hand-to-hand combat.
And so obviously, Paul is using imagery and illustrations from military action,
violent military action.
But this is an analogy.
This is not identity.
This is not him saying, this is what you’re called to do.
You’re called to take up the sword and destroy the infidel.
That’s what they were called to do under the Old Covenant.
There was holy war.
That was an illustration under the Old Covenant of the kind of spiritual warfare
that we are to be engaged in.
But now, now we’re not called to destroy the enemies of God.
We’re called to proclaim the gospel to them that they might become friends,
that they might be converted.
So even though he uses this language of hand-to-hand combat, even so, this combat is said
not to be against flesh and blood.
In other words, it’s not against human agents, and therefore it’s not to be fought with human
means, but rather it is against agents that are spiritual in nature.
Described here as the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
There is a spiritual realm, a realm of the demonic.
It is a powerful realm.
It is an influential realm.
We don’t see it with the eyes of flesh, but it’s there, and we need to be aware of it.
And we wage war against that, but we don’t wage war with guns or bazookas.
This is no jihadist style type of holy war involving physical violence.
Nor is it a warfare that is fought by political or cultural activism, though it does indeed,
it’s a warfare that does impact the common grace realms of politics and culture,
but you can’t spread the kingdom of God through political activism or culture warriorism
or what have you.
Rather, it is a spiritual war against the world, the flesh, and the devil,
and it is to be fought by spiritual means.
Take to heart the fact, also beloved, that this spiritual warfare is not directed again
against human agents, but rather against the evil spiritual forces that work
through human agents under their influence.
Back in chapter two, verses one and following, Paul describes all of us,
but he’s writing to these believers.
He reminds them of their condition before they came to Christ, before they were converted.
He says, and you were what?
Dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked,
following the course of this world.
And then notice, following the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.
That’s the devil.
He is the prince of the power of the air.
He’s working in the sons of disobedience.
Just as the Holy Spirit works in us believers,
so Satan and his demonic spirits work in the sons of disobedience.
Unbelievers are described as sons of disobedience because they are responsible
before God for their disobedience, but nevertheless,
there is an external influence in their lives that pushes them towards that disobedience.
But then he reminds them in verse three,
So there’s no reason to boast.
There’s no reason to boast.
Praise God, brothers and sisters, that the Holy Spirit is at work in us,
that we are freed from the power of the prince of the power of the air through the work of Christ.
But we need to recognize that those who are still under his influence
again, I know I’ve perhaps beaten this horse to death, but we need to be reminded,
they’re not ultimately our enemies.
They are those in need of the love of Christ.
William Hendrickson, in his commentary on Galatians and Ephesians,
he writes this about this passage.
He says, the reason for the urgent character of the admonition is that
we are not fighting against, quote, flesh and blood, that is,
against mere frail men with all their physical and mental infirmities.
On the contrary, it is against an innumerable, super mundane host of evil spirits,
the devil himself, and all the demons under his control that we are waging warfare.
But all of this stuff that I’ve mentioned, all of this spiritual reality,
it might make you feel discouraged.
You might be thinking, well, if the devil is so powerful,
I mean, he’s had thousands of years to perfect his schemes.
If he’s so powerful, so influential, and if the world system, which seeks to squeeze us
and conform us into its image, that we might be compromised.
And how do we fight this?
We don’t have the power.
And that’s the point.
My final point, beloved, is that our Savior, we need to remember when we’re discouraged
in this spiritual warfare that is more powerful than the devil
and makes available to us the full armor of God so that we might stand.
We stand only as we stand in union with him by grace, through faith, apart from works.
As it says in verse 13 of our passage, it says, therefore, take up the whole armor of God.
The Lord is in his sovereign grace and in union with Christ as the one who enables us to do this.
But there is an imperative here.
We are to take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day,
the day of testing, and having done all to stand firm.
To stand firm.
Even though the enemy of our souls is powerful, again, our Savior is even more powerful,
and he makes available to us the full armor of God by which we will be able to stand against
the devil’s schemings.
Yes, beloved, our enemy is formidable.
He is highly intelligent, much more intelligent than you or me.
He’s had thousands of years to perfect his schemings and his strategies.
He’s more powerful than you.
He’s more intelligent than you.
He has much more experience on the spiritual battlefield than you or I do.
How then can we hope to withstand?
Through the power and grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,
we can withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand our ground.
Why?
Because Christ stood for us and we stand in him.
Remember, dear ones, that he who is in you and me is greater than he who is in the world.
And remember, too, that the battle belongs not to you, not to me,
the battle belongs to the Lord.
It is his battle.
And so what are the weapons of our warfare?
Paul mentions some of them in this passage.
He says, stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth.
Truth.
We fight this spiritual war with the truth of God revealed in the Word of God.
Having put on the breastplate of righteousness.
Yes, Christ’s righteousness.
We are clothed in Christ’s righteousness.
And by grace, right living out of gratitude for God’s gift of salvation in Jesus.
And as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.
So we have what?
We have truth.
We have righteousness.
We have the gospel.
These are our weapons.
Not guns or bazookas, not political activism.
There is a place for political activism among believers, cultural activism.
They have a role in the realm of common grace,
but we don’t spread the kingdom of God through those things.
It’s very important to understand that.
In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith.
Here’s another.
Here’s another weapon in our arsenal.
This is, too, is part of the panoply of God.
Faith, saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.
And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit.
What is this sword of the spirit?
Is it made of metal?
No, it is the sword of the gospel.
Praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication.
Prayer is so important, brothers and sisters.
I’ve not always been a great prayer warrior, and I’ve been convicted of that.
Sometimes life and ministry gets busy, and I feel like, oh, I’m so behind.
I need to just, I don’t have time to spend much time in prayer.
I just need to get to work.
Then I need to remind myself that I will accomplish,
and more will be accomplished for the kingdom of God on our knees
than is accomplished through activism.
Not saying that we are to be passive and not active in seeking to share the gospel
and proclaim the word and minister to the saints and fellowship.
All of these things are important, but they need to be fueled by prayer.
Communion with God is essential.
Prayer is an essential weapon of our warfare.
Friends, we need to take up the full panoply of God.
The word, faith, righteousness, truth, prayer, the means of grace, and so forth.
Through the power and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
we can withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand our ground.
Remember, dear ones, that he who is in you and me is greater than he who is in the world.
And let us, recognizing that, take up the whole armor of God, the full panoply of God,
provided for us in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And all of God’s people said, Amen.
Let’s pray.
Our Lord and Father in heaven, we are weak.
We are prone to compromise.
We are prone to sin.
We are prone to despair.
Lord, we recognize that in our weakness,
you have an opportunity to display your glorious strength.
Lord, give us the grace not to boast in our strength, not to boast in our knowledge,
not to, for knowledge can often puff up, but love builds up.
Give us the grace, Lord, to boast in our weaknesses
that we might know the power of Christ using us to impact this lost and dying world.
Bless us as a church.
May we be a church that boasts in our weakness
that the power of Christ and his gospel may be displayed through us.
In Jesus’ name we pray.
And all of God’s people said, Amen.
Let’s rise and we’ll close our time by singing hymn 544.
Lead on, O King eternal, 544.
The day of March has come.
Henceforth in fields of banquests, thy tent shall be our home.
Through days of preparation, thy grace has made us strong.
And now, O King eternal, we lift our battle song.
Lead on, O King eternal, 544.