Soldier No.1 Putting on the armour

This is the first of a series of 12 messages on Ephesians 6 entitled, The Christian Soldier, given at Worthing Tabernacle by Tony Sargent. Number one, putting on the armor. Come with me to Ephesians in chapter 6, please, and let's read somewhat quickly together, those of you who have the NIV version of the Bible.

Let's read from the 10th verse, right through to and including the 18th verse. Paragraph, the first paragraph in the NIV under the general heading, The Armor of God. Join with me.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's scheme. 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.

Therefore, put on the full armor 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. Stand firm, then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 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 saints. We come back to this remarkable piece of reasoning, which the Apostle Paul places right at the end of the letter that he writes to the Ephesians.

And we're grateful to the Lord that this was not just a PS, a sort of man-made contribution, tacked on to the end of an inspired epistle. But here in these verses, the Apostle comes to the crux of what he wants to share with the Ephesian Christians, and he uses the imagery of the soldier. The reason being that Paul is often in the company of soldiers, and indeed when he writes this grand letter to the Greek church at Ephesus, he's possibly incarcerated in some cell in Rome, manacled two soldiers.

And because the Apostle, having moved around the Roman Empire, and having been brought face-to-face with the concept of Caesar and his perennial wars, he recognizes, as though he needed any reminder at all, that he, Paul, though a prisoner of Caesar, is a freed man by Jesus Christ. And the captain of the salvation to whom Paul owes his allegiance is none other than the Savior. Now, I don't know how you understand the Christian life.

There are some people who feel that being a Christian is just being good. You know, he's a nice fellow. She's a lovely young lady.

People who've got a high moral view and ethical code to which they subscribe, and all these things in and of themselves are good, but they're not far enough in a definition of Christianity. Christianity goes into that and beyond that, and it starts to explore the reason why people are not good enough. The problems that confront humankind in terms of evil hostile forces, which endeavor to cheat God of his glory being reflected in ordinary people like you and me.

Well, when the Apostle Paul writes his various letters, he makes reference to the fact that he's a soldier. He's been bought by the Lord Jesus. He's in his army, and he's one of an increasing number who are helping to fight the war against sin, against the devil.

So, for example, when he writes a letter to the Philippians, he refers to a man by the name of Epaphroditus, one of the most remarkable pastors that the early church ever boasted, and Paul describes him as a fellow soldier. And when Paul dashes off a note to a young man by the name of Timothy, he says, Timothy, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. And then earlier in the previous letter, he says to Timothy, you know you're to fight the good fight of faith.

Throughout the whole of the New Testament, as instruction is given to Christian people, it's very often in terms of the fight in which you're involved, and the resources that are yours, and the hostility and the power of the enemy that you are up against. And so here the Apostle comes, having dealt with, in some measure, and we've looked into his teaching in degree, having dealt with the tactics of the devil, and the emissaries of the devil. Verse 12, the rulers, and the authorities, and the powers of this dark world, and the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms that are raged against us.

Having dealt with this, the Apostle then goes to enjoin the Christian readers in Ephesus further, therefore put on the full armor of God. If you're going to stand for Jesus Christ, if you're going to be a soldier, then you don't go into the battle without the armory that God provides. And so that's what we're looking into, the beginning of quite a series of addresses, I promise you, on this whole basis of arming ourselves as Christians for the war.

Now it seemed to me in my reading earlier this morning, and indeed late last night, that one of the first things that I need to bring to your attention is what I've called our posture. That is the position that we adopt as Christians, as we live out our lives for the Lord Jesus. Now any repetition in Scripture is worth looking at, but when the repetition is fourfold, then obviously there are four times as many reasons to look at what is being said.

So when you go to the 11th verse, you discover the first use of the word stand, as Paul is directing his comments to you. Stand against the devil's schemes. And then as you drop down the reading that we've already had, you discover him saying again in the 13th verse, after you've done everything, stand.

And just before that, stand your ground. And just after that, verse 14, stand firm then with a belt of truth buckled around your waist. You stand as a Christian.

I don't always mean physically. Maybe some of you think we stand too much in the tab. Well, if we're singing and standing too much, then you feel quite free to sit down, feel bound.

But in your spirit, it's always of the first hymn epitomized the Christian posture, stand up, stand up for Jesus. One of our dear old men who never able to get along to the tabernacle these days, but remembers us in prayer. He's as, he's as tall and as straight as a ramrod.

I refer to Mr. Vick. Sometimes I see him as he lives in a nursing home not far from me, doing his daily walk. You could almost regulate your life by his walk, always bang on time.

