Soldier No.4 Covering for the Feet

Isaiah 52, 1 to 10, Awake, awake, clothe yourself in your strength, O Zion, clothe yourself in your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city, for the uncircumcised and the unclean will no more come into you, shake yourself from the dust, rise up, O captive Jerusalem, lose yourself from the chains around your neck, O captive daughter of Zion, for thus says the Lord, you were sold for nothing and you will be redeemed without money, thus says the Lord God, my people went down at the first into Egypt to reside there, then the Assyrian oppressed them without cause, now therefore what do I have here, declares the Lord, seeing that my people have been taken away without cause, again the Lord declares, those who rule over them, howl, and my name is continually blasphemed all day long, therefore my people shall know my name, therefore in that day I am the one who is speaking, here I am, how lovely are on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation and says to Zion, your God reigns, listen, your watchmen lift up their voices, they shout joyfully together, for they will see with their own eyes when the Lord restores Zion, break forth, shout joyfully together, your waste places of Jerusalem, the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem, the Lord has bared his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, that all the ends of the earth may see the salvation of our God. Let's turn to Ephesians in chapter six, some of you indicate that I turn to Ephesians so much that the page is almost falling out of your Bible, where Ephesians 6 is, well I have a remedy, go down to the Bible bookshop and buy another copy, they're always happy to sell Bibles to you. Ephesians 6 and we're back to this well-worn passage of scripture on the Christian soldier.

I really wanted to preach two or three addresses on each piece of the armor, but uh, wiser counsels have prevailed, so I'm just taking one address per piece. Verse 13, 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 a 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. When you were courting, assuming that you once were, did the young lady or the young man in question ever say, how nice you looked? You know, you've got eyes like nobody else's.

Maybe it was the shape of your nose that they appreciate. Roaming, roaming all over. Whatever, one thing I do suggest is that no one ever took a look at your feet and said, you know, you've got feet that are really quite remarkable.

And yet in the Old Testament, in the passage Sibode read to us, and it's repeated, at least it's quoted in Romans 10, reference is made to someone with beautiful feet. How beautiful are the feet of him or those, as I think is the accurate rendering of Isaiah, of those who preach the gospel, who bring the note of good tidings to people who are without the message of salvation. Well, it's the idea of feet that really occupies our attention this morning, and it has to.

A slightly different context from the passage in Isaiah, and also the cross-reference in Romans 10. Here in Ephesians 6, dealing with the armor of the Christian, the apostle brings us to the third piece. We've looked, have we not, at the breastplate of righteousness, and prior to that we looked at the belt of truth.

But now we have to consider what I have referred to as the gospel hue. It's one of the fixed pieces of armor. Now, we're not to press the apostle Paul too far.

Of course, he's using a visual aid. He's spiritualizing, so you can't be too literalistic. But there he is in his dungeon, perhaps in Rome, and he's got his bodyguard nearby, and certain things about the soldier who's on duty impress Paul.

His armor particularly, and Paul realizing that he is no less than a soldier of the Lord Jesus, just runs his eye down the armor, and he makes these spiritual applications as he dashes off this letter, and sends it to the Ephesians, and asks that the Christians in that Greek city, that they become true, valiant soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ. And my dear friend, if you are in any way rejecting the notion that the Christian is a soldier, and that we as people moving through this world are engaged in a warfare, then I suggest to you that your reasoning is faulty, and your understanding of the New Testament is therefore inaccurate. If you find Christianity a sort of easy believism that helps you to jog your way through life, then again, I come back to the pronouncement that I've just made.

Whatever your faith may be, it has very little to do, I reckon, with the faith of the apostle Paul, the faith of the of the New Testament. You see, once you become a Christian, a lot of problems occur. This is one of the reasons why we must temper modern evangelicalism to a certain degree.

The idea that once you trust the Lord Jesus, then you will be happy ever after. In one sense, that is wonderfully true. In another sense, it is a distortion of the truth, because once you become a Christian, you live on planet Earth, which is surrounded by, whether you prepare to accept it or not, it is surrounded by hostile forces.

