The Full Armour of God

SERMON: 2016-11-13--e0602--the-full-armour-of-god-part-2 SOURCE DURATION: 00:46:36.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The opening segment [0] begins the teaching by referencing previous material ('Picking up where we left off last week'). The closing segment [477] concludes a discussion on flexibility and society, which is theological exposition/pastoral application. Both mark the boundaries of continuous sermon content. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Picking up where we left off last week, the full armor of God, part two, still on Ephesians chapter six, the verses 10 to 18, I'm going to suggest we just read it together this morning. Would you be willing to just add your voices to my voice as we read the scripture portion, beginning at verse 10, "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything to stand. Stand firm then with a belt of truth buckled around your waist, with a breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with a readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints." Great job. Let's pray together. Again, Lord, as we pick up this theme of spiritual warfare this morning, and you remind us once again that our battles are never merely against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places. We know that we need your protection and your grace so that through it all, we may remain standing. Help us, Lord, in our own individual lives to recognize where the battle lies. Help us to avail ourselves of the full armor of God putting on each piece with prayer. And may we individually and together and with your people all over the world remain faithful to you so that in the end, we will see Satan cast out from heaven entirely and completely, and the kingdoms of this world will again have become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. Forgive us, Lord, where we fail. Help us never to be discouraged, but to stand firm in faith, knowing that the good work that you've begun in us, you will surely bring to completion in the day of Jesus Christ. We ask it in his name and for his glory, Amen. So I left you last week with a question. What does the Apostle Paul mean when he says here in Ephesians 6 verse 15, "Stand firm then with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace"? How many of you did your homework? Come on. Come on. I see a handful here or there and one in the back there that is raising two hands. That doesn't make up for the many of you that didn't do your job. But as I said, it's one of the most difficult verses in this particular passage and the one subject to the most different interpretations. The most common interpretation that is given to this passage is that it refers to our need to be ready to share the gospel regardless of what the devil throws at us, the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. I'm not ready to rule that out entirely because if you read on in the passage, you discover that he does indeed invite people to pray for him, Paul does, so that he can proclaim the gospel freely. Listen to verses 19 and verse 20. He says, "Pray also for me that whenever I open my mouth, words will be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains, pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should." So there is that element where Paul says, "Pray for me so that I will not be hindered in proclaiming the gospel." Paul at this time is in jail for the faith, as you know, and so all of the dynamics that come along with that are part and parcel of his life. Now that having been said, the context of these verses in Ephesians 6 is not evangelism. The context of these verses in Ephesians chapter 6 is that we should remain standing firm in our faithfulness to the Lord regardless of what it is the devil may be throwing at us. Listen again to verses 14 and 15, "Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. Stand firm then." The whole emphasis of the passage is after you've done everything, no matter what the devil has tried to throw at you, remain standing firm. Shoes are an important part of that. And for us to do justice to what it is that Paul is trying to get at here, it helps to begin by understanding standard issue footwear for the Roman soldier. Going all the way back to Alexander the Great, the chosen footwear for soldiers in those days was the lowly sandal. And that sandal looked like this. It had a thick rubber, a thick leather sole. It had leather straps that attached it to the foot, and then on the bottom, of course, and you can see that, it had hob nails to enable soldiers to remain standing. Those shoes served a threefold purpose. Number one, to protect the soldier's feet. That's what shoes do. One of the military strategies in those days was to plant sharp spikes just below the soil in the hope that an enemy soldier would step on it, penetrate his foot, and then be out of commission because of the injury and perhaps the infection that would follow. So thick leather soles were an important part for protecting the feet, not to mention the different terrains that a soldier would have to walk on or fight on. Second function of the sandal was to provide solid footing. That's the purpose of these hob nails. If you've ever played rugby or soccer or football, then you know how critical it is to have solid footing on the field. You start sliding around and you're sunk. If you've ever tried walking on ice, doesn't matter what you have on your feet, you know how hard it is to get traction. One of my memories from my youth is trying to drive the car on a PEI dirt road after an exceptionally heavy freezing rain situation. And I have never seen the likes of this before. There was so much ice on the road that it was impossible to keep the car on the center of the road without sliding off to the side. And we've all had those kinds of experiences. There's nothing scarier than having no friction between yourself and the ground that you're on. Third reason then is, of course, and that's almost the opposite of standing firm, and that is to enable quick movement. While it's important for