Ephesians 6:10-24 "Life as a Gospel Warrior"
We finish Ephesians today looking at the issue of spiritual warfare.
1) The War
- The spiritual battle we find ourselves involved in is done by "being strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might" (v.10), and putting on the "whole armour of God" (v.13) that He provides us with for protection.
- The Ephesian church faced a great deal of opposition from the Cult of Artemis and the pagans of the city (indeed Pastor Timothy would be martyred by them for preaching the gospel during one of their pagan processions), but Paul calls people to recognise that the real battle is a spiritual one: "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood..." (v.12). Whatever men and women do in opposition to the gospel, we should remember that they are themselves deceived, blinded and being destroyed by the enemy, Satan who merely uses them for his own purposes.
- "rulers...authorities...cosmic powers over this present darkness...spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (v.12) is a description of Satan's kingdom on earth, which Christ has come to liberate captives from and to destroy at His coming, for He has decisively won the victory at Calvary - Satan's power is now broken.
2) The Armour
- Purpose of the armour: "to stand against the schemes of the devil" (v.11); "withstand in the evil day" (v.13)
- Sometimes we think that the gospel and the church are being marginalised in society, that we are on the retreat...but the truth is that not even the gates of Hell can prevail against the gospel as we press on (gates are a defensive measure, so it is really Satan's kingdom that is under siege). The Church stands its ground and advances through the work and power of the Lord Jesus Christ
- The pieces of armour are all coming from the gospel that God gives us to equip us for our gospel ministry in this world => we are to ACTIVELY "PUT ON" (v.11)
a) The belt of truth => God gives us the truth through revealing to us His Son, who is the truth and giving us the Spirit of truth, and His word which is the truth. This allows us to run into battle easily without being tripped up over confusion of what is actually true.
b) breastplate of rigtheousness => We have received Christ's righteousness, which has been creditted to our accounts and which changes our hearts. We receive this armour to protect our hearts from Satan's attacks, for he hates Christ's righteousness in us
c) shoes of the gospel of peace => Remarkable that our feet are to be a blessing of peace in this battle, for Paul elsewhere talks from the OT about "blessed are the feet which bring good news". Everywhere we walk we can bring good and a blessing, because we are bringing the gospel of peace and offering men and women an invitation to be reconciled to the King.
d) shield of faith => this is our defense against the fast and unsuspecting arrows of Satan who fires doubts, pains, troubles our way from out of sight. We must be prepared to choose to walk in faith and to apply our faith to many situations, because the shield of faith is no use if we do not direct it at the direction of attack.
e) sword of the Spirit => the Word of God is our great weapon for taking on the attacks of Satan, with it the Lord Jesus also fought Satan in the wilderness and was able to properly use the scriptures to disarm Satan's temptations.
f) helmet of salvation => we have been gifted to protect our minds this helmet, which guards our thoughts when it comes to the doubts and attacks of the enemy so we might have assurance (for we cannot fight at all if we doubt we are even saved by the gospel and doubt its truth)
- With all these pieces of armour, it's not just an once off thing putting them on, rather we should be "praying at all times in the Spirit" (v.18) about being equipped with this armour as we seek to serve the Lord in this hostile world, as we never cease to be His "ambassadors" (v.20).
=> given this armour we should pray for one another that we can "open [our] mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel" (v.20)
3) A Balanced Perspective
- "Peace be to you...from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (v.23) => after spending a study thinking about warfare, here is quite the conclusion talking about peace. We often in the West seem to forget about the spiritual aspect of the war we are in for the gospel. However, we must avoid the other extreme of being terrified about the schemes and threat of the enemy. We can have peace even though we face the kingdom of Satan, because we are on the side of God, who is the victor and has secured the victory. That peace comes from Him, firstly for the forgiveness of sins, and also in giving us His spiritual power of protection so we might stand.
4) Applications:
- We need to be asking God consciously in prayer each day to be clothed in this armour
- We should remember that Satan is scheming against us and seeking to discredit the gospel - when we are tempted let's remember what's going on!
- We need to take up and use the shield of faith, by choosing each day to walk in faith and apply it to whatever troubles and situations we face. Faith is lived out!
- We should be praying for all the saints and our brothers and sisters in relation to this warfare we all face
- We need to ask God to help us to be bold ambassadors of the gospel, because even Paul indicates that is not easy!
- We need perserverance from God in order to press on through this life and to reach the end of the course - that perserverance will be given to us (as we cannot lose our salvation) but we should never let that fact dull the fact that we must keep pressing on in the strength and power of God!
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