Sunday Sermon: Put On the Whole Armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-20)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a New Testament book.

On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday. Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series, presently going through the book of Ephesians.

Here's Pastor Gabe.

The Call to Stand in the Whole Armor of God

Ephesians 6, starting in verse 10. Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might, put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. And also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, as we come to our word today, the word that You have spoken through Your Apostle, I pray that we see not only just a neat metaphor for walking and fighting this fight of the faith, but we also see practical application for what it means to put on the armor of God.

How do we withstand against evil in the present day? Teach us these things according to Your word. And it's in the name of Your Son, Jesus, in whom we pray, and all God's people said, amen. Thank you.

Fighting Spiritual Warfare in the Home, the World, and the Church

You may be seated. You know, despite our modern age and the ways that warfare has changed over the last hundred years with the advancement of technology, there is still a fascination with knighthood. With this fascination that we have with knights and swords and shields, you can see it even in our entertainment, in the films, in the TV shows and things like that, that we watch.

This coming month, another film is going to release that promises to be one of the highest grossing films of all time, and that is the next installment of the Star Wars saga. And in Star Wars, you've got these characters that are referred to as Jedi knights.

And Obi-Wan Kenobi, when he introduces the Jedi knights in the first Star Wars film, he refers to them as using a sword called a lightsaber and says that it was from a more civilized and elegant age.

I don't really know what's more civilized and elegant about a sword over a gun. I tend to side with Han Solo. There's nothing like having a good blaster at your side. But in the Avengers movies, the most recent of which had come out this past summer, you look at the Avengers and you see guys in armor and even using shields.

Captain America, Iron Man, who wears a suit of armor. There's still an obsession with the Lord of the Rings all these years later. And these being sagas that are put forth with swords and shields and fighting these wars and battles.

Disney Plus, the new platform that they have created, the streaming service that's like Netflix and Amazon Prime. They're even saying that they're going to put together the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe saga again.

So you'll be seeing fighting with swords and shields even through the Narnia series. So we come to this passage today in Ephesians chapter six, and you see the Apostle Paul telling Christians to put on the armor of God.

And there are many who will say that when Paul was writing about this, he was thinking about Roman armor because that would have been the great soldier of his day, the Roman soldiers. We read stories about how even those Roman soldiers came to John the Baptist and asked, how should we live?

You have the centurion who came to Jesus and asked that his servant would be healed. The Apostle Paul even recruited Roman soldiers to protect him against the Jews who wanted to kill him, utilizing his Roman citizenship to be able to advance the gospel.

And he used a Roman army in order to do it. But Paul did not have Roman armor in mind here when he wrote about the armor of God. He was not drawing from the Roman soldier. Rather, he was drawing from the spiritual soldier that Isaiah presented in the prophets.

Isaiah spoke about all these pieces of armor in the book of Isaiah, and it's from that prophet that the Apostle Paul presented this picture of the armor of God. It's been spoken about for over 700 years, putting on this spiritual armor.

So Paul takes what was spoken about in the Old Testament, and now he gives application to it in the New Testament church, that we put on the whole armor of God. And those pieces include the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the one weapon in this arsenal is the sword of the Spirit.

We have pieces of defense and pieces of offense. And so we as Christian soldiers fighting this fight of the faith, Paul talks about how he had fought the good fight in his last letter to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 4.

And so may we all be able to come to the end of this fight and be able to say that we fought the good fight of the faith. We fight it defensively and we fight it offensively. And we consider those things today as we read this passage in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 10.

As we go through these 11 verses, I want to present to you these four questions. Think about and ponder these things as we consider putting on the whole armor of God. First question, where is this battle that we are fighting?

Second question, who are we fighting this battle against? The third question, what are the means of this battle that we are fighting? And finally, the last question, who are we fighting this battle with?

And the answers to all four of those questions we find in this passage, we look first at verse 10, Ephesians 6 verse 10. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

Looking at our first question, where is the battle that we are fighting? And the answer to that question is in the broader context of this passage that we are reading. Think about what we just studied through before we got to Ephesians 6 verse 10.