And he walks strong, well, reasonably so, but certainly tall, standing firm, not slouching, not, not, not slovenly. The Christian is never like that. He's never a man who just shuffles his way through life with a stoop, you know, not spiritually at any rate.

He's a man who takes purposeful steps, and when he can't move forward, he'll still stand rigid and firm. That's what the Apostle is saying. Stand, brace yourself, pull yourself together.

All right, the artillery of the devil is being raged against you. Those fiery arrows are coming your way, but don't stoop, don't bend. Stand.

That's the posture. That's the posture. You see, the Apostle makes it clear, not only to the church at, in Ephesus, but the church in Corinth, that one of the most important things for them to bear in mind is their, is their spiritual deportment.

Look at the last verse of 1 Corinthians, in chapter 15. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you.

Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. And he's on the same tack again in the 13th verse of the next chapter. Be on your guard.

Stand firm in the faith. Be men of courage. Be strong.

Do everything in love. Throughout the epistles, there's always this plea. You're a soldier, so stand.

Spiritually, be strong. Now, you get a negative example. By that, I mean an illustration which, in its own contradiction, illustrates what Paul is not asking for.

You say you express that clumsily. What do you mean? Well, here we are in the Garden of Gethsemane. One of the most desperate hours in history has dawned, and it affects the Lord Jesus.

You remember the story? It's dark because it's Passover evening, and our Lord is in the heart, in the interior of that private garden to which he had access from time to time when he wanted some escape from the from the hustle and bustle of the slab streets of Jerusalem. And he says to his disciples, watch and pray. To the inner three, Peter, James, and John, just engage in intercession.

Watch. Be alert. This is the time for vigilance.

And he comes back once, and he comes back again, and he comes back the third time. And are they standing not a bit? They're asleep to their disgrace. When they should have stood, they were slumbering.

And maybe Peter, though I can't prove it with that in mind, writes many years later, having known the corrective, a piece of instruction to younger Christians in the letter, the first letter that bears his name, the fifth chapter and the eighth verse. Be self-controlled and alert. Why? Because your enemy, the devil, crawls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.

Resist him, standing firm in the faith. Because it's you brothers. Your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings, are Peter? Yes.

You learned your lesson, didn't you? Here you are years on after the after the tragedy of Gethsemane, when you should have stood. Here you are advising younger Christians to be bold, upright, to stand firm, to be vigilant. Why? Well, because of the enemy, you see.

Peter here uses the idea of the lion. With Paul, it's the idea of the soldier, the enemy soldier, coming towards the camp. But with Peter, it's a lion.

It doesn't really matter what the metaphors are. The point is it's dangerous out there. And out there is trying to affect in here.

And the only way that you can resist is by standing firm with all vigilance as a Christian. You see, we're real soldiers. Now, there are many people who, if they were listening to me preach this morning, would think the man's beside himself.

Well, I'm quite happy to accept the criticism. Christianity's got nothing to do with this business of soldiering and fighting. This is alien to the thought.

No, my friend, it's alien to their thought. They haven't read the New Testament. They know nothing of the hostility of powers that are against the church.

Indeed, they even deny the very existence of such powers. But those who are Christian, who know what it is to confess Jesus Christ as Lord, are aware of the great difficulty in maintaining the faith. So Paul gives the advice here, in the name of God, a conscious act of spiritual resolve.

That's what one theologian makes reference to as he summarizes Paul's appeal, fourfold appeal, for posture here. Stand firm against the schemes of the devil. Well, not just our posture that concerns me this morning, but also to show you something of our performance.

Look again at verse 13. Therefore put on the full armor of God. And once more, it's a repetition, isn't it? You notice that? Verse 11, we've got the first introduction of the theme, put on the full armor of God.

And so he repeats it. And once more, I underline the fact that if there's repetition, it's not for the sake of words. The Bible does not waste its words.

It's an inspired book. It comes about by the playing of the power of the Spirit upon the mind of the man who wrote. So once again, there is something that's very serious, or else there would have been no repetition.

This is something you must do, you see. Put on. This isn't something that is done for you.

Now, this is most important, because there are some people who object to this whole idea of Christian discipline. And some perhaps would take issue with me and say, well look, here you were in the 10th verse some months ago, and you were talking about being strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. And you backtracked in your reference to Ephesians 1 and Ephesians 3, and the great power that Christ releases amongst His church.

