“PUT ON THE FULL ARMOUR OF GOD”

SESSION 1: THE NEED TO PUT THE ARMOUR ON

THE TEXT: EPHESIANS 6: 10-18

¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹ Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled round your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 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. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

¹⁸ And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

PREFACE: WHY DO WE NEED THE FULL ARMOUR OF GOD?

This is such a well-known passage from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

Put on the full armour of God – a spiritual armour rather than a physical suit of armour no doubt – but WHY do we need to put it on?

At 7:55 am on the sleepy Sunday morning of December 7^th 1941 200 Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor destroying the cream of the US Pacific fleet. The Americans were “caught napping” – but they shouldn’t have been. They had been told to go on a war footing more than a month earlier; decoded Japanese messages had suggested an attack was at hand; radar blips showed a huge mass of aircraft approaching – and was ignored; military personnel were on leave. It is the same with our lives – let us not be unaware of the devil’s schemes – let us be ready for battle!

Paul’s very first phrase: “be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power” (verse 10) – doesn’t this suggest that we don’t need this spiritual armour? Let me explain. When I stand in my own strength – muscles bulging – no-one is going to “mess me around” because I look pretty fearsome and strong. However, Paul tells us to be strong in “the Lord” rather than in myself; and to be strong in “His mighty power” rather than my own, personal, strength. This sounds more like when a big, ugly, nasty, threatening thug comes up to us and we, in our own puny-ness (if there is such a word) are able to look him in the eyes and say “you better not mess with me – just look at the one who is standing by my side. He makes you look like a wimp!”

So, surely I don’t have to do anything – do I – when spiritual attacks come my way? Don’t I just have to trust in the Lord and He will sort it all out for me? Isn’t He the Almighty God?

Well, yes – and no. We go back to the “co-labouring” idea that Jim brought to us last year. There is nothing that our Father God loves more than to work WITH us. His love for us is so great that He has ordained that we are “in it together”.

Life IS a battle in so many ways. We battle illness, financial problems, exhaustion, doubts, evil men, work, bosses, wrong thoughts etc etc etc. The battles we fight are physical, emotional and spiritual.

And the Word makes it clear that underpinning all the battles of this temporal life is the spiritual battle with the devil who does not want us to live out the victorious life in Jesus and gain the prize of eternal life.

In this passage we clearly hear God saying, through Paul, that we are to put on the full spiritual armour of God because we are going into the on-going spiritual battle with Him as our Almighty Commander-in Chief. What an honour!

WE ENTER THE LAND WITH HEAVENLY ARMOUR ON

So, where do I start this study of the need to put on the full armour of God? Well, as I waited on God He reminded me of a song that I have sung over and over again. Here it is:

The Battle Belongs To The Lord

Verse 1

In heavenly armour we’ll enter the land
The battle belongs to the Lord
No weapon that’s fashioned against us will stand
The battle belongs to the Lord

Chorus

And we sing glory honour
Power and strength to the Lord
We sing glory honour
Power and strength to the Lord

Verse 2

When the power of darkness comes in like a flood
The battle belongs to the Lord
He’s raised up a standard the pow’r of His blood
The battle belongs to the Lord

Verse 3

When your enemy presses in hard do not fear
The battle belongs to the Lord
Take courage my friend your redemption is near
The battle belongs to the Lord

CCLI Song # 21583

Jamie Owens-Collins © 1985 Fairhill Music (Admin. by Song Solutions www.songsolutions.org)

For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com

CCLI Licence No. 4488

What a victory song! It pulls no punches. It speaks of hard battle “slog” – not parade-ground glamour but of real-life struggle in the “mud and mire” of struggle. However, it proclaims victory from start to finish.

Because of the attacks by Satan we will be constantly in a battle, but “no weapon that’s fashioned against us shall stand – the battle belongs to the Lord”. He is the Almighty One – greater is He who is with us than he who is in the world. We will win when we go out into the battle clothed with the full armour of God. The “enemy”, the “evil one” will attack us and attack us and attack us – but we do not need to fear – because He is with us. And it is with His glory, His power and His strength that the victory shall be won – in every battle and so the whole war!

Songs and the singing of them ARE prophetic. Look at the Psalms – song after song given by God to David and others – songs to sing – songs to raise the spirits of man – songs to tell of the glory of God – songs to declare the victory that we have over evil.

Why does God use songs prophetically? Because they resonate in our hearts and souls and spirits; because they lift the spirit of man; because they linger in the mind and we replay them over and over again as we hum them and sing them in our heads; because they are memorable.

Those who know me well know that I relax at the end of the day by reading – not deep and profound books – but easy-reading “stuff”. At the moment my favourite are the “Sharpe” stories by Bernard Cornwall that speak constantly of a victorious army going into battle with the drums beating, the pipes screeching (am I allowed to say that???) and the battle songs sung lustily by those going into war.