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. That was the original intent, but the devil has come, and with squatters rights, he has taken up residence, and the whole world, says John, in one of his epistles, lies in the hand of the evil one. So that means to say that the Christian is a prime target for attack, and the young man, the young woman who comes to me, and they've made a response after a gospel service, which I've taken, or brother Ted Davey, or one of the elders here at the tab, and a week or so later are in utter perplexity, because things are going wrong in their lives.

They are, by very relating of that experience to me, confirming that they are Christians, because it sometimes appears as though all hell is let loose against the early believer in the first few months of his Christian pilgrimage. Well, what does he do? Well, he or she sees themselves in terms of this Christian soldier, and they have to have on them these six pieces of armor to which the apostle makes reference here. And we come to this third piece, this fixture.

There are three loose pieces, there are three that are fixed. Here is the third fixed piece, and it is the shoes. And so the apostle says that besides putting on the buckled in, and you're firmly tied in, so to speak, with truth, then be concerned about your feet, be concerned about your feet.

And he puts it like this, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. It's as though the apostle Paul is saying in the 15th verse that he leads him with that conjunction, and don't forget your feet. Don't forget this very vital part of your anatomy.

You see, the apostle has before, writing to the Corinthians, indicated from an analogy from the human body, that every part of our frame has its own importance. And now he's just been dealing with the belt of truth around the waist, people being firm around the loins. He's been dealing with the breastplate of righteousness, which covers the vital organs of the chest.

And the possibility is that, well, the feet seem to be somewhat inconsequential, don't they? I mean, the feet don't have vital organs in them. Do you ever suffer from your feet? Remember the sign that I quoted some while ago on gospel service here, in the tab I risked the quotation. I was told that it was put up outside a chiropodist surgery for anyone who was passing by.

The sign was, you are only just two feet away from comfort. You see, if your feet are affected in any way by discomfort, it's very difficult for you to continue your normal life. And, says the apostle Paul, in regard to the Christian soldier, this is exactly the same.

Your feet. Have you considered what they are standing for? Have you considered the very foundations of your Christian faith? Because that's what he's making reference to, isn't it? The gospel of peace. Well, let's just take up the thought, if it's not too unpleasant, for Sunday morning, of feet, for a moment, longer.

You see, there's that Roman soldier. Well, how is he kitted out? Well, he has a sandal on. Not the sort of sandal that you'd buy from a world craft shop.

Something that is somewhat more substantial. It would lace up over the tops of the feet and around the ankle. And underneath the sole, there would be studs.

And the Roman soldier, by decree of Caesar, had the best footwear that it was possible for any army to be shot with. Why? Well, when you move to the borders of Italy, to the frontiers of the empire, then there were great problems confronting the divisions of Caesar. Some of the terrain was mountainous.

Some of the roads were virtually impossible. How could the soldier move on unless he was shot well underfoot? Well, this is what the apostle has to, has to deal with. You see, he makes reference to this feature of the, of the footwear of the Roman soldier.

Now, why was Caesar, why were all the leaders of the Roman battalion so concerned that their men had good footwear? Well, you've got to understand a little bit about the strategy of military techniques several hundred years, a couple of thousand of years ago. You see, what the enemies would do if they felt the Roman divisions were advancing, they would cut pieces of wood and they would sharpen the ends of the wood and they would bury them in the road as the soldiers were going to march along and then they would camouflage them. Or else they'd get sharp pieces of stone and they would do exactly the same.

Now, you imagine this poor old soldier and he's walking along and his, his feet are bare and suddenly he finds that he's walking on the spikes of the wood or the spikes of the stone. Well, obviously his feet, after a while, even if they have been hardened to some degree, they're going to tear, they're going to bleed, infection will set in, and ere long an army could be brought almost to its knees. It could lose its mobility simply because it went on without the adequate footwear.

Now, says the Apostle Paul, in, in many senses that's like you and me. Here we are as Christians and we have to make progress. We have to move through our world.

Now, of course, he's being spiritual. He's, he's, he's developing the metaphor and he's saying, what about, what about your feet? The thing that gives you momentum, the thing that carries you forward, are you sure that your feet are shod with the gospel of peace? With a readiness that comes from the gospel of peace? You see, here he's, he's dealing with the, the very certainties of the Christian faith. What is your foundation? Because, after all, it's on that that you're standing.

