The Armor of God
We saw last week that our most basic mission is to stand firm on God’s Word and all He teaches, to hold fast to the Gospel and all the rest of Scripture, to believe it all and live by it. In so doing, as a church, we will be fully equipped and enabled to complete the Great Commission, if not personally, then by the fully-trained members we send out from our congregation. We saw last week that we have access to the power of God and need to take hold of it. In verses 14 to 17, Paul lists more equipment God has provided to everyone who believes in His Son. As we walk through this armor, take stock: Are you missing anything? Does any piece need strengthening? Take note and make plans to close any gaps. From Ephesians 6:14-17.
Truth
14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place,
In order to stand firm, relying on the power of God Himself, the first two pieces of equipment we need to gird on are truth and righteousness.
Truth should be buckled about us like a belt, a belt that anchors all our other gear. There is only one truth we need: God’s truth, as recorded and revealed in the Bible. What the Bible teaches, we must believe. What the Bible commands, we must do. What the Bible illustrates, we must use the Bible’s clear instructions to discern whether those illustrations teach things to emulate or to avoid. Any teaching or so-called “truth” that does not agree with the teachings and truth of the Bible must be cast aside. These are deceptions from the devil intended to trip us up, to open ourselves up to more lies and sever us from Christ and from His true Body.
It has become popular in recent decades to speak of “your truth” and “my truth,” as if truth was relative to each person’s point of view. That has led to a deliberate confusion that provides a reason for so many to reject the possibility that there is absolute Truth. No one really believes in relative truth; it’s just a logical construct to get God’s Word off their backs. If those who claim to believe in relative truth really did, then they would never get upset if someone else ignored them.
The God-honoring Christian is not compelled to change people, but only to warn them of the truth and leave them to make their own choice. Out of love, we will of course urge them to repent, and they may take that as oppressive—and in truth, some of us can be so filled with love and concern for people that our urging can become excessive, but we should never apologize for that! We have real cause to be afraid for them, much more than they do for us—or the earth. We should be just as motivated or more motivated than the culture- and climate-warriors to call people to repent and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Jesus said: “For this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me” (John 18:37, NIV). Jesus came to testify to the One Truth, to God’s Truth, to tell us the rules and regulations of this world and this life. He also told us that everyone on the side of truth listens to Him! Do you understand what that means?
If you truly love truth, if you really desire to know the truth and genuinely seek to understand it, then you will listen to Jesus! But if you are unwilling to listen to Jesus, then you do not actually love or seek the truth! You are determined to live by your lie. You are deliberately suppressing the truth by your wickedness (Romans 1:18-32).
That’s why agnosticism, deism and any other form of “belief” in God or a Supreme Being that denies the ability to truly know Him is one of the worst deceptions in all of history. They claim to believe in an all-powerful being, but one who is unable or unwilling to reveal his thoughts, his activities and his will to his creation. Very convenient. It lets us off the hook for our actions. We’re free to live as we please, while confessing the existence of an unknowable Supreme Being, as if that Supreme Being will then be willing to receive us into an eternal reward, if there even is such a thing. A form of godliness that denies its power (2 Timothy 3:5). They’re less honest and less consistent than an atheist. None of them are genuine seekers of truth. If they were, they must arrive at Jesus and listen to all He says and imitate all He does.
This is the truth that we must be belting about our waists! Everything recorded in the Bible is given to us by God, and is the truth upon which we must build our lives (Proverbs 30:5-6; 2 Timothy 3:16-17)! There is no other way to know what is true. If we do not believe every word of the Bible, we will not know the truth and we’ll be sitting ducks in Satan’s cross-hairs.
Righteousness
This leads us to the second piece of equipment that we must put on: The breastplate of righteousness. This is not something that has been grafted onto our bodies so that we don’t need to think about it. Rather it is a piece of equipment that we need to actively put on and not taking off again! This is the righteousness that is completely under our control!
There is a way to live that is right in God’s eyes and will be rewarded by Him. There is also a way to live that is condemned by God. The right way is narrow and leads to life, the wrong way is broad and leads to eternal destruction (Matthew 7:13-14; Proverbs 14:12). Walking in obedience to the Scriptures is walking in righteousness. Jesus said, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17, NIV). “Sanctify” means to make holy, to be set apart to God. It is God’s Word that makes us holy and it is God’s Word that teaches us how to be holy. It is not enough to merely hear the Word of God; we must do what it says (James 1:22-25).
