Gearing Up for the Fight

Let's bow our heads in prayer. Father, we, we are a weak and a needy people. We must have your strengthening. We must have your armor, and we thank you, God.

What a, What a wonderful act of mercy that you, the greatest warrior, the great one, the mighty one, the Lord of armies. That you would take your own armor. And give it to us and say, try this on. And get out there and fight.

Lord, I know that for myself and for everyone in this room who knows you, that there are, there are hundreds if not thousands of battles that await us. There are demonic intelligences that have heard every word that's been spoken this morning. And are already conspiring from my own defeat and the defeat of everyone sitting under the sound of my voice. They're good at what they do and they're strong.

We dare not walk out of this building, Lord, in our own strength. We dare not walk out of this building. Clothed in any way, but in your armor. Help us, God, to fight the fight, to keep the faith.

And the strength and the weaponry that you provide. We have so much more to learn as we work our way through this passage. We ask Lord that you would guide us as we continue through this text in coming weeks, that you would guide us as we process these things further tonight in our care groups. We might learn how to be better warriors for you.

We just give ourselves to You, Lord, in the name of Jesus, and all God's people say. Amen. Ephesians chapter 6 for a time of study and the word this morning, we're doing a verse by verse study through the book of Ephesians, and, just taking in a verse at a time and seeing what the Lord has for us. And this morning, we come to Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10, and we're going to be looking at, Verse 10 and 11, this morning, but we might be able to, to get into verse 12 and 13, also.

In preparing the message for, today, I was reminded of something that I read in John Maxwell's book, The Leader Within. he tells a story about the building of the Great Wall of China. and a wall that stretched a few 1000 miles along the northern border of China. He tells how that the wall was deliberately built to protect China from the invading armies to the north of them, and the wall was designed and constructed to be high enough that no invading army would ever want to bother trying to build a ramp and go over it.

And for the wall to also be built sturdy enough and thick enough to where no invading army would ever want to take the time and the trouble to tunnel through it or underneath it in order to get across it to the other side. And so this wall was constructed for the security of the Chinese empire, but according to John Maxwell, within, like after the wall was completed, the Chinese sat back and relaxed and felt secure. But within the 1st 1100 years after the Great Wall of China was completed, just within the 1st 100 years, there were 3 occasions where armies to the north of China successfully invaded China and got past the wall with their armies.

The question is how did they do that?

and it turns out they did not tunnel through the wall. They didn't tunnel underneath the wall. They didn't go over the wall. They simply went through the gates that were in the wall.

The gates were opened for them by guards at the gate whom they had bribed. And they marched right through 3 times within the 1st 100 years after the Great Wall of China had been constructed. I couldn't help but think about that as I prepared the message for today, because when you think about those invasions and getting past the Great Wall, was the problem with the wall or was the problem with those who were assigned to the wall? The problem was with those who were assigned to the wall.

And when we think about what we're going to be observing in our passage, this morning, the truth is that we have been given by God the equivalent of the Great Wall. When you think about the resources that we have been given in Christ, God has given us perfect armor, impenetrable armor. he has given us perfect weapons that are specifically designed to deal with the enemy that we have to engage in battle with. God has given us perfect power.

There's nothing deficient about his power. He's given us all of this, and yet, we're so often defeated. The question is why? I look back over my life this past week, and I rejoice in some significant victories that the Lord enabled, or the Lord accomplished in my life in and through me.

And I rejoice in that. But I also think back to the days of this past week, and there were a handful of stunning defeats that when it was over, I'm like, how did this happen? How did I let this happen? Given the armor and the weapons and the power that we're given in Christ, why are we so often defeated?

Is the problem with the armor? Is the problem with the power? Is the problem with the weaponry that we've been given by God? We all know that the answer to that question is no.

The problem is with those of us who are assigned To these weapons, assigned to this armor and assigned to make use of this power. And what we're going to be doing today as we are looking in earnest at Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10 and following is we're going to be observing from Paul what we must do to experience victory, what we must do to experience spiritual victory in our lives from day to day. Notice I don't say what we must do to achieve victory. Because there's really no need to achieve victory.