What have we been reading about the last three weeks? All three of these contexts deal with life in the home and how we live as Christians, even within our own families. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.

Honor your father and your mother. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart as you would Christ.

Masters, do the same for them and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven and there is no partiality with him. We've had these three contexts explaining to us how we are to live as Christ with one another.

And then Paul gets to Ephesians 6 verse 10 and says, put on the whole armor of God. Where do we fight this battle? The first place we fight it is in the home. And when I say we fight in the home, I don't mean you fight with your spouse or parents with your kids or kids with your parents.

That's not what I'm saying. But rather, we fight so that we do not do those things, that we don't quarrel with one another, that we don't blame and accuse and treat one another in gracelessness, that we hold grudges, that we lie to each other.

We actually have to fight to not do those things. We have to put a concerted effort forth in order to love one another and encourage each other and build one another up. You have to fight to do that. I think it goes without saying that you don't have to do much to do evil, right?

You don't have to teach a child how to be bad. They do that by themselves, don't they? Why? Scripture tells us because we're all born in sin. Your children are born sinners. You know why your children are born sinners?

Because mom and dad, you're sinners. They got it from you. You got it from your parents. They got it from their parents all the way down to Adam. We have all been born into the sinfulness and unrighteousness of Adam.

This is the ways of Satan, the effects of his lying in the Garden of Eden that it has had over all of mankind in the years since, in the millennia since that first encounter where Satan first said to Eve in Genesis 3 -1, did God really say He was lying from the beginning?

And those lies have had murderous effects. Because of sin, death has entered the picture. Because of that lie, we die because of our sinfulness. Jesus Christ has died on the cross for our sins. Our souls will live forever with God if we have faith in Christ, but the body will still die.

Because the body has been corrupted due to the corruption that all of creation has been cursed with as a result of man's sin. So we all know how to sin. We all know how to do evil. You do nothing, you'll do evil.

You must make a conscious effort to love one another and forgive each other. That is a daily battle. That is a daily pursuit. Husband, you have to regularly think about, day by day, how am I going to encourage my wife in the Word of Christ today?

Fathers, you daily have to think about, how am I going to equip my children daily in the Word of God? How am I going to do that today? You who work for somebody who is over you, you daily have to think about, how am I going to mind my own business and work with my hands and do my job and do this to the glory of God without grumbling and complaining?

You have to consciously think about that every day. The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10, 5, that we are to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ, not being overcome with temptation.

You must consciously think about how you are to seize those thoughts and make them obedient to Christ. This fight that we fight is a daily conscious effort. It takes work. It's hard. As all battles are hard, there are not easy wars.

So in context, as we're looking at this passage today, as we look at Ephesians 6, where do we fight this battle? The first place we fight it in the context in which we've been reading is in the home. There's a second place where we fight this battle, and that is in the world.

That's the broader context even of the whole book of Ephesians. Back in Ephesians 2, verse 1, we read that we were once dead in our sins and our trespasses in which we once walked, following the course of this world.

The prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work, and the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

It's always fascinating to me that the Apostle Paul chose to refer to Satan as the prince of the power of the air. These lies, these false philosophies, these things, even false religions that go out over the airwaves, that are spoken about through the air, this was done even in a first century context as much as we have it today.

Those messages might go out even farther today, thanks to the advent of sending out messages over radio waves, but even back during this time, you would have philosophers who would stand in the city square and they would preach their lies.

Those lies would go out through the air. Hence why Paul refers to Satan as the prince of the power of the air, broadcasting these lies, deceiving people, and leading them astray. Fathers and mothers as well, if you don't make a conscious effort to teach your children the word of God, I promise you there is an enemy who would be more than willing to teach your children for you.

And what will that enemy teach your kids? Lies. If your child attends public school 40 hours a week, if they're watching television another 40 hours a week, they are hearing messages from that enemy, Satan, daily, constantly.

