Ephesians 6:10-20 13 Pentecost 15 B
St. Peter’s
Lord God, may your Word become a light unto our path...a lamp
unto our way. And may the words of my mouth and the
meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, for you are
our strength and our redeemer.
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I’m glad to say that most of us have never had to fight in a
conventional war, or been in a combat situation.
Notice I said “conventional” war. The fact is, every day of our
lives, we actually are engaged in a war, and we are often on the
front lines.
It is a war of the spirit…a war of hope vs. despair…of love vs.
hatred…of holy living vs. sin.
The Christian walk to which we are called, and the battles we
must face because of it, calls for courage and perseverance, and
our Epistle lesson for today speaks loudly and directly about it.
St. Paul is closing his letter to the Ephesians. He minces no
words in his warning. As Christians, we are involved in
warfare…spiritual warfare. It's not just a battle with the weakness
of our flesh…with limitations of our mortality.
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It's not just a war that is raging inside us that St. Paul talked about
in his letter to the Romans, where he writes: "For I do not do the
good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Wretched man
that I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death?"
Ours is a battle with powers beyond ourselves. Listen to St. Paul
in verse 12 of our text from Ephesians: "For our struggle is not
against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the cosmic
powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of
evil.”
In light of all of that, St. Paul says in verse 10, "Finally, be strong
in the Lord and in the strength of his power." Then in verse 11,
he uses the military metaphors of girding ourselves for battle: "Put
on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand
against the wiles of the Devil.”
Then he names all those implements of military armor. These
become the spiritual armor in our fight against principalities and
powers of evil.
Then he says in verse 18: "Pray in the spirit at all times in every
prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always
persevere in supplication for all the saints.”
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And there's the word -- perseverance. To walk the Christian
walk requires courage and perseverance.
There are going to be times of spiritual assault in all of our lives -assault from the evil one. Now I know that for a good many
Christians the metaphor of spiritual warfare is not one that we
think about very often because it sounds so…mythological. But it
is real.
And in that warfare, there are occasions of special danger. The
scripture talks about the "evil day" that will come upon us. So,
there are those occasions in our life when the warfare is at pitchheight, and we are under attack, and too many of us don’t
recognize what’s happening, or can't determine where it’s coming
from.
For some people, it comes at a time when everything’s going
great. We are secure economically, the children are doing well,
everyone is physically healthy, the marriage is in good shape.
And then all hell breaks loose, and one serious challenge after
another seems to pile up. And they often seem to show up at the
same time, amen?
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Enter now the evil one…the enemy. He sets wife against
husband; parent against child; friend against friend…even us
against God! He fills our minds with questions about whether life
is worth it. Then finding a hint of doubt, he enlarges it to have us
even question the faithfulness of God.
When that happens, and he thinks that he’s already won, he hides
in the shadows, laughing, as our faith wanes, along with our
relationships with one another.
Think about this scenario for a second. Has anything like this
ever happened in your life? Did you even know it was happening
at the time?
When we leave him to direct the show, the enemy finally tears
relationships and our sense of self-worth to shreds by relentlessly
attacking our perseverance and our faith.
The "evil day" comes in all sorts of ways. We hang precariously
on that cliff of unexplained, mysterious suffering, and many
succumb to it, forgetting about the armor of God that is made
available to us.
So, living a spiritual life often means being attacked, and we had
better stay aware of it. Evil seeks to invade our inner and
interpersonal worlds.
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C. S. Lewis once said, "There is no neutral ground in the
universe. Every square inch, every split second, is claimed by
God, and counterclaimed by Satan."
General Douglas MacArthur once wrote an article entitled
"Requisites for Military Success," and he gave the four principles
that he believed were most important in order to win a battle. He
said, first of all, there must be morale. He said a fighting force
must be united by an esprit de corps, a will to win, and a sense of
a cause worth dying for.
Secondly, there must be strength. The soldiers must have
adequate training and must be well equipped to do the job.
Third, he said there must be an adequate source of supply.
Lifelines must be kept open, so that those at the front receive all
that they need to win.
You know what he said was by far the most important principle?
He said, in order to prevail, you must have knowledge of the
enemy. MacArthur wrote, "The greater the knowledge of the
enemy, the greater the potential of victory."
And we are told here who our enemy is. Verse 11 says, "Put on
the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand
against the wiles of the devil."
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Now I want to be very careful here, because I want us to avoid
two extremes we might have in our attitude toward the one called
Satan. Again, I get this perspective from C.S. Lewis.
On the one hand, many people ignore the devil. Some even
make fun of him. They think of the devil, again, as some kind of a
mythical figure.
Well, I want to say right up front, and I'm not ashamed to tell you,
I believe in a personal devil just as much as I believe in a
personal God. And he is not an enemy to be trifled with. Don't
underestimate this power.
And don't ever think we can handle him on our own, because we
can't. By ourselves…in our flesh…he will overpower us every
time.