According to the teaching of the New Testament, the victory has been achieved by Jesus. We live in that victory. And so we're not asking how do we achieve victory. What we're asking is, how do we enter into the experience of the victory that Jesus has already won for us?

What is our role? What must we do to experience this victory? When I talk about experiencing victory, what does that mean? That means that if in the days of this coming week, or even later today, you are tempted to engage in a sin, And the temptation is great.

but by the grace of God, you make a choice that I will not commit this sin. Instead, I will do what is right. That is victory. If, later today or in the days of this coming week, you are, being faced with an opportunity to do something that God wants you to do, maybe somebody somebody has wronged you in some way, and you feel angry against them, and, you need to forgive them, and yet you don't want to forgive them.

And you also know that in forgiving them, that that means not only releasing them from the consequences that you would love to visit upon them for what they've done, but forgiving them also means that you volunteer before God to be an agent of blessing and good in that person's life. And so that this is what you're supposed to do, yet your flesh does not want to. But nonetheless, when the dust settles, you make a decision that you're going to step out and you're going to do the right thing.

That's victory.

When you're given an opportunity for ministry that you feel is way out of your league and way out of your comfort zone, and a part of you wants to retreat from that, but nonetheless, you decide, what, I'm going to step up to the plate and I'm going to do this even though it makes me uncomfortable, and I'm going to serve the God of heaven and do something that has eternal consequences for good. That's victory. All right. and I could go on and on and describing what victory looks like, but I think we all know what defeat looks like in our lives, and we don't like it.

And we know what victory looks like, and we all want that. And so, what must we do to experience this victory in Christ? Well, we're going to observe at least 3 instructions of what we must do to experience this victory. The first one is by way of review, and that is we must know our enemy and what he's up to.

We have to know our enemy and what he's up to. If you're going to be victorious, you need to understand something about your enemy. You don't want to obsess on your enemy and spend all of your time focusing on the enemy, but you do need to know your enemy and what he's up to. You need to be able to say with the apostle Paul, we are not ignorant of his schemes.

We, we know something of the devil. We know that he's out there. We know he's battling against us. We know what his schemes are.

We are not ignorant of his schemes. And so you need to know your enemy, and what your enemy is up to. Any, any coach that is worth anything, whether in the NFL, college football, basketball, or what have you, by way of preparing for a competition or a game, they always take time to watch film of the opposing team. And they analyze every part of the opposing team's game, their strategies, their play calling, what they do in different situations, what their tendencies are, what their strengths and what their weaknesses are.

And upon observing what their weaknesses are, they then try to exploit those weaknesses and not play to the strengths of the other team, but they know their enemy. They know their opponent. That's a part of preparation. And so we need to know our enemy and what he is up to.

And here's some things that we've learned about our enemy, and that is that the devil who is our enemy is seeking to defeat us through schemes. He is always scheming, always strategizing. He is always putting innumerable thoughts into us and understanding us, scrutinizing us, knowing what our weaknesses and our tendencies are, and then developing strategies, developing schemes that are perfectly suited to what he observes about us. The devil is doing the same things with regard to our children.

The psalmist in Psalm 139 says, how wonderful are your thoughts towards me, oh God, how vast is the sum of them. If I were to try to count them, they would outnumber the sand. That's a great truth, isn't it? God thinks innumerable thoughts about us.

And he scrutinizes our path, knows everything about us. But as wonderful as that is, we need to be sobered by the thought that there is another being who thinks innumerable thoughts, countless thoughts with regard to us, as he scrutinizes our path with the intention of exploiting what he knows, to strategize and scheme against us, to draw us away from righteousness, away from the truth, and into sin and error. We've also learned that the devil, the devil's forces wrestle against us.

Verse 12, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

The devil. and his forces wrestle with us in close hand to hand combat, as it were. And so it is an intense struggle for us to be what God wants us to be because they are viciously assaulting us. We also learned that the devil has succeeded in rendering the day in which we live as evil.

