Ephesians 6:10-18 10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.
11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
13 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.
14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;
18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints…
Be strong – in the Lord
We are told to be strong, but not just in ourselves. Be strong in the Lord – a very important distinction. He will provide the strength, the might, the ability. Apart from Him we can do nothing.
Did you know that Jesus used those words about Himself?
John 5:19-20 19 Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.
20 For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.
Jesus laid aside all His own inherent divine power when He became a man. Every miracle that He did, every healing, was through the anointing of the Holy Spirit – the same Holy Spirit that He has given to us. That is why He could say, “The works that I do you shall do also; and greater works than these, since I go to My Father.” (John 14:12).
Put on the armor
The first truth in this passage is that we must put on the armor that God supplies. He gives us the armor, and He will help us, but He doesn’t dress us. We have something to do with putting it on.
The armor is allegorical; the pieces of the armor are statements of our spiritual position and legal rights as a Christian. As we put these principles into action, they give us defensive and offensive weapons with which to battle our spiritual enemy.
We are in a battle
The second truth of this passage in Ephesians is that as Christians we are in a battle. We have an enemy, the devil. Yes, there is a devil – not someone in red pajamas with horns, a pointy tail and a pitchfork, but a fallen angel. And he has on his side a host of other fallen angels, the demons.
The battle we are in is a special kind of battle. Most Christians look on our warfare as if the enemy is invading our own country and we are desperately trying to defend ourselves, to hold out until the end when the cavalry can come and rescue us.
No – we are an occupation force. The main battle has already been won. Jesus, through His death on the cross and resurrection, has through death defeated and rendered powerless the one who had the power of death, the devil (Heb 2:14).
Our task is to enforce that victory. It is like a ruler of an evil, tyrannical government has been overthrown, and we are liberating the people who have been oppressed by that government. But insurgent fighters are trying to hinder us, sabotage our efforts, and keep the people in bondage.
The corollary to this is that people are not our enemy. Sometimes that is hard to accept when you see all the craziness going on in the world today, and some of the nonsensical and even violent things some people are believing and fighting for. But it is mainly a spiritual battle.
If you fight against people in the natural realm, you leave the spiritual forces motivating them undisturbed. We are to fight from our position of authority in heavenly places, far above all principalities and powers. If the spiritual forces of wickedness are bound, the people will calm also,
Stand
Ephesians 6:13-14 13 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.
14 Stand therefore…
Three times in these verses we are told to stand. This means to take a stand, to put up a resistance. The Bible tells us what we are to do with Satan. Resist him. Take a stand against him.
James 4:7 7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
1 Peter 5:8-9 8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
9 Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.
We should never accept anything the devil is doing lying down. But one of his tricks is to get us confused about who our real enemy is.
The devil has a purpose for you, outlined in John 10:10:
John 10:10 10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
Understand that the devil really cares less about people. His enemy is God. But he cannot strike out against God, so he goes after what he can – God’s creation. His goal is to hinder whatever God wants to do in the earth. So he will blind unsaved peoples’ eyes so they cannot see and understand the gospel (2 Corinthians 4:4). He wants to kill people. Once someone is dead, they are removed from the sphere of the earth and he no longer has to deal with them. If he cannot kill someone and remove them from the earth, he wants to destroy them. The meaning of destroy is to bring to naught, to render powerless and ineffective.
Most of the devil’s power has been stripped from him and he is severely limited. He cannot directly kill someone. So he has to use people. He influences world opinion, he sows distrust and hatred between peoples, so they kill each other. He fans peoples’ lusts and covetousness, so they steal and rape.
But we are not to get distracted as to who the real enemy is. It’s not the people who attack, it is the devil influencing them.
We are not to be afraid of the devil. It is the armor of God – God’s own armor – that He supplies. We can see an example of God wearing the armor in the Old Testament:
Isaiah 59:17 17 For He put on righteousness as a breastplate, And a helmet of salvation on His head; He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, And was clad with zeal as a cloak.
If we have God’s armor on, we are well able to take anything that the devil can throw at us. Not only that, we can turn around and attack him, and undo his works.
The evil day
When we see the word “evil” we normally think of wicked people. But often when the Bible talks about evil, it is talking about calamity; i.e., bad circumstances. The “evil day” would be any time you are being attacked by the devil, in whatever form that comes.
The Roman Soldier
Paul, like Jesus, drew analogies with things familiar to the people of his day to illustrate certain spiritual truths. The Roman legionnaire was the most feared, best trained, and the best equipped soldier of that day. At the time Paul wrote Ephesians, he was a prisoner in chains. He could look up and see the soldiers guarding him.
The Roman armor was not full body armor like a medieval knight. It had six basic parts.
The helmet to protect the head. The officers’ helmets had the big horsehair plume.
The breastplate to protect the torso and vital organs. There were the “muscle” breastplates, more ornamental the higher in rank you were. The infantrymen wore unadorned breastplates or chain mail.
Later on in the first century the Romans developed a superior segmented breastplate that was strong but flexible and allowed a much greater freedom of movement.
The Belt, called the Cingulum Militare, had two types. One was a leather belt with strips hanging down, often with bells or rattles on the bottoms. These were very characteristic of the Roman soldier and was part of their identity. The sound they made as many soldiers marched made them sound like there were many more. It was more utilitarian than for protection, and might have a dagger in a sheath hanging from it.
The other type did offer more protection; it was like a little skirt with strips of hard leather or metal sown into it.
Thick soled sandals to give stability. These were well ventilated, and had hobnails on the bottom to grip the ground and so the soles wouldn’t wear out so fast. It was one of the things that allowed Roman soldiers to go on long marches, which greatly helped in battle strategy. Sometimes they had metal grieves attached to protect the shins.
The Shield: not the small round shield of a gladiator, but a large, curved shield almost as tall as a man. A bunch of soldiers would march in a formation called a testudo (Latin for tortoise), some holding their shields ahead, some to the side, and some overhead. It was impervious to arrows – almost like a tank.
The sword, called a gladius, the main offensive weapon, was a short, flat and broad affair, usually made of brass or bronze. The Barbarians eventually were able to defeat the Romans because they had developed the technology of tempered steel, which could slice through the brass or bronze.
Here is a video with more detail about Roman armor.
Next time we’ll go into the pieces of the Armor of God, and what they mean.