So… this song tells us that we “enter the land” in “heavenly armour”.

WHAT LAND? WHAT ARMOUR?

When Moses began to lead the Israelites towards the Promised Land the Gadites and Reubenites chose to make their abode on the eastern side of the Jordan and they were only allowed to do so on the condition of the promise to go across the Jordan with the other tribes fully armed for battle (Numbers 32). The message is clear – they were to enter the land in full armour. This might well be the Promised Land, a land “flowing with milk and honey” but they were entering into a battle.

Later, when Joshua took the Israelites across the Jordan they immediately came to the fortress of Jericho. They were told this:

² Then the Lord said to Joshua, ‘See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. ³ March round the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. ⁴ Make seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march round the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. ⁵ When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, make the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.’ (Joshua 6)

In the Autumn of last year, 2018, a group of us were meeting every Friday to pray for revival in Ashford in general and the area around our church in particular. And we were told that our community was like Jericho – a people surrounded by walls of disbelief. We were given the clear call to march around the streets for 6 weeks praying for the whole area. And then on the 7^th week we marched around declaring our belief that God was giving us the area for Him.

This is our land that we enter in Heavenly Armour. This is our promised land here on earth that we believe the “battle belongs to the Lord”.

WHAT ARMOUR?

Paul clearly tells us the armour of God that we need to be clothed with as we face the battles of life and as we fight against the forces of the evil one in this area. And it is this “armour” that we are going to be looking at – one after another – as we go through this series:

The belt                               TRUTH

The breastplate                RIGHTEOUSNESS

The sandals                        READINESS FROM THE GOSPEL OF PEACE

The shield                           FAITH

The helmet                         SALVATION

The sword                           WORD OF GOD

And that this should all be underpinned by prayer as we go into this battle.

AND WHAT IS THIS BATTLE?

It might appear that our enemy – our opposition – comes from mankind and natural areas: from those who don’t believe us, those who mock us, those who try to stop the Gospel;  the illnesses that beset us, the problems of life that overwhelm us, the fears that we struggle with daily, the exhaustion of life and work. These are very real – but they are the symptoms of the underlying cause. For the Word tells us that:

our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6: 12)

Why are we following this series at this time? Because I believe we have to be ready and prepared for the new battles that will undoubtedly beset us now.

As a church we are doing a “new thing”. We have changed our name from FREC to ACC to declare our new commitment to reaching out to our community with the Gospel; we see new people joining us – full of enthusiasm and potential; we have a new vision to be a church family which will be so attractive to those around us. We are moving forward. Staying where we are will not elicit any attack from the evil one. Moving forward will – and I am seeing that already – often in people’s physical and mental well-being being assaulted. We are not surprised – but we must be aware and we must be equipped.

And how “equipped”? With the “full armour of God”.

(The Battle belongs to the Lord: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMZ8D6nTKhg)

FOR FURTHER STUDY – EITHER AS AN INDIVIDUAL OR A HOUSEGROUP

The UCB Word for Today for the 4^th February 2019 tells of the “battle” being likened to a storm in which we are on a boat that is being tossed to and fro. Study Acts 27 (yes – it is quite long but is worth it) and then read the following and then have a look at the questions on the next page.

You might prefer to watch a film about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wzol7JrklWE

Or the Visual Bible story of Acts which reads the actual Bible passage (start at 3 minutes 58 secs): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ_-oXDWBTs&list=PL0ACB6D2B735F48B2&index=18

YOU’RE GOING TO GET THROUGH THIS STORM!

 ‘I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.’

Acts 27:25 KJV

On his way to Rome, Paul went through a devastating storm. His story teaches us three valuable lessons: 1) Your disobedience can cause a storm. Because the captain wouldn’t heed Paul’s warning, he lost his ship, his cargo, and almost his life. Your disobedience can cause a storm in your health, your finances, your family, and your career. God doesn’t preface His commandments by saying, ‘If you feel like it, do this.’ No. He means what He says and He intends it for your good, so pay attention! 2) You’re not alone in the storm. God is with you and He’s watching over you. Paul said: ‘There stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying, Fear not…God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God’ (vv. 23-25 KJV). With God on board, there’s not a storm powerful enough to take you under. 3) When you stand on God’s promises, you have His authority. Paul may have looked like a prisoner, but in reality he had more power than the captain. Though bound in chains, he was the freest man on the ship. You see, when you’ve heard clearly from God, you can handle any situation because His Word says: ‘No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper…every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord’ (Isaiah 54:17 KJV). So the word for you today is: keep trusting God and He will bring you through this storm!