And you made reference to your understanding of the Spirit, and the fullness of the Spirit, and the baptism of the Spirit. And then later on you took us into Ephesians 5, and you had the audacity to suggest that the conviviality of a public house is sometimes more in keeping with what Paul has in mind than the stuffiness and the frigidity of some church circles. Yes, all this I would agree to.

You have understood me aright. I believe that it is necessary for us to be strong in the Lord and to know His mighty power. Those great infusions of spiritual strength that sometimes cause of cause us to leap for joy in praise in reaction of what God has done for us.

And yes indeed, I do believe that when Christian people come together, there should be an atmosphere of conviviality. An atmosphere of great rejoicing and jubilation. Not because we've copped out of our responsibilities.

We still recognize something of the awesomeness of life, and the greatness and the godliness, obviously of the Trinity, and the fact that God is essentially holy, and we are unholy. All this I agree to, and try to hold in tension. But I tell you this, that if you react against my preaching about the disciplines that are to, are to shackle, are to harness your life, then you've gone to an extreme.

And this is one of the great problems in Christianity. You go from one extreme to another, from an emotionalism that takes its leave left of center of the Bible, to an orthodoxy that goes right of center and is almost like the coldness and the narrowness of the Pharisees. Now it's somewhere in between.

So the apostle here, you say, is saying be strong in the Lord and his mighty power. Yes, this is great. But there is something else each day I need to do.

That daily dogged discipline to which John Stock makes reference in his preaching. What is it that I need to do? Put on the full armor of God. Because you can never have even a crisis experience of the Holy Spirit that renders you immune from the temptations of the evil one.

Remember Samson? Physically strong. Where did his strength come from? Well, it was the Holy Spirit falling upon him with such remarkable consequences. But the day came when the arrows of the evil one affected Samson.

And when he is deflected from achieving the purposes of God. And as a result, the strength that he had, it leaves him. What about David? The sweetest psalmist that Israel has ever known.

A great theologian in the Old Testament. An understanding of the grace and the sovereignty of God. And Bathsheba comes along and the whole thing is wrecked.

A man who knew the Spirit of God to the extent that in Psalm 51 he's praying, Lord as a consequence don't take your spirit from me. Don't tell me that these men in the Old Testament had no experience of the Spirit. I can reject your argument by quoting you example after example.

What about Peter? Great, incisive Peter. Who do men say that I am? Lord, you're the Christ. The Son of the Living God.

Peter, with what clarity you've seen this. With what remarkable spiritual gift you've been endowed to appreciate what others, the politicians and the theologians have completely missed. Peter, how wonderful.

And yet give him a few minutes. And he's trying to interfere with the purposes of God. Give him a few months.

And he's denying that he has any cognizance at all with the carpenter who came from Nazareth. I don't know the man. You see the point, my friend? It's not just sufficient to know the mighty power of the Spirit of God resting upon you.

These grand experiences. You need each day of your life to put on the armor of God. I feel more vulnerable as a Christian preacher after more than 19 years in the ministry than I did at the beginning.

I need this armor desperately. And so you see the apostle makes it plain as he's writing not only to the Ephesians, but also to the Corinthians. That there is a real warfare in which he is engaged.

And he's got to be very concerned to stand firm in the day of temptation. If you think you're standing, says Paul as he's writing in 1 Corinthians 10, be careful that you don't fall. In other words, what's your spiritual optimism? You see if you backtrack the reference at this point in 1 Corinthians 10, Paul is referring to the great tragedy of the Hebrews.

There they were in Egypt, delivered miraculously from the from the octopus-like grip of Pharaoh. They moved to the Red Sea, the waters opened, and they stayed there. They set across dry shard, and when they go into Sinai to quote our American friends, they blow it.

Spiritually speaking, they collapse one after another, dies in the wilderness, and their graves are there to mark their spiritual disaster. Was there ever a nation, I ask you, that should have stood? Was there ever a generation that ought to have remained true to the purposes of God? They'd seen the mighty power of the Lord, but they didn't stand. So now, when Paul makes reference to this, he says, you too, however mature, however long you've been in the faith, however many experiences you may have had of God's grace, each day put on the armor, because you're vulnerable.

Let he who thinks he stands, stay seated. Blessed be Paul. So let's move on.

Now, a strong appropriating act is what is necessary in terms of putting on the armor. It's something for us to do, it's not done for us. Then let's have an introduction, just for a few moments, to the armor itself.

And if you're good at maths, you'll have gathered there are six pieces of armor, roughly divided into two lots. There's that which is fixed, the belt, the shoes, the breastplate. There is that which is loose, the helmet.