This breastplate is that new nature given us when we believed the Gospel, a nature that was “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). Putting on that breastplate of righteousness is putting on our new nature, as Paul instructed us in Chapter 4. In order to put it on, we first need to “put off [our] old self which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires” (Ephesians 4:22, NIV). Our old self is like an enemy agent in our own skin, trying to deceive us and get us to betray our Lord and our fellow soldiers.
God has a very particular way in which He wants His people to live. The Christian life is summarized by two commands, to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:36-40). But these two commands summarize a long list of very definite applications (Romans 13:8-14). To discipline ourselves and work at walking in God’s way is putting on that breastplate of righteousness (1 Peter 1:13-17). Walking in God’s ways protects us from the traps of the devil and from serving the enemy or falling back into his ranks.
Both truth and righteousness harken back to all the commands and instructions of Chapters 4, 5 and the beginning of 6. We need to be doing what we’ve been told—this is our righteousness (Deuteronomy 6:25).
The Truth of God’s Word teaches us how to live out God’s righteousness. With Truth belted around our waist and Righteousness strapped over our hearts, we will be able to recognize the devil’s schemes, warn our brothers and sisters and protect ourselves and this outpost of the God’s Truth.
Gospel Readiness
15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
The next thing Paul tells us to put on is a “readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.” The Gospel of peace, or to turn that around, the peace of the Gospel is not merely an internal peace. Rather, the peace of the Gospel is a cessation of war with God! It is surrendering to His authority and to His right to rule our lives. It is receiving forgiveness and a release from condemnation that welcomes us into an eternity of favor and blessing in the presence of God. It is receiving the power to put off the old self and put on the new, a readiness to do all His holy will. The Gospel of peace is an offer of peace to all who are willing to defect from Satan’s forces and join the Lord’s forces in humble submission.
It is a message that must be “proclaimed from the rooftops” (Matthew 10:27). Proclaiming a message requires a readiness to speak and a readiness to go to those who need to hear it. Readiness comes from much practice and continual training. The motivation to continually train and always be ready comes from receiving and believing the Gospel’s message of peace with God and hope of eternal life.
We’re all familiar with 1 Peter 3:13-17 (NIV):
Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened." But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. It is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.
We’re to be diligently living lives of good, as God defines good: the righteousness we just spoke about, which is revealed in the Word of Truth. Some will oppose us and harm us. We must not give way to fear. We have a peace and an assurance that promises life after death, and that hope frees us to live in obedience to the Lord in the face of hostile people. We must not change course by giving way to fear and doing what pleases men. Rather, we need to hold Christ as our Lord firmly in our hearts and lives.
And that will cause still others to marvel at our determination to live differently from unbelievers, even though it threatens to cost us everything. They’ll want to know how we have such confidence, such assurance, such peace. We always need to be ready to explain the Gospel we believe that gives us this transforming hope. Speaking and explaining graciously, respectfully, gently, because there are those who will slander us, even though we do everything right. God will allow wicked men to harm us; even that is a source of assurance and peace if we have been committed to doing good rather than the evil of the world (Philippians 1:27-28).
The Gospel of peace needs to be ready on our tongues, and the hope and assurance of salvation through the Gospel should make us ready to go and proclaim that message all around us. That’s how even if all we do is stay put and stand firm, we are still preparing servants of the Gospel who can and should be sent out to new places. They should be well-trained by life in their home church, their home fort.
Might of Faith
16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
The belt is strapped on. The breastplate is strapped on. Shoes are strapped on. Even the helmet that we’ll get to in a minute is strapped on. Those are like “set it and forget it.” Once you put them on, they’re always on—unless you take them off again. Like when you think you can rest, relax, take a break. Like when you think there’s no immediate threat and hasn’t been one in a long time. That’s the opportune time Satan is watching for. You must not take them off again. You must continually grow in understanding of God’s truth; you must continually put into practice all God’s Word teaches us; you must continually prepare to explain the Gospel.
Once you put these pieces of armor on, they protect you without you having to think about them. Now you look to the horizon, scanning for the enemy’s attack. And that’s where your shield comes in.
The shield stands separate from the rest of your armor, a mobile piece of armor, an additional covering outside the rest. It’s your first line of defense. And the kind of shield Paul is talking about is huge: a door-shaped, full-body shield! You can hide your entire person behind this thing! This shield would also be covered with layers of water-soaked hides in order to extinguish flaming arrows. And it’s designed to interlock with the shields of those standing side-by-side, to form an impenetrable defense against the enemy. This thing is mighty!