The devil is so largely successful in the providence of God on so many fronts in our society to such a degree that the Bible pronounces the days in which we live as evil days. Evil days, the devil has succeeded in, in, and rendering institutions and, and people evil so that we are surrounded by evil influences and traps and schemes through individuals and institutions and what have you. in fact, look at what he says in verse 13. Take a the full armor of God so that you will be able to resist in the evil day.

We are living in the evil day. We saw back in chapter 5, verse 16, that we're told to make the most of our time, because the days are evil in which we live. And then also look at the end of verse 12. Paul says, that we wrestle against the world forces of this darkness.

He's talking about the darkness in which we live in our world today because the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving and has spewed darkness. We live in this environment of darkness. We long for heaven, when we can be there with God for all of eternity and uninterrupted light and glory, but now we are in a realm of darkness. We are living in Baghdad.

OK, that's the analogy, the picture we need to have. We are living in an exceedingly dangerous place where there is darkness. And where there is evil. And lastly, we learned that the devil assaults us with flaming arrows just everywhere we look, arrows are coming at us, arrows that are on fire, designed to set us on fire, not just to puncture us and to injure us or to destroy us, but those arrows are on fire.

They are designed to set us on fire. And whatever that fire may be, the fire of Guilt and condemnation. The devil loves for us to be burning with guilt and condemnation over past sins from 10 years ago, 20 years ago, or even from this past week. He wants to beat us down with condemnation and guilt.

It may be the fires of lust, or the fires of anger, whatever, whatever. The devil is shooting these arrows at us because he wants us to be on fire with the very fires of sin and of hell. This is our enemy. This is the environment in which we live.

Anyone living and moving about in Baghdad today really would do well to sit down and understand the situation in that city before he just goes about freely. And we're living in an even more dangerous place spiritually where bombs are exploding, missiles are being fired. Fires are going off. Lives are being destroyed all around us, and the devil is seeking to destroy us.

And so we must know our enemy and what he's up to. If we just get up in the morning and just think I'm going to be a pretty good guy, I'm going to be a pretty good gal today, and we just just go into the day without really thinking about it, we are going to be injured. We're going to be defeated, guaranteed. So we need to know our enemy and what he's up to and know that he's active, but we also coming into verse 10, need to make a decision to be being made strong at all times by the Lord, to be being, I, and I do that to denote the continuousness of this.

We need to be in a position where we're constantly being made strong at all times by the Lord whom we are seeking to strengthen us, we need to look at the evil opposition that is around us that seeks to fight against us in our battle to do right and to abstain from what is wrong and to step out and to minister for the Lord and, and to share the gospel with other people. We need to realize that there are powerful forces lined up against us. And we are not equal. Equal to that power, those powers far surpass our own.

And so we need to look at that, realize that and say, I dare not go into this day in my own strength. I need a strength different than my own strength. And there's only one strength, one might that is greater than the might of the enemy. And that is the strength and the power and the might of Jesus himself.

And so Jesus, I, I come to you, I want to continuously be strengthened by you and by your strength that you give, because His power is greater. We saw in Ephesians 1:19 that Paul wants us as Christians to know what is the surpassing greatness of his power. He doesn't just say, I want you to know God's power. I want you to know how great it is, and not just how great it is, I want you to know how surpassingly great it is.

It, it, it far surpasses the power of your enemy. And so we need to humbly recognize the insufficiency of our own strength and come to the Lord continuously seeking to position ourselves in a way that we are being strengthened by Him. There's another thing that I think Paul means when he is telling us to be strong in the Lord, and that is to be strong minded. Often in scripture, when we're told to be strong, it has the idea of being courageous, being strong minded.

sometimes we might even talk this way to our children or to one another, maybe our children are complaining, they're whining and they're wanting to give up, and we might say, be strong. And what we're saying is, in part, be strong minded, be determined, and don't give up and don't let your fears, cause you to back down or to quit. And so part of what Paul means is we need to be made courageous, daring, bold, and determined. we need to be willing to just step out and be daring in our faith.

Yeah, we've got severe opposition. The enemy's power is great, and yet we should have courage in the face of that. We should be daring in the face of that, even though, get this, guys, an opportunity for ministry presents itself, and that it's going to be something very significant in the lives of people. If you say yes to that, you basically put a bull's eye right on your chest.