It's not the helmet of the Middle Age, with the clasp underneath. It's more like a cap with metal in it. There is the sword, which obviously is loose.

There is a shield that is loose. The significance of all this will dawn on us later on. The point that I'm trying to establish at this moment, this Sunday morning, is that the Lord has set before his people six pieces of armor at least.

And the apostle says, be sure to put on each piece. Do you notice how he describes this armor, just for a moment? Put on the full armor of God, verse 13. Repetition, verse 11.

Put on the full armor of God. Whose armor is this? Who donates it? You see, it's most important that I appreciate this, because it distinguishes between the professional theologian and the actual Christian. You see, the professional theologian, and we have many of them in our universities, and I'm not knocking the universities as such, except one on Friday, who seem to suggest that Christianity is a question of just human ingenuity.

You know, you make a few conclusions, you arrive at certain definitions, and it's all to do with the mind, the reason, the human mind, and the human reason. But no, that's not the way to approach Christianity. If you do it like that, then you reduce it from what it essentially is.

Christianity is something given by God, which is opposed by the devil, and there is an attack from the latter on the person who embraces Christianity. So to withstand that attack, God gives an armor. It is the armor of God.

You see, you have to deal with a Christian in a completely different manner than which, to which you deal with an ordinary person. An ordinary person comes along with, to you, and you try to help them. They're worried, and you you endeavor with your limited knowledge, or great knowledge, for that much of psychology, or common sense, to give them advice and instruction, and you do your best.

But that's not the case with the Christian. You see, the Christian has the armor. Now, nobody else than the Christian has it.

This is what makes it absurd when, when army chaplains go to Ephesians 6 and try to justify military strategy and bolster up courage on non-confessing soldiers, by applying these scriptures to that situation. It is utterly ridiculous. You see, this is not the armor of man's ingenuity.

This is God's armor, because we are involved in God's warfare. And the Christian, he needs to have specific advice when he's up against problems, when he's up against difficulties, because he's in a completely different category, you see. He's, he's got this, this great armor, this, this arsenal of God.

Let's look at 2 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 4, just to show that Paul sustains this thinking, as he writes other letters. 2 Corinthians 10 and verse 4, well, let's take it from the third verse, just to get the context. Although we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.

There's a completely different ball game, sort of, going for the Christian, in terms of the war that he's involved in. It's not a physical war, it's a spiritual war, and as a result, it's more dangerous, because of that, because often the enemy is not seen, whereas very often in physical warfare, the enemy can be distinguished quite easily. So says the apostle, following that through, verse 4, the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.

On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. These weapons, the arsenal of God, you see, once more, I, I, pardon me from laboring it, but it's most important that you realize this, it is not as a result of human ingenuity. I do not stand as a Christian, simply because, well, you know, I, I'm myself convinced about the Christian position, and I have a certain amount of gray matter, and I can, I can use my mind to offset arguments against Christianity.

Now, that could be true to some degree, but you see, spiritually, I'm very weak. Sometimes I think I'm the weakest person that God ever made. Naturally, I tremble, even to be in this pulpit, though I've been here for so long, on so many occasions.

I'm not exaggerating, but then God judged me if I am. I, I realize that, that, that in and of myself, I have only very limited ability, and to put that ability over against the hostility of Satan is, is utterly ridiculous. I can't stand.

I really do mean that. I wonder if I could convince some of you young people just how, how honest I am being and sincere at this very moment. On my own, I cannot stand without the armor.

Every day, putting it on. This is God's armor, you see. It, it's what He gives to make a weakling like myself able to cope with the pressures that are brought against me and the faith that I claim.

It's God's armor, each of the six pieces. And what's more, it's the armor that has been demonstrated in its usefulness. What do I mean by that? Well, who is the captain of our salvation? Now, according to the authorized version, it's the Lord Jesus, and the NIV agrees, but it doesn't use the word captain in this, in Hebrews 2. So, I go along with the RSV, which I think's got captain.

If it's not, then stick with the AV, because that has. Now, when, when Jesus came into this world, how, how do you read Him? See, what do you mean? Well, here He is as a mature man in His ministry. He starts His public ministry.

It doesn't last long. I've been here five times as many years as Jesus has engaged in public ministry. He's baptized in the waters of the Jordan, and from there He goes into the wilderness.

Very often like that, you know, from the water of blessing to the wilderness of buffeting. What happens there? Well, all hell is let loose against the Lord Jesus. Is that not so? The devil slides alongside, and in the mourn of the many disguises, He, He comes along, and He tries to induce Jesus to fall.