Paul calls it the shield of faith. That means faith is our biggest and most powerful defense against the attacks of Satan—which Paul characterizes as flaming arrows. Those arrows have two forms of attack: piercing and burning. If they can’t pierce you through your armor, if they can at least embed themselves in your armor, then they can attempt to burn your shield to weaken or destroy it or cause you to throw it away from you. These are not simple attacks. They may start at one point, but their influence spreads to other areas. It may be doubt about some point of doctrine or some statement in the Bible, but that first doubt opens the door to more and more questions about the rest of the Scripture.
Is Jesus really God? Or just some kind of son of God? Did He really die on the cross or just pass out? Are Heaven and Hell real places? How can a loving God send people to an eternal hell just for not believing in Him? Did God really make the world in six days? Did He really flood the whole earth and kill everyone in Noah’s day or was it just a local flood, “the whole world” from Noah’s point of view? Was the Tower of Babel and the confusion of languages a real thing or just a myth to explain the multitude of different languages?
There are too many doubts to list. But when you decide that the Bible’s teaching on creation is just a myth and evolution is a more likely explanation, you’ve opened the door to a complete rejection of the existence of God! You may not go there immediately. You may never go there, but your children will likely arrive there, many even before leaving home! When you decide that God is wrong to physically punish people for sin, whether as correction or as eternal judgment, you open the door to relational, inter-generational and social anarchy by condemning any form of consequence for wrong-doing. You may not arrive at that position, but your children or grandchildren surely will! These things are playing out before our very eyes!
Faith is our first line of defense, and it is our most powerful protection against such flaming arrows. Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (NIV). Faith is the certainty that the things taught in God’s Word which we cannot see or explain are absolutely trustworthy and true.
Faith fills the gaps between what we believe to be true from experience and what God tells us is actually True. It is being convinced that God is right even if our eyes and experiences tell us something completely different. It is taking God at His Word, even if everything in us argues against it. It is choosing to trust God and believe what He says and do what He asks, even when all the world says we’re wrong. That’s why some call faith “blind.” But it’s not blind; rather, it has its eyes fixed on an all-powerful, all-wise, all-good God, the God described by the Bible, the God who directed His servants to record all His words and deeds in the Bible exactly how He wanted them described.
And like the shield Paul is describing, so my faith can be linked to yours, and we are more powerful and better protected together. We gain that power by meeting together regularly, as Hebrews 10:24-25, to “spur one another on toward love and good deeds,” and sharpening one another as Proverbs 27:17 tells us. On the other hand, if we stand alone and isolated, that means we’re surrounded by enemy combatants, and as Paul reminds the Corinthians, “Bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33-34, NIV). Our shield of faith will grow weak and eventually left by the wayside.
Faith intercepts the arrows that would cripple us, and it extinguishes the fires that would otherwise eat away at our resolve. If it’s been damaged by flaming arrows, we need to restore our faith in the trustworthiness of God’s Word and determine anew to walk in its instruction.
Salvation
17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
There are two more pieces of equipment we need to take up: the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit.
As mentioned a moment ago, the helmet is another piece of armor that we strap on and leave it to do its thing. In battle, soldiers need to be continually on the alert, watching for the enemy and his attack. That means his head is often exposed to danger. If he’s always afraid of getting hit, he’ll never look up! He’ll be all the more vulnerable to a full-frontal assault that comes at him completely by surprise, because he wasn’t keeping watch. But a helmet guards his noggin so he has confidence to watch the battlefield even though the top of his head is exposed.
Paul identifies the helmet with salvation. Salvation speaks both of our righteous standing before God because of the forgiveness we have through the blood of Jesus, and the hope of our completed salvation at the return of Christ. It is the reason we have confidence before God, that we belong to Him, and courage to stand firm in the face of what seems an overwhelming task.
Salvation, the assurance of our salvation, should give us such an incredible confidence and courage as to make it seem like we think we’re invulnerable! Read Paul’s testimony in 2 Corinthians chapter 4! True faith in the Gospel, which brings salvation—true trust in our salvation should set us free from a fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15). We can, like Paul, face death all day long to bring life to others. We can stand firm in the face of Satan’s onslaught, we can risk everything—and lose everything!—and still not shrink back (Hebrews 10:32-39; Revelation 12:11).