And that you make yourself a prime target for satanic attack. But are you strong minded enough to say, what, even though my life is going to get real messy and way more uncomfortable, I'm stepping out and I'm going to do what God wants me to do. For us to decide what we have decided regarding the upcoming Easter service. To have our brother Aurelio share his testimony, and we've got some flyers that we're going to be really beautiful looking flyers, thousands of them that we'll be, I think, making available as early as next week so that, you will have that as a resource to just get the word out.

We want as many unsafe people as we can possibly get in this building on Easter Sunday so that they can It under the sound of the gospel, we are convinced that souls are going to be saved on that day. And given that fact, and launching out and doing a corporate venture like this to share the gospel with other people, it puts a bull's eye right on this church. And you can bet that the devil is going to be attacking. He already has been attacking.

But are we daring enough to say, what, we're going to be strong minded about this. And yeah, things are going to get complicated, they're going to get messy. Our life is only going to get more difficult in the coming weeks, but we are willing to do this. We will take this extra intensity and be strong minded and determined and doing what God wants us to do.

Paul would tell us, you'd be strong-minded about this, you'd be bold, you'd be determined. Sometimes we have determination at the beginning, and we step out, we're trying to minister to somebody, minister in some situation, and then things get messy, they don't go well, and we back off and we just quit. We just quit. We lose that strong-mindedness.

We're not determined anymore. I couldn't help but think about a situation, several months ago where a man in our church was ministering to some people and, and his ministry to these individuals, it got, it just got messy and complicated and this man was in my office and with tears in his eyes, just, just, his life was so much more complicated because he was involved in ministry in a tough situation. And I'm thinking this guy's going to be discouraged. He's not going to want to be involved in the lives of people anymore.

but we talked about it and prayed about it, and when he got up to leave, He said to me, so this is what ministry is like, isn't it? And I said, yeah, this is what it's like. And he looked at me, he says, if this is what ministry's like, I want more of it. I want more of it.

Rather than being discouraged and losing his will to fight. He pursued, he pursued ministry and saw God work in some significant ways. So we need to expect opposition. When opposition comes, we should not be surprised at it.

We should not be discouraged by it. In fact, if anything, if the opposition that we experience intensifies, we should be flattered by it that obviously we are doing something that is. Challenging Satan's purposes to such a degree that he is coming at us with extra intensity. So to be strong means to be courageous, daring, bold, determined, as opposed to being fearful and timid, lazy and weak-willed, easily discouraged, even whiny.

Guys, do not complain. And why is the Christian life. So hard. Why does God make it so hard?

This is war. And what, you will have trillions upon trillions of millennia in heaven to just relax and you won't have to fight another battle. And in that future day in heaven, you will look back on this season of battle and war, and you will wish that you had thrown yourself into the thick of it even more. And fought more faithfully.

When you see Jesus and all of His glory in heaven, you will wish that you had fought for him better. You would long for the opportunity, as it were to come back and fight a better fight for the glory of that one who was so awesome, and who has saved you, and who himself fought a tremendous battle to the point of shedding his own blood because of the intensity of his temptation. He experienced all of that to accomplish your salvation. And now he asks you to engage in battle.

Don't whine about how hard it is. Now, how do we be strong minded like this? it's one thing to say be strong minded, but all right, so what do we do? All right, I'm going to be strong minded and just try to summon that strength.

Where, where does this daring, boldness, Courage come from? Where do we get that? someone after this first service last week came up and reminded me of an incident in the Old Testament that explains the answer to that question. You internalize what I'm about to share with you, you'll have no trouble.

having this strong-mindedness. Elisha was really causing problems in 2 Kings chapter 6 for the king of Aram, just fouling up his purposes to such a degree that the king of Aram wanted Elisha's hide. He wanted Elisha to capture him, to kill him, to do whatever, so that Elisha was not thwarting his, his plans the way that he was. And so the king of Aram sent a great army, the.

says to the city where Elisha was, he surrounded the city with thousands upon thousands of soldiers, horses, and chariots. And so the whole city is being laid siege to for one reason, and that is that that army wants one man that's inside that city. imagine that a great army comes against Riverside, surrounds the city of Riverside for one reason, and that is because they're after you. Well, Elishah's servant observes all of this developing and begins to freak out over it.