But we are also told in v.11 that we are to "stand against the wiles
of the devil." Now the word "wiles" is a very interesting Greek
word. It gives us the English word "method." It literally means
deceit or trickery.
Satan is the master of deception. In the Old Testament, he is
referred to as ha satan…the deceiver. The devil has even
deceived us in the way we think about him.
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We conjure up the picture in our mind of a little man wearing long
red underwear, with horns on his head, a forked tail and a
pitchfork in his hand.
In 2 Corinthians, we read that "Satan disguises himself as an
angel of light." If we could see the devil in bodily form, I believe it
would shock us how attractive he would look. It would even
shock us how gracious and kind he could seem to be. You would
never know that he is the most wicked force in the universe. I
want us to understand that this devil is interested in nothing less
than our downfall.
We're so fond of saying that "God loves you and has a wonderful
plan for your life." Well, I think we ought to add to that this
reminder: "Satan hates you and has a wicked plan for your life."
But we also need to avoid the other extreme of being obsessed
with the devil. I'm always wary of Christians who see a demon
under every rock and a devil behind every tree.
Nevertheless, the enemy is doing everything he can to make our
trip to heaven as miserable as possible, with the primary objective
of separating us from our faith in God, and causing us to lose the
joy of our salvation. THAT is the definition of hell.
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But understand the advantage we bring to the battlefield. St. Paul
says in v.11, "Put on the whole armor of God." Literally what the
verse says is this: "Put on the whole armor of God and keep it
on."
There are no furloughs. No truces. No leaves of absence. No
cease fires in this war. We've got to keep our armor on and keep
our guard up. We can never let our guard down, because just as
soon as we do, the enemy will sucker-punch us. He’ll hit us at our
weakest moment, when we least expect it.
So I am admitting to you that Satan is dangerous. The devil is
deadly. Old Lucifer is destructive. This wicked force is deceptive.
But listen to me carefully. He is not invincible.
During the first Gulf War, I was part of the team that helped
develop the air portion of the battle plan to defeat the Iraqi forces.
I will never forget how concerned we were about the Iraqi forces
at the start of the war. We were preparing to encounter forces
that we thought might be as tenacious as the Japanese during
World War II.
But after the war was won in just a matter of days, I will never
forget how General Schwarzkopf stood before a press conference
and gave this assessment.
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He said, "Saddam is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the
operational art, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he
a soldier. Other than that, he is a great military man.”
Well let me give you some good news. Satan is not
omnipotent…but God in Christ is. Satan is not omniscient…but
God in Christ is. Satan is not sovereign…but God in Christ is.
Other than that, he is a powerful foe.
"Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world." You
see, we have an advantage over Satan. It’s called by St. Paul
‘the armor of God.’
I want you to imagine sitting on a U.S. battleship. Now hold out
your hands…and spread them as close to 24 inches apart as you
can. That’s how thick the bulkheads were on the battleships. In
fact, the armor plating on an American battleship was so thick that
bombs, missiles, and torpedoes would bounce off an armor-plated
bulkhead.
Well, God has given us armor guaranteed to repulse the most
powerful missiles, the strongest bombs, and the mightiest
torpedoes that Satan can fire at us...AS LONG AS WE ARE
WEARING IT. No wonder we read in James chapter 4: "Resist
the devil and he will flee from you."
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Did you know there is not a single verse in the Bible that tells us
that we are to run from the devil? The Bible says we are to flee
temptation. The Bible says we are to flee sin. But the Bible never
says we are to flee from the devil. The Bible says we are to resist
the devil and he will flee from us.
So make no mistake. We are in a spiritual war. Call me
crazy…but just look around.
So, we are armed with the knowledge that, because of the Lord
Jesus Christ and his death on the cross, because of the awesome
power of the Holy Spirit, and because of the armor of God, we will
win the battle.
The war is already won. It was won for us on a hill called
Golgotha. But we’ve still got some battles to fight.
Whenever you feel like the world is closing in on you, stop and
consider if you’re under attack. It’s not ALWAYS the enemy.
Sometimes it’s just a series of coincidences, or the result of our
own bad choices.
Remember…STUFF HAPPENS. But what
we must learn, with the help of the Holy Spirit, is to determine
which it is…STUFF…or the enemy attacking us. This is called
SITUATIONAL AWARENESS.
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And if you feel that what’s happening to you is causing you to
doubt God’s saving love and true presence…if you forget in that
moment to turn to God for peace and the strength to
persevere…then it’s likely you are under attack.
And whenever I detect that that’s the case in my life, what I do is
say, “I know who you are, I know what you’re trying to do, and I
won’t let you do it, because I am a baptized child of God.”
It doesn’t always make the challenges, or the attack, go away, but
it gives me the strength of God’s armor to confront it and
ultimately succeed.
So, in the words of that famous ring announcer: let’s get ready to
rumble!
Amen
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