This gospel, do you really understand a great deal about it? Do you come to the New Testament, to the Old Testament? Do you absorb your mind, your total personality in the gospel message so that you're getting stimulus and support and you can move through life knowing full well whose you are and to where you're bound? Because, you see, it's a man of convictions who makes pace. It's the woman who's sincere in her Christian faith who develops a strong spirituality. This is what Paul is after, if I understand him right.

He's developing the stamina of a Christian soldier. He's encouraging people to ensure that they can make progress. What's the progress like in your Christian life? If we were to do a sort of inventory around the tabernacle this morning, if I'd been so bold as to send out a questionnaire asking about your prayer life, your times of studying the Bible, your times of fellowship with the living God, how would you answer, you know, in all honesty, if you had to just in an anonymous fashion complete the list of my questions and send them in? How would the eldest fashion? How would I? You see, these things are very, very important.

What progress have you made this week? What are your spiritual feet like? They're bleeding, they're bruised, they're infected. Then the reason for that is that you know not enough about your feet being shod with the gospel, with the gospel of peace. So, I bring to you the necessity to inquire into Paul's teaching here.

You see, the devil is very treacherous, isn't he? I mean, here is this roving army that I've suggested to you, and they're moving, shall we say, into Gaul, and those barbaric tribes there, they've ensured that there are lots of spikes for the Romans' feet, and let's assume that for a moment their feet are not covered, then the army is in trouble. Now, the devil does exactly the same. The Apostle Paul talks about the snares, the devices of the devil.

He does so in the reference that I have up on the overhead there. The Apostle Peter does exactly the same in the letter that bears his name. Be aware of the wiles of evil.

The Apostle Peter, you remember, he has this concept of the devil, of the roaring lion, seeking whom he might devour. And so, what does Peter say? Well, be alert, be ensured that you can cope, that when the traps are sprung, you have already taken retaliatory action, so that in no way will you be discomfited. It seems to me when the Apostle here makes a comment about feet, he endorses what he sees to be an absolute necessity.

Stand firm with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with a readiness that comes from the gospel. Why is it so important? Well, there's something else that the Apostle makes quite clear to us, and that is that the measure of stability that Christians need to have as they make their way through life. Now, we hardly needed verse 15 to have brought us to this conclusion.

The Apostles made it very clear in previous verses. Let's look at verse 11. Just, just run down one or two references for a moment.

Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's scheme. Let's drop to verse 13. 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. Verse 14, stand firm. You see this repetition of the word stand.

Well, you see, it's got to get to feet then, hasn't it? Because you can't stand on your head. Well, some evangelicals perhaps try. You, you have to stand firm on your feet.

Now, you need good shoes to do that. I was in Manchester on Saturday. I was with my brother, and uh, last Saturday week.

And uh, I wanted to go jogging in the morning, and I'd forgotten to take my jogging shoes. And so, I, I took from him, without his permission, because they were under the wardrobe in the bedroom where I was staying, a sort of flimsy pair of pencils. And actually, he caught me just on the way out of the door.

So, I had to check with him. This is my older brother. And I started to run.

And you know, it had been just drizzling with rain half an hour or so ago, and I went by the embankment of a river. I nearly had my second baptism. Why was that? Well, you see, I was, I was really running in slippers.

And the very word slipper indicates its weakness. You slip it on, so that you might slip down. At least you do when you jog.

What I needed were my trainers. Why? What's the difference? Well, well, you see, they have bite. They have grips.

Later on, as I continued my tour of the north of England, that civilized part of our country, I went across the Pennines into North Derbyshire, where I spent many a weekend as a boy, climbing the crags of North Derbyshire. Now, how did I go about that with our English grammar teacher from our school, who had this climbing club? Well, we, we, we ensured that we got our boots on. Oh, do you know, I feel sorry for some of you, you young people.

You don't know what it is, do you, to take a pair of boots and cobble them. I remember my granddad. He was the best cobbler in the area.

And if you gave him some boots, he'd put it on his hob and he'd take the studs. It's a word you don't come across much today, isn't it? The studs. And he'd put these metal studs in the boots, crisscross.

He got his own way of making the pattern. And when you took some boots that my granddad had studded, well, I reckon you could have got off