So there must be a conscious effort on your part to counter the things that your children are going to be taught by this world. Moms and dads, you're being taught things by the prince of the power of the air.

When you turn on the news, you think you're just getting information and you can kind of filter that through your own processes. No, even the news is telling you how they want you to think. You watch TV shows.

Those TV shows are written from a particular worldview. There are writers behind those shows. You're watching this thinking that it is fiction, but there are messages in those shows and in those movies that you watch that are getting into your mind and they are shaping your thinking.

They are desensitizing you into this fantasy world that you think that you can live the way they live on the screen and there won't be any consequences. Those characters don't face any consequences. Why should I?

That's a worldview. Those are lies. Those are wrong philosophies that you are being fed. You have to be careful. When you turn on the radio and you're listening to music, there's certain messages that are coming forth in that music.

And I mean all radio, not just the secular stations, even the Christian stations. It's very unfortunate, but even on the Christian stations, there are lies that could be fed to you if you are not careful.

If you are not filtering all these things with the truth of God's word, all things must be tested. Paul said to the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 5, test all things, abhor what is evil, hold fast to that which is good.

That's a fight. That's a conscious effort that you must make. An onslaught against the lies of the enemy that he tries to feed us daily. And instead we cling to truth and we fight the battle that we fight with truth.

The belt of truth, the sword of the spirit. And this fight that we fight is not against flesh and blood. As the apostle Paul makes clear here in Ephesians chapter 6, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

These philosophers that exist in the world today that try to feed you these lies, they may not be aware that they're being influenced by a satanic enemy, but they are. And you are daily as well if you're not careful.

If you do not draw near to God, the devil can convince you of some of these lies also. When we encounter friends or family members, some of you probably were at family's homes this past Thanksgiving, and you've got members of your family, as I do in mine, who are not Christians.

You might even fight and argue with some of those members of your family. There may be grudges that are being held in your family, but these things that are happening in your home, or among your family members, or even among your friends, these things have not happened simply by the will of man.

But there is an enemy who has convinced them to do his will. The apostle Paul talks about this with Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 2. They've been ensnared by Satan to do his will. And so whenever we preach the gospel to somebody, we don't try to convert them with force.

That's what Muslims do, by the way. Islam is a religion of force. It's a religion of war. And they want to convert people by the sword. But we don't do that. Not with a physical sword anyway. We do it with a spiritual sword, the word of God.

So we don't throttle a person and choke them until they accept Jesus. Though you probably tried to do that with your kids this morning. Hurry up and get ready to go to church so we can learn about the love of Jesus.

Okay? Sometimes we fall into that. We think we have to physically force somebody, or we have to argue a person into submission. And if we call a person enough names, maybe they'll feel bad enough to become a Christian.

But that's not the way that we engage. We engage with the word of God, the sword of the Spirit, which has the power to convert a person from darkness to light, from sin to righteousness, from under God's wrath to now being in his grace.

And it is by the word of God that that is accomplished. That's how we fight these things, is with that word. And we understand that this person has been ensnared by Satan to do his will. We teach the word of God to them so that they would repent.

They would be freed from those bonds to which they are enslaved, to do Satan's will rather than God's will. And by the hearing of the gospel and the filling of the Holy Spirit, they now become one who, instead of being against God, is for God and wants to worship God, and wants to follow God and please Him.

And again, all of this is accomplished by the preaching of the word over this present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Some of you might be familiar with a book that was written by Frank Peretti called This Present Darkness.

It was a great book that talked about spiritual warfare. But one of the downsides to that book is it got people to think that spiritual warfare is like this spiritual fantasy that is going on in these realms in which we cannot see.

So whenever we talk about spiritual warfare, that's kind of what we think about in our minds. We think about like, you know, angels and demons with swords and, you know, they're like fighting in this room around us, even though we're sitting here listening to a sermon, there's a spiritual war that's waging.

Spiritual warfare is not that. Spiritual warfare is that we daily put into submission those thoughts that might cloud our minds against the will of God. They might try to draw us into the will of Satan.