The effrontery of the evil one. What does Jesus do? Well, the armor of God, you see. He, He, He has it.

The breastplate of truth. He came to reveal truth. He epitomizes truth.

The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. He slays Him again, and again, and again. One occasion, they tried to impugn the Lord Jesus.

They endeavored to libel Him, to slander Him, to reckon that, well, His life was inconsistent. So what did He do? He says, which one of you convicts me of sin? Bring the evidence. The breastplate of righteousness.

You see, there was no mud that could ever stick. Oh, they could contrive their schemes, and eventually they, they brought in a guilty verdict on evidence that was contradictory and inadmissible to any normal person. Normal human cause.

Jesus remains impregnable. Because He has the armor. You see, what Paul is really here describing, when he puts the armor together, is nothing other than the character of the Lord Jesus.

Now, what am I as a Christian? I have the Spirit of Jesus within me in degree. How do I know? Well, by resisting. Resisting those fiery arrows of the devil that come against me.

Wielding the armor. You see, this is so very, very, very, very important. The armor of the Christian.

The breastplate of righteousness. The belt of truth. The sword of the Spirit.

The helmet of salvation. And so forth. The world laughs at this.

Once more, if you were bringing some of the theologians in the universities to which I sometimes go, and they were listening to me, they would reject the majority of what I'm saying. But the world scorns these weapons. They're utterly unimportant.

We don't need these outmolded, outdated thoughts in the 20th century. The world scorns that these are the very weapons that make the devil tremble. These are the things that scares him.

Why? Because these are the very protective elements that makes a Christian invulnerable to his attacks. And sharp and powerful in entering into the devil's strongholds and pulling out those for whom Christ died. Because the weapons of our warfare are mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.

Oh, do you believe me when I'm saying this? I sometimes wonder to what degree, God forbid, I've been here so long that what I'm saying is beginning to lose its cutting emphasis as being convictions by which I live and by which you are to live. This is the armor of God. Apart from the armor of God, there's no hope.

Apart from being clothed in His armor, we would be powerless as Christians in the 20th century. Our world is very decadent, England particularly so. Let's extend it to Great Britain, 8% church attendance.

In Kenya, 60% of the people attend church. Not England. Down, down, down we seem to go.

And we wonder to ourselves, Lord, can we ever find that power that is necessary to take Great Britain again for You? And I say, yes, in the name of God we can, by putting on the armor. You see, a man who's got this armor is incredibly powerful. You see, the one who is for us is immensely greater than the one who is against us.

I was reading during the last week of what happened after the Puritan era. You know of Cromwell and his men and the way that things turned around in England at that time. Many people went to church, tremendous reformation.

Within a matter of 50 years it was virtually all wiped out. In the 17th century, things were so dark in England. As dark as they are today.

And what did God do? There was a man by the name of Howell Harris, and one called Danny Rowlands, and another called John Wesley, and another called Charles Wesley, and another called George Whitfield. They were all converted within a matter of three years. It was an incredible piece of work of the Spirit, bringing to himself five remarkable men, and they were set loose in the power of God, with the armor of God, against the forces of evil in Great Britain.

And they changed our nation in the name of God. Bishop Butler was saying in the 17th century, England is a land that doesn't believe the Bible and the stories therein which are clearly fictitious. And bishops never change, incidentally.

And within a matter of 50, 60 years, they were saying in Holland, England is a land of one book, and that book is the Bible. You see, when you're clothed in this armor, then you've power. You're like the Baptist, you make Herod tremble.

You're like Knox, you make Mary Queen of Scots to shake in her shoes. The armor of God. Well, that's what we need, my friend.

We need to trust our Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior and our Lord. We need the infilling of His mighty Spirit. And after all that, there's a lot for us to do.

Day by day, week by week, put on something that no one else can do for you. Put on determined effort the whole armor of God, every part, and see what God can do with a man, with a woman, who is so clothed in the armory that God donates the usefulness of which is demonstrated by Jesus the Lord. Next week, we look at the belt of truth, the first piece of the armor.

Amen. 383 is appropriate to sing as we conclude this part of morning worship and prepare ourselves for coming around the Lord's table. 383, let's sing it as intelligently as we did the first hymn, Stand Up for Jesus.

Soldiers of Christ, arise and put your armor on. 383 Now, Father, a new week's dawning, and we want to stand for you. And we tell you that in and of ourselves we can't make it, but with your strength we can.

And by putting into effect the disciplines of your word, we can. Father, the equipment is there. Help us to put it on.