He wasn't strong-minded. And he comes to Elisha and says, do you see, do you see what's happening here? And Elisha Simply responded by saying, don't fear. Don't be afraid.

That's incredible strong-mindedness. A great army, horses and chariots, thousands of soldiers against one man, and yeah, he's got a servant who can maybe help, but that's not a lot of help. And he's saying, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.

Where does that strong-mindedness come from? Well, look at what he says next, and this tells us, do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. That's why he had boldness, because Elisha did not just see the opposing army and all of its might. He also saw with the eye of faith all of the resources of the God of heaven that were at his disposal.

God is greater than this army. God is greater than the king of Aram. And so let's not be afraid. And so Elisha then prays a prayer for his servant, says, Then Elisha prayed and said, O Lord, I pray, open his eyes.

Open my servant's eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. Suddenly now the servant could see what Elisha knew was there, and that is that all of God's resources were at their disposal.

You think that servant, we don't really know what happened. You think that servant was still fearful after seeing what he saw when the scales were removed from his eyes? No. No doubt he was as strong minded at that point as Elisha was.

And what guys, we do need to know our enemy. We do need to know what he's up to, but we can't just know our enemy, otherwise it would freak us out. We need to know our God. We need to know our Savior.

We need to know the resources and the surpassingly great power that is surrounding us, screaming into us and constantly at our disposal so that we know that the one who is with us is greater. Than those who are against us, and we have our strong mindedness encouraged and nurtured from an understanding of these things. So the first thing that we need to do if we're going to be victorious is we need to know our enemy and what he is up to, but we also need to be being strengthened.

and the Lord, and by the strength of his might, and in experiencing that we are having our minds and our will being strengthened by the Lord and by His might.

His might encourages us to be strong minded. And then the third instruction that is very closely tied to this is we need to take up and put on the full armor of God. If you're going to be successful, be victorious in the battles that face you every single day, you must take up and put on the full armor of God. Now, it's not like Paul says, here's what you need to do first, be strong in the Lord, and then something totally separate.

Now you need to put on the armor of God. They're both together. We need to be strong in the Lord, but one of the ways we become strong in the Lord is by equipping ourselves with the armor that he gives to us. We can have, for example, a soldier in Iraq who just is an incredible physical specimen and the perfect soldier in every way, but if there's guns that are that are blazing all around him and so forth, and he's standing there in the midst of that and he has no weapon, he's not very strong.

But if someone throws him a rifle, and throws him a weapon, now that he has that weapon in his hand, he is from a military standpoint, far stronger than he was without the weapon. And so one of the ways that we do allow the Lord to strengthen us is by allowing him to equip us with his armor, and he tells us to put on the full armor of God. Look at this verse 11, put on the full armor. of God.

Verse 11, look at verse 13, therefore, take up the full armor of God. Look at verse 16, in addition to all taking up the shield of faith, look at verse 17 and take the helmet of salvation. This is really interesting to me, the way that God speaks to us as His people. When you look at this command, basically, when he says take up and put on, he's telling us, go to where the armor is, pick it up, and then put it on.

Pick up the armor, lay hold of it, and then put that armor on your person until you are fully armed and dangerous in this battle that you are engaging in. Let's think about what these instructions imply. They imply, number one, that it must be true then that we're not automatically equipped with this armor. We're not automatically armed every moment of every day.

God doesn't tell us in His word, I want you to know that I'm, I'm doing something for you. I've provided the armor for you, and I will arm you every day. God does not arm us. He doesn't pick up that armor, and he doesn't dress us.

It is our responsibility to go to the armor, continuously, pick it up and put it on. We must dress ourselves in this armor that God has provided for us. It doesn't happen in our Christian lives that you get up in the morning and you look at yourself in the mirror and you're like, oh look at me. I've not even thought about it and I've got the helmet of salvation on and I've got, the breastplate of righteousness and I've got a sword in this hand and a shield in this hand.