We take those thoughts captive. We instead make them obedient to Christ. We draw near to God and the devil will flee from us, as James talks about. That's spiritual warfare. Fighting against temptation, drawing near to God.

That's the spiritual warfare we fight every day. When you open your Bible and you read it, you're doing spiritual warfare. You are fighting against the lies of this world and submitting yourself to the truth of God.

Loving your wife is spiritual warfare. Disciplining your children is spiritual warfare. Speaking kindness to the person who speaks evil of you, that's spiritual warfare. And all of us are called to this battle and all of us are called to this fight.

All of us who are saints have been recruited into the army of God, but we do not equip ourselves with our own skills and our own tools. For what is it that we've been clothed with here? We've put on the whole armor of whom?

God. The whole armor of God. It's God's armor. It's not yours. You did not fashion these tools. He did and he gave them to you. And he is the God of angel armies. And we sang about in our music this morning.

Now, some of you still think of Jesus as just that philosopher who roamed around in deserts and he said things like, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. And you think of Jesus as just being this hippie guy who lived 2 ,000 years ago.

Jesus was not some desert wandering philosopher. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He is the God of armies. He is the one described in Revelation 19 as coming back on a white steed with a sword in his hand that he's going to use to strike down the nations.

And he will spill blood and he is called King of kings and Lord of lords and all the nations will bow before him. That's whom we worship. And we are soldiers in his army doing battle against the forces of evil in the present age.

This present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. We fight this battle in the home. We fight this battle in the world. But we are told by Jesus in John 16, 33, in the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.

There are people who will hate us simply because we want to live lives of godliness. 2 Timothy 3, 12, indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse deceiving and being deceived.

We must not lose heart for we follow the God of armies. Psalm 10 verses 16 through 18, the Lord is King forever and ever. The nations perish from his land. Oh Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted.

You will strengthen their heart. You will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more. Fight this battle in the home. We fight it in the world.

Thirdly, we fight this battle in the church. Last week, we ended the sermon with Matthew chapter 18, where Jesus gives the parable of the unmerciful servant. It's very unfortunate, but there are going to be people in the church who will look like our brothers and sisters in Christ and not realize that they also have been ensnared by Satan to do his will.

For Jesus even warned in Matthew 7, 15, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. In the army, you are warned about the potential for friendly fire and you as soldiers are trained to know how not to make that error.

Use your weapons properly and not turn them on those who you are fighting with. You're supposed to be pointing the dangerous end at the enemy, not at your fellow soldiers. But very unfortunately, even within the church, there are people who are going to attack one another, and we must be aware of that.

We fight this battle even within the church to protect one another and to purify Christ's church because we've been called to this. We read about it in Ephesians chapter 4. We have it stated even in our own constitution as a church that we sanctify each other.

We grow one another in holiness. The apostle Paul warned the elders at Ephesus in Acts 20, verse 30, from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.

Therefore, be alert. I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. In 3 John 1, 9, and 10, John says, I have written something to the church, but diatrophies.

He even names this guy that's causing problems in the church. He says, diatrophies who likes to put himself first does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I'm going to bring up what he's doing, talking wicked nonsense about us.

James 4, 11 says, Do not speak evil against one another, brother. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law. What is the law? Love your neighbor as yourself.

And when a person speaks evil of someone else, especially in the household of faith, they judge the law. More than just the brother, they judge the law of God. 1 John 2, 9 says, Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.

So as we fight this good fight of the faith in the church, how should this fight look? I turn again to Colossians 3, 12 -15. Put on then as God's chosen ones. Put on. So here you have a call again to put something on.

You could translate this just as we have in Ephesians as putting on the armor of God. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, not this attitude of I know better than you, but humbleness, meekness, patience, bearing with one another.

And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord God has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. And above all of these things put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. These are instructions that the Apostle Paul has given to a church, but surely you could apply this to anything, right?