If we don’t have our helmet on, or if we don’t have it on straight, we will not have the confidence to walk as Jesus instructs because we’re not convinced that there is life after this. This may be all we have, so we duck down and slip back behind enemy lines and try to go innocently about our own business, hoping no one will notice. If Christ has not been raised, if there is no real resurrection, no life after death, then we will have sacrificed, denied ourselves and served others, pointing them to a useless Gospel and missed our only chance at enjoyment (1 Corinthians 15:13-19). What a waste!
But Christ has been raised (1 Corinthians 15:20)! We who believe and obey the Gospel should be assured of our salvation and have confidence to commit ourselves to stand our ground on the Word of God—every word and all of it!
The Word
The last piece of equipment we’ll look at this morning is the Sword of the Spirit. It seems that the armor of God includes an offensive weapon! But swords are not just for offense; they are also for defense. We’re called to stand firm, to hold our ground. That’s a defensive posture. We’re given armor to protect ourselves. We’re given a shield to defend ourselves from the flaming arrows of the enemy. But we’re also given a sword, not to cut people down, but to parry the attacks of the devil. Remember, this is a spiritual battle and our enemy is the devil and his fallen angels (Ephesians 6:12).
Paul identifies the Sword of the Spirit as the Word of God, the Scriptures. We’ve seen again and again that all Scripture is God-breathed, inspired by God. They are His thoughts and instructions for our lives. They are given by one Spirit (Ecclesiastes 12:11). How then are they to be used for defense?
We’ve already said that they are the standard of Truth upon which we take our stand. We fight to defend the applicability of the Word of God to all life, even life in this modern world. As such, they are actually also the tool we use to refute error, to dismantle lies and to unmask temptation. It is faith in God’s Word that empowers and informs our defense. The shield and the sword work together, hand-in-hand. They are the only two parts of our armor that are regularly, even constantly in active use.
The best example of wielding this sword comes from Jesus Himself, after His baptism when He was sent out into the wilderness to be tempted. Jesus answered Satan’s every attack with the Word of God. As I said a moment ago, the answer to any and every doubt is faith in what the Word of God says. Likewise, the answer to any and every temptation is what the Word of God says, what it teaches and what it instructs.
To use this sword effectively, we must be well-trained in its use. You and I must continually practice with it by doing what it says (James 1:22; Hebrews 5:13-14).
You and I have heard many things that the Scriptures tell us to be and do. We know that we are called to live out the righteousness that has been given to us, and the Scriptures teach us what a righteous life looks like. By continually putting these things into practice, we grow in maturity and train ourselves to recognize good from evil. By practicing with this sword, doing what it teaches, memorizing key verses, helping others understand and obey it, the right commands and instructions of the Lord will be ready on our lips when Satan comes with his lies and his temptations. The Spirit of God Himself will remind us of the right word at the right time (John 14:26), but only if we have disciplined ourselves to love and obey His Word.
Conclusion
- God’s Truth teaches us what we must be and do
- Righteousness is living in obedience to God’s Truth
- The Gospel is our foundation and motivation to serve
- Faith extinguishes Satan’s fiery doubts
- Salvation gives us confidence and hope to stand for the truth
- The Scriptures are a sword to refute Satan’s lies and temptations
The Word of God is the truth that we stand on and the truth that we defend. We bind it about ourselves like a belt. We put all it teaches it into practice, and that righteous living is like a breastplate that protects our spirit, soul and body! The Gospel of peace gives us life and energizes our compassion for others, giving us a readiness and urging us to be ready at all times to preserve its truth and present it to others. Our faith in the Word of God is a shield to defend us against all of Satan’s vicious attacks; our confidence in our own salvation gives us a confidence and courage to live by God’s Word and face the enemy. And the Word itself is our most vital weapon to cast aside all of Satan’s lies and temptations.
All of these pieces of armor work together and depend on each other part to make an impenetrable defense against all of Satan’s schemes. The Sword of the Spirit is useless if we do not accept it as the only Truth that really matters. If we do not live the righteous life it commands, that shows we don’t really believe it to be true! And if we do not believe the Gospel to be true, then we’re not yet rescued from the losing side and we won’t have courage to step up to the fight! If we do not have faith in God’s Word and use it to cast down all of Satan’s schemes, then we’re already disarmed and will be quickly trampled by the enemy.
To stand in this fight, to endure to the end, every one of us needs to take up every piece of God’s armor. How’s your armor? What piece or pieces are you missing? Hurry up and get them on! Perhaps you have them all, but some are in disrepair. Don’t wait; take steps to fix them now!