I never decided to do this. I just automatically am armed all the time. It doesn't happen that way. You must make a decision to pick up and put on this armor, or you will be vulnerable to defeat and injury.

Another implication of this command is that without picking up and putting on the armor of God, you're not going to be able. To be victorious, to stand firm against and resist the devil. You won't succeed. If you skip this step and you don't go to where the armor is and pick it up and put it on and then fight with that armor, guaranteed you're going to be defeated every time.

But the third implication is apparently if we do take, Up and put on this armor, we will be able to resist and stand firm against the devil. We will be able to be victorious. All right. Now with that third implication, that ought to encourage every one of us.

We want victory, right? We want victory day by day in the battles that confront us. If we want victory, we must pick up and put on this armor. And if that is true, and we really want victory, we are going to be very interested in what this armor is, right?

because it is a key to our victory. We can't win without it. If we have it on and are using it, we're guaranteed victory. And so what is this armor?

What is this weaponry? If we want victory, we're going to want to become experts in this weaponry that God has provided for us. One of the things that they do in the military is. In the military, you study your enemy, but you're also given weapons and you are trained in the use of those weapons, how to use them and even how those weapons work.

In fact, part of the training, in some of the branches of the service is that you have to take your rifle in complete darkness, disassemble your rifle and reassemble it in complete darkness. That's how well you have to know your weapon. And so we need to be the same way. We have to know if it's crucial to our victory that we pick up and put on this armor.

We've got to know what the armor is. We've got to know where to find it, and we need to know precisely how to put it on and how to make use of it. If we know those things and we are experts in this armor, then we will be victorious. And so let's take an interest here in the next few moments in this armor and let's observe every little thing that is said about this armor that is so crucial to our victory in Christ.

the first description, it's one that we could easily pass by, and yet there's something very significant here. The first description of this armor that is crucial to our victory is that it is the armor of God. It is the armor of God. Look at verse 11, put on the full armor of God.

Look at verse 13. Therefore, take up the full armor of God. Twice he says that, because it is significant. He wants us to know that the armor that we are to attire ourselves with, the weaponry that we are to use is of God.

Now, what does that mean? Well, at the very least, it means that it's from God. God doesn't say, hey, you make your own armor. I've done everything else.

you make your own armor, and you figure out a way to protect yourself. No, at the very least, God fashions this armor. It's made by God who knows our enemy, and knows us and knows what we need, and he has fashioned armor, and he gives that to us. So at the very least, this armor is from God, that ought to encourage us.

There is a stamp on this armor that says made by God. And therefore, we must know then that this armor is perfect. But we also need to know that when we're told that this armor is of God, that also means that this armor is God's own armor. It's not just armor that God makes and gives to us.

To say it's the armor of God, Paul is saying that it is the armor that God Himself wears. OK, it's his uniform. It is his weaponry. It is his armor.

In fact, listen to what one writer says about this expression. He says, the full armor of God, which the readers are urged to put on as they engage in a deadly spiritual warfare is Yahweh's own armor which he and his Messiah have worn, and which is now for his people as they engage in battle. You realize what he's saying there? What he's saying is that the armor that we are told to put on is not only from God, but it actually is God's armor that has been worn by God in other situations as God has engaged in battle.

And that might seem a strange thought to, to us to think, God has worn armor. That's a thought that we don't normally think. But if you read the Old Testament, you realize that God has worn armor, as he has engaged in battle with the forces of evil. In fact, in Isaiah 11:5 talking about the Messiah, It says, and righteousness will be the belt around his loins and the truth, the belt about his waist, talking about the Messiah.

The Messiah, Jesus himself engaging in battle, is fully armed. He's wearing this armor. He has the truth that is girded around his waist that we are told to have girded around. our waist, and this is not all of the armor that the Messiah wears, but just these two pieces of armor are being identified.

And Isaiah 59:17 talking about Jehovah God. Isaiah says, and he put on righteousness like a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. So here is Jehovah God engaging in battle on behalf of his people against evil, and he's wearing a helmet of salvation and a breastplate of righteousness. And as Messiah is wearing the truth about his waist that we are told to put on.