How you treat one another in your home, how you treat your families, how you treat strangers, how you treat co-workers. And as ones who are dressed as soldiers, how do we fight? But with compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

So we fight this war in the home. We fight it in the world. We fight it in the church. And most emphatically, my friends, we fight it in ourselves. Still in Colossians chapter three, verse five, put to death therefore, what is earthly in you.

See, as Christians, we're actually called to be violent, but we're not violent to each other. We're violent against sin. We're violent against temptation. When the Apostle Paul says, put to death therefore, what is earthly in you.

When he put to death, put to death your sin. He is saying, whatever you need to do, get the sin out. Don't be anywhere near it. Don't even be remotely tempted by it. You will fail to keep yourself from that temptation.

This was the majority of my struggle through my young adult life. Because I thought I can hang out around those people I shouldn't be hanging out with. I can put myself around those things I know I shouldn't be doing just as long as I don't do them.

What would happen to me? I would end up doing those things. I was not strong enough to withstand them. I thought, you know what? As long as I get near this line, as long as I don't cross that line, then I'm doing fine.

But where's my focus when that's my worldview? When that's my approach to sin? What am I looking at? I'm looking at the sin. My attention is focused entirely on the flames. How close can I get to this fire without getting burned by it?

My attention is on the evil rather than on the good, which is God. If my attention is on God, if I'm looking at Him, if I have oriented myself and directed my attention at God, I'm not anywhere near the fire.

I don't have to worry about going near the sin because I'm pursuing Christ and His righteousness. Don't even put yourself in the position of being tempted by those things that will master you if you get too close to them.

Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. In other words, don't even have the desire for those things. The Apostle Paul had talked about other sins that we would be tempted by as we had gone through Ephesians chapters 4 and 5.

He talked about not being angry with one another, not having malice toward each other, but speaking graciously with one another, putting away from our mouth any filthy talk. Don't swear. Don't speak evil of others.

Don't blaspheme God's name, especially. Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. The Apostle Paul warned against drunkenness. Don't be intoxicated by substances that rule your mind and your body.

Instead, go after righteousness and be filled with the Holy Spirit of God. All these drugs, all the alcohol, the physical things, even those fleshly temptations that satisfy us for a time, they release certain endorphins and things in our mind that make us feel good.

Even those things are temporary. They never satisfy. And then you will go after a fix that's even bigger than the first one that you got in order to satisfy this temptation that you have. It will never fully satisfy you.

In fact, ultimately it will destroy you, which is why we're called to be filled with something that's not temporary, but is in fact eternal. And is fully satisfying in any and all things that we do. And that is the Holy Spirit of God.

Don't be after those things that just give you a little bit of titillating feelings for a little while. But be after the things of God which fully fill you up and satisfy you, not just in these moments, but for eternity.

The Apostle Paul goes on in Colossians 3 to say, Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

In other words, put on the armor of God. James 1 .12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial. Well, we've seen that here already in our study of Ephesians 6. Verse 11, Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial. James goes on in verse 14. Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

Temptation, opportunity, and desire. When those three things are put together, they are a deadly enemy. And David, David who is described as the man after God's own heart. David fell to all three of these things.

You know what? David was supposed to be at war. He was supposed to be fighting with his fellow soldiers. David was a king of war and had always been the one to lead the charge. But instead, in 2 Samuel, we see this time that he doesn't go out with his army to fight in a war.

Instead, he stays at home and he goes for a walk on his roof one night and he sees a woman bathing. Bathsheba. And he's tempted by this woman. He has the opportunity to sleep with this woman and the desire overcomes him and he falls into sin.

And David's life was never the same again after that. And we've got one of the most beautiful psalms that we have out of all 150 psalms. Psalm 51. This prayer of repentance and seeking the forgiveness of God.

That psalm happened as a result of this union. But it's still something that never should have happened. David, a man after God's own heart, was too weak that he gave into temptation and opportunity and desire.

And my friends, if you are not in that battle daily, on a regular daily assault against the passions of your flesh that want to rule over you, you like David, you like a man after God's own heart, can fall into the passions of your flesh.