a soldier to stand firm and not slide around, it is equally important to be nimble on his feet because the battle will change, the situation will change, you can be thrown off balance, and you need to be able to easily and quickly and unencumbered move your feet. So those are the three practical purposes of the sandal for the Roman soldier that Paul picks up on here and then applies to us in a spiritual lesson, and in the time that remains, let's see if we can walk our way through at least some of these. First of all then, what Paul is saying is that our walk needs to be protected. Psalm 1, the verses 1, 2, and 3, very familiar passage I trust, "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree, planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf does not wither, whatever he does, he prospers." Now Satan, the great enemy of our souls, isn't particularly interested in seeing us prosper, and if there is some way in which he can compromise our walk with the Lord, then he is going to do that to the fullness of his ability. I believe that one way in which he does that is he makes us careless where we walk and with whom we hang out. How many of us haven't been in situations or know of people who have been in situations whose walk with the Lord was compromised because they happened to hang out with friends who did not join them on that journey. Sometimes people are married to such people and you have an unequally yoked relationship, and more often than not it leads people away from the true and the living God. The book of Proverbs has a lot to say about that. Here is one passage that really underscores it. "My son," let's read Proverbs 1 verse 10, "My son, if sinners entice you, do not give in to them, do not go along with them, do not set foot on their paths." Man loves to trip us up on our walk with Christ so that we are no longer a danger to him and a danger to his kingdom. Another way in which he does that, and I've seen him do this a lot, is in creating relational chaos in our lives, especially in those relationships that are close to our hearts. I mentioned last week how in the early years of my ministry I discovered that I could never fight with my wife longer than six days because Sunday would come around and I'd have to be reconciled by then. A number of you good pastoral folks took me aside afterwards to remind me about that verse in Ephesians about not letting the sun go down in your anger. And my temptation was to say, "Well listen, in northern Alberta it takes a long time for the sun to go down, like six days easily." Of course I'm joking, but the reality is that it takes time to grow into biblical obedience and even now I'm sure most of us have days where the chaos at home spreads into our ability to do our work. One of the women here who came to me last week told a great story about how before she got married her father told her never to let the sun go down on her wrath and to make sure that they were reconciled before they went to bed. And one night her husband chose to sleep on the couch so what did she do? Well, she made her bed beside the couch and spent the night there and not surprising that's been a strong and solid marriage when you take scripture that seriously. But if the devil can create chaos between husband and wife or turmoil between parents and children then you know how hypocritical you feel very quickly to be out there trying to do something for the gospel's sake when your own life is in turmoil, isn't that true? That's why our feet need to be shod or equipped with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. The gospel has to do its work relationally so that we have peace in our walk as much as we can. Turmoil sometimes is unavoidable but the quicker we deal with it the better we can remain standing as soldiers of the cross. That's why Paul says in Ephesians 5 verse 15 and this is from the Revised Standard Version, look carefully then how you walk not as unwise men but as wise making the most of the time because the days are evil. Not hard to get into a fight, not hard to pick a fight but unless you're very, very careful it will compromise your ability to stand for Jesus. So that's one lesson we draw from it and then there's a second lesson and that is this, we need to be able to stand our ground and again that is the thesis of this whole passage, it repeats consistently. The verses 13, 14 and 15 therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes you what, may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything to stand, stand firm then with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. Stand firm. Now to stand firm clearly means you hold your ground no matter how much pressure is applied to get you to try to move and it means you remain faithful to the Lord and faithful to what he stands for regardless of what comes at you from whom and from what direction. Now last week I told you the story of the distinguished professor speaking at a church in Grand Rapids sharing his story of how he came to embrace same sex marriage as an issue of justice in the kingdom of God and what bothered me about his presentation as I read summaries of it was not only his bad use of science, he's way behind the times in terms of what he is quoting and his bad use of scripture, his exegesis was atrocious but what bothered me the most is here he has an audience of 300 people and how many of those people are going away with their attitudes and their minds changed on a very contentious topic in our day of age simply because they have been bowled over by a distinguished professor. Isn't that true? How important it is for God's people to be able to stand no matter what comes at them. In 1 Corinthians chapter 16 Paul puts it this way, he says, "Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be men of courage, be strong." Now the challenge about standing strong is what are you going to stand for? So I want to try to give you this morning three areas where I believe God's people in this day and age especially need to be very clear about what it means to be strong. Because you see there's lots of people who are strong for all of the wrong reasons and all of the wrong places because they're driven by fear or because they're just stubborn or they can't change with the times. How do you find the balance between being nimble on your feet and yet at the same time remaining firmly committed to the ground that God has entrusted to you? First place where we need to stand firm I believe in this day and age is on the authority of scripture. Let me say it again, the authority of scripture. Paul writing to Timothy, "All scripture is God breathe and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the man or the woman of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." God breathe means the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of scripture to write down his word and his message. The Apostle Peter says the same thing in 2 Peter chapter 1 verses 20 and 21. He says, "Above all you must understand that no prophecy of scripture came about by a prophet's own interpretation. They didn't just sit down and make this up for prophecy never had its origin in the will of man but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." The Bible claims from one end to the other that it is the authoritative word of God who breathe his message into each of the Bible writers, each bringing his own personality, his own grammatical style, his own flavor to the message. It's always a combination of the divine and the human but the Bible is the authoritative word of God, our only guide for faith and life. That has been the historic traditional biblical position. Apostle doesn't like that very much because he knows that as long as we listen to God, we're going to be smart enough not to listen to him. And so from the very beginning of history, Satan has been trying to undermine the authority of "thus saith the Lord." Go back with me to the beginning of Genesis, the fall of Adam and Eve. How does the devil approach Eve? He challenges her with this question, "Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?" But it's a fascinating question because it undermines her trust in God and challenges what God has said because the reality is God did not say you cannot eat from any tree in the garden. God, in fact, said you can eat from all of the trees in the garden except this one. Why not this one? Because it's bad for you. It's going to kill you. So Satan turns around the one negative command that God has given to Adam and Eve to keep them safe and he says, "See, you cannot really trust God to be interested in your well-being." And so when the woman responds that God has said they could eat from all of the trees but not this one, then of course he comes back with this line in Genesis 3, 4, and 5, "You will not surely die for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Now listen to me carefully and I've taught on this before but it is so critical to get this right in this day and age. What really is the issue here? The issue is one of what the philosophers would call epistemology. How do you arrive at the knowledge of good and evil? God says you arrive at the knowledge of good and evil by listening to me. You're only barely on the scene. You don't know the complexity of the universe. I'm giving you guidelines to live by, not to make your life miserable but to keep you safe because I'm good and because I love you. The devil comes along, turns that around, and he says, "No, God is not good. He doesn't have your good interests at heart. You cannot trust what he says to be best for you. How do you arrive at a knowledge of good and evil? You have to trust your own instincts. You can tell for yourself what is right and what is wrong." And so here you get the amazing perversion of this story. Now listen to me carefully because this is where temptation always will go. Here's this tree, the knowledge of good and evil. God says, "Eat from it and it's going to kill you and it's going to make life a mess for everybody that comes after you and all you have to do is look at the world to see what kind of mess that produced." Now the woman looks at the same tree ignoring what God has said because she no longer trusts him and what does she see? Is it a tree that looks bad? Is it a tree that's going to hurt her? Is it a tree that's going to kill her? No, the Bible says it was good for food, a delight to the eyes, and it was desirable to make one wise. So what did she do? She reached out and she ate and she gave to her husband and he ate. Now listen to me, from that day to this, the battle is who decides how we should live? Who decides what is right and who decides what is wrong? Is it God who made us, redeems us, who has our best interests in mind, who gives us his revealed will in the pages of the scripture, or is it our own wisdom, our own sense experience, our own keen insight? The moment you go down that path you are subject to deception because the devil will play you and what God said will kill you now looks like it's the most wonderful thing in the world. And how many people haven't broken the bonds of marriage? How many people haven't gotten themselves stuck into all kinds of trouble because they never saw it coming? It was tasty, it was delicious, and not until afterwards did they catch themselves as having been caught in the devil's snare. From that day to this, Satan has been at work trying to water down the authority of scripture and placing our experience above the revelation of God. Just the other day I got an email from a friend of mine who's part of a church elsewhere, part of a Bible study group, they've been studying this particular book that is trying to open up their minds to different interpretations of classical passages in scripture. And she summarizes the book this way, and these are her words. She summarizes the book as saying if we as Christians, now listen to this, if we as Christians truly believe that Jesus is among us still, guiding us to proclaim faithfully and live into God's saving reign, then on what basis might we claim that Jesus could never lead us to understand the issues of human sexuality differently from the New Testament writers? Do you get that? I'll read it again. If we as Christians truly believe that Jesus is among us still, guiding us to proclaim faithfully and to, guiding us to proclaim faithfully and live into God's saving reign, then on what basis might we claim that Jesus could never lead us to understand the issues of human sexuality differently from the New Testament writers? What she's saying, and what the author of this book is saying as she interprets it, and I think it's accurate, is that our experience trumps the New Testament writers' revelation of what is right. And so now we can argue that because we know things about human sexuality that Paul did not know, because Paul was the product of his day and age, and it'll even go so far as to say because we know things that Jesus didn't know, therefore our interpretation trumps the revelation of the Bible. You see where that leads? That leads you into a place where you can make the Bible say just about anything because our experience tells us what God said is bad is good because we know better. And that's the road to disaster. And that's why holding on to the authority of Scripture is so critical. And I know somebody's going to say, "Well, you know, it's hard to understand the Bible. You've got all these different interpretations," and that's true, but I always come back to this verse of Jesus in John chapter 7 verse 17, "If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own." The Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit, has to be interpreted through the Holy Spirit, and if we come to Scripture, not trying to impose our agenda on it to make it say whatever we want it to say, but if we come to Scripture with a desire that says, "Lord, show me your way so that I can better love you and serve you," then God will guide his people into all truth. And he will help us to understand the spiritual principles that apply and that are universal across the board. So let me ask you the question, what is your attitude to the authority of Scripture? I've told you this story, Christ's moment in my own life, in my seminary days, standing under a tree at Calvin's Seminary lawn next to the seminary pond under a big tree with my Bible in my hand. This is in the middle of the darkest night of my soul. Didn't even know if God existed, let alone whether he really loved me. But I said, "Lord, here's your word. By faith, I take it to be your authoritative word, and to the best of my ability, I want to live by it till the end of my days. And if I come to the end of my days and if I've been wrong in trusting it, then so be it that is the chance I'm willing to take." Because you see, I couldn't live with myself in the way that I see so many people live with Scripture. They take literally what they want to take literally and whatever they don't want to take literally, they just ignore. It is all God's word. And we need to have a submissive attitude to the word of God. You with me? This is what keeps the church from sliding down the tube and marrying the spirit of the age. And I've often said, if it takes this many wise people to interpret verses in the Bible as demeaning something else, then what they obviously mean, there's something wrong with our attempts at trying to rewrite Scripture. It's really not that complicated if our hearts are set on God. All right, that's one area where we cannot afford to compromise, I believe, and where God is calling His people to stand and where Satan is always trying to pull the ground out from underneath us. Second area very closely related to that is what I would call the centrality of the cross. Listen to Paul in 1 Corinthians 2.2, "I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." And then earlier on in verse 18, "The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God." Paul took everything that he knew before he met Jesus, called it all garbage for the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ, and the priority of his life was proclaiming the message of the cross. So let's talk about that for a moment because what is the message of the cross that he says is the power of God unto salvation? Well, you've seen this many times, but in short the message of the cross is that God is superbly holy, can't stand sin. We because of Adam's sin and because of our own sin have fallen. We are under Satan's dominion by nature, we're alienated from God, and there is no way the two of us can get together on our own. It is taken the intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ who was born into the world, lived our life, died in the cross, overcame death, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of God the Father, has poured out the Holy Spirit so that through faith in Him we might be restored to God. And the message of scripture is that this King Jesus sitting at the right hand of God the Father Almighty one day is going to come back and He is going to rule over the whole universe, the whole world, and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess, even the ones that cuss and curse His name today, that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father. That's the message of the cross. And the message of the cross is that if we want to get back to God, if we want to get back to life abundant, the only way is by humbling ourselves, acknowledging our sin, coming to faith in Jesus, and allowing Jesus to change us from the inside out. That's the message of the cross. And that message of the cross is foolishness to the world. How many people in today's society even give a moment's notice to Jesus as being the answer to every ill that plagues humanity even when they take His name in vain all the time and just blaspheme Him from one end to the other. And yet the Bible says that that's the name that is above every name and the name that is going to ultimately rescue the whole world. So the message of the cross is foolishness to the nations, absolute foolishness. And in our society today we're doing everything that we can to get rid of the name of Jesus because we just don't want Him. He's the stone rejected by the builders even today. But to those who believe the power of God and the ability of God to change things from the inside out and make it near. Now if you know the devil at all, then you can appreciate that he's not very happy about that. And so he is constantly trying to tone down the message of the cross. And he does that in so many different ways. He does that by denying that we are conceived and born in sin. How many people don't you know who think fundamentally the human race is good? And if we could only get rid of poverty and if we could only get rid of racism and if we could only get rid of class distinctions, then we'd have peace on earth and goodwill towards man. Many political and social agendas are geared towards that knowledge. The Bible says it's foolishness because it's not going to happen. And Satan likes to keep us living under the delusion about the goodness of humanity not only because if humanity is good, then we don't need Jesus. And so he comes to us and he preaches us another Jesus. We'll talk about that in just a moment. Another gospel and another spirit. And then his most clever way is to try to persuade us that if we somehow give some kind of intellectual assent to Jesus, that our sins are automatically forgiven and we are saved and ultimately God loves everybody and everybody is going to go to heaven. How many times haven't you heard that? How many funerals have you ever been to where the deceased wasn't talked into heaven regardless of the lives they lived? I mean, I had a conversation with a family years ago. Young fellow died in a drunken accident, did not live a godly life whatsoever. In conversation with the parents, they made it very clear that they wanted me to assure them and the congregation at the funeral that he was saved and he was with God. And he said, well, let's just leave his destiny in the Lord's hands because we're in no position to judge. Well, they were so livid and furious, they left the church and they'd never been back because that's the spirit of the age. You see, the spirit of the age is that God exists for our pleasure and that somehow we can be reconciled to him without the message of the cross. Victoria Osteen, some of you will know her, she's wife to Joel, pastors one of the biggest mega churches in North America, very affable couple, but got herself into a lot of trouble a number of years ago with this quotation, "Do good," she said, "because God wants you to be happy. When you come to church, when you worship him, you're not doing it for God, really. You're doing it for yourself because that's what makes God happy." Said this publicly, the clips all over the place, there's an edited version of it on YouTube that has Bill Cosby with a comment at the end of that, which is really quite humorous even though that's not actually what happened, somebody spliced that together. And I think I know what she's trying to say, but she really got it wrong because God doesn't exist because he wants to make us happy. God exists because he wants us to serve him, and if we do that in Christ, happiness will be the long-term result. We can put that quote back up for just a moment, "Do good because God wants you to be happy. When you come to church, when you worship him, you're not doing it for God, really. You're doing it for yourself because that's what makes God happy." It's all about me and not about Jesus. Satan tries to dilute the message of the gospel, and the apostle Paul is adamant in all his writings that whatever else happens, we cannot afford to compromise the message of the cross. Listen to this quotation, Galatians 1, 6, 7, 8, and 9. He says to the Galatians, "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach a gospel other than the one we preach to you, let him be eternally condemned. As we have already said, so now I say again, if anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned." That word I mentioned last week is anathema. It literally means let him go to hell. Why is Paul so adamant? Why is Satan so determined to keep us from embracing the message of the cross? Because if he can succeed in keeping us blinded in that spot, then he can keep us away from God and he can keep the purposes of God from being accomplished. And that is why you and I need to learn to stand firm on the message of the cross. I said it last week. I'll say it again, whenever you listen to teaching, whenever you read a book, whenever you hear, you know, direction giving out, ask yourself the question, where is Jesus and where is the cross? Is this teaching calling us sinners who are saved by grace? Or is this a teaching that says, well, you know, we're really not so bad. God loves us all. And we're all going to go to heaven someday. That is a falsehood that Satan uses to try to blind our eyes to the truth of the gospel. And even as we stand on the authority of scripture, we need to stand on the centrality of the cross so that at the end of the day, there is no compromise about how people are saved, excuse me, and how we are restored to our relationship with God. I think we'll stop there. I wanted to go on and talk about still a third place to stand. I'll just really quickly introduce it for a moment. And that is the importance of leaving out our faith in our daily living. Because there too, Satan would like us to compromise our walk so that our light is dimmed and our salt is diluted and we do not serve as a testimony to the world. But we'll talk about that more next time. And beyond that then, I want to talk about what it means to be nimble on our feet. Because even as it's important for us to know where are the places that we cannot stand, it's equally important to find those places where we can be flexible because society changes all the time. And what worked many years ago doesn't work today. And if we aren't flexible in the Holy Spirit to make those adjustments, then what happens [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:46:30.120; remove through 00:46:36.000] is that we become irrelevant to society. [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:46:36.000; resume after this marked segment]