Even when Jesus comes at a second coming, there is a sword that comes out of his mouth, which is what It's the Word of God, as we read in Revelation. And so this armor that Paul calls the armor of God is armor that God Himself wears and has worn on occasions when he engaged in warfare and battle. I want us to ponder that. And ponder how that should make us feel.

That we look at all this opposition and, and, and it's intimidating. We're not equal to the task, and we're like, how am I ever going to be victorious. And God says, What? Try on my armor.

This is the armor I wear. You put it on. It's like when David went up against Goliath, Saul. Who was too afraid to fight Goliath, said to David, Here, where are my armor?

David puts on Saul's armor. Saul was way bigger than David. David had to walk half a mile before the armor even budged. It was way too big for him, too clunky, so he wasn't interested in it.

But in this case, the God of heaven, who is a successful warrior. Takes his armor and says, put it on, put it on. And then imagine taking the armor of God that he has worn and engaged in many battles with and won every one of them. Imagine putting that on the helmet, the breastplate.

The shoes. The sword How does it feel to be attired? In God's armor. Does it make you more confident?

At all? I remember as a kid, my dad was in the Marines for 20 years and, Out in our garage was a trunk, a cylinder trunk. That had a bunch of military fatigues in it, and, I remember as a kid getting into that trunk and taking my dad's fatigues and putting them on. And the pants and the shirt and the boots and, didn't fit me, way too large, but I felt a certain way when I was dressed in his fatigues.

I had a ton of respect for my dad and also my granddad as a child, and so even when I was like just this high. I love to put on their shoes that were like 5 times too big and walk around in their shoes. I put my granddad's hat on my head. I wanted to be like my granddad.

He was bald, by the way, with just a little hair on his side, the sides, and, but I admired that because it was my granddad. I would even ask my dad when he would cut my hair, make me bald in the middle. I said I want a hole in the top like granddad has, and I, I begged and pleaded because I wanted to look like him, and I would wear his hat, I'd wear his shoes even when I was this high, because when I did so, I felt a certain way. To be wearing my granddad's shoes and to be wearing his hat.

And so take all of that and apply that here. We're going to engage in battle and God says, I want you to wear my armor that I have worn. And we put it on. And how do we feel?

How do we feel? We feel braver More confident We feel different. Wearing his armor, I love what one writer says. Listen to this.

This provides a lot of food for thought. He says the function of weapons and armor is not restricted to their use in combat. They also increase self-assurance and terrify enemies. Thus, there exists not only a technical or military, but also a moral or psychological function of arms.

That soldiers, for example, like in the Roman Empire, they dressed, their armor was specifically designed to ennoble them to boost their confidence and to terrify their enemies. That's what it was designed for. And when we put on the armor of God, yes, that armor is to be used for our defense and for our offensive attacks against those that are battling against us, but it is also, it also has a psychological intent. And that is to increase our confidence and our assurance and to intimidate our enemies.

think about it. The devil comes at you tomorrow morning, and he's just got some great scheme and he knows he's going to be victorious, and he comes at you and there you are dressed in God's armor. Armor that he's seen before. And has been defeated by before.

And he's like, oh, I've seen this before. This is bad news. This has been worn by God Himself, who always defeats me. This armor has been won by thousands of Christians down through the centuries, and when they're wearing this and using it, it always defeats me.

And so this armor that God gives to us is designed to defend us, to help us in our attack, but it's also given to us by God to boost our confidence, our boldness, and our courage, and also to intimidate our enemy. As we engage in battle, we engage in battle in such a way with this weaponry that ultimately the devil will flee. Well, there's a second description, and this is all we're going to get to this morning. Of our armor that we see in verse 11, and that is that this armor is fully sufficient.

It is fully sufficient. Look at verse 11 again. Put on the full armor of God. It's not just armor of God, but it's described as the full armor of God.

And then look in verse 13, therefore, take up the full armor of God. I think most of the translations have the word full or whole. And so he's not just saying put on the armor of God, but the full or the whole armor of God. Certainly, a part of what Paul is saying is put on all of God's armor, not just some of it.

All right. Certainly, Paul would insist upon that. But for Paul to describe the armor in this way, indicates that he's not so much telling us how much of the armor to put on, as much as he's describing something about the character of the armor that God wears and has provided, and that is that it's full in the sense of being fully sufficient. By the way, if we have time for a closer, after the service this morning, we're going to sing, I think, Soldiers of Christ Arise, is that the title?

And in that song, one of the lines is take to arm you for the fight, the panoply of God. We've all sung that before. And we've all sung the fact that we need to put on the panoply of God. Most of us probably have sung that and thought, I have no idea what a panoply is.

But it must be a good thing. So Lord, I want a panoply. I want to, I want to put that on for this fight. The word panoply is merely a transliteration of the word in verse 11 and 13 that is translated whole armor.

That's all it is. In fact, panopleon is the Greek word that is used here that is translated whole armor or full armor, and it's the word pleon that is the Greek word for weapon. All right. In 2 Corinthians, when Paul says the weapons of our warfare are mighty through God, that word for weapons is a pleon.

And then it has the word pan attached to the beginning, that means all or full. All right. So it's the full. weaponry of God.

In other words, a good paraphrase of this would be put on, take up and put on the fully sufficient weaponry or armory of God. He's telling us something about the armor. He's guaranteeing to us that this armor is sufficient. If we put it on and we make use of it, guaranteed, we will be victorious, we will find it not lacking in any way, shape, or form.

And we can be encouraged by that. We're not going to put it on, and then get out there and battle, and the devil's going to find some way through that armor. And we're like, man, the armor was good. It stopped a lot, but it didn't stop this.

And so it was defective in some way, that's never going to happen. It's fully, fully sufficient. What is it sufficient for? Well, look at this.

Look in verse 11, put on the full armor of God. And now here's the promise so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. You want to succeed in standing against the schemes of the devil, Put on this fully sufficient armor of God and make use of it, guaranteed you will stand firm against his schemes. It also will help us to successfully wrestle and fight against extremely powerful demonic intelligences that Paul speaks about in verse 12.

And then lastly, look at verse 13. he says, therefore, take up the fully sufficient armor of God so that you will be able, if you do this, you will be able to resist in the evil day. In other words, the evil day in which we live, and then even those especially evil seasons where the devil comes at you with every gun blazing in a concentrated. attack during a season of your life.

If you put on the armor of God, you will be able to resist in the most evil of days, the strongest of temptations, the worst of the battles, and having done everything and fought the fight, when the fight is over and the dust settles, you're still standing firm. I love that. I love that., there are, soldiers that may fight, And they end up victorious, but once the victory is won, they collapse in exhaustion. They can't stand anymore.

They're too weak, or a marathon runner who runs the race and gives it his all. He crosses the finish line. He's victorious, but then collapses to the ground. He, he has nothing left.

He can't stand. He's exhausted himself. We've all seen that thing happen before. And I know in my own life, there have been times where I fought spiritual battles and I've been defeated because I grew exhausted.

There have been times where I fought spiritual battles, and I ended up victorious, but I was utterly exhausted at the end and vulnerable to the next attack that came right on the tail, the tails of the first one, and I was vulnerable. But you want to be able to fight the worst of spiritual battles. And not only win, but after you've done everything to win. You're still standing.

You've still got, you've still got more. Do you want that? Put on the fully sufficient armor and weaponry of God. You will be able to do everything you're supposed to do in battle, and having done all of that.

To still be standing. To still be standing. And ready and equipped for more. Starting the next time we come to this passage, we're going to start looking at how Paul identifies the different pieces of armor.

And, we're going to see there's a certain powerful theme to the pieces of armor that we are to put on, the weaponry that we are to make use of, and, I think as we learn even more, it'll make us even more excited about this armor. But I think we've learned enough to apply this week. That we might allow ourselves to be strengthened by the Lord, to know our enemy, and to take God's weaponry, God's own armor and put it on and enjoy having it on. And putting it to use in the battles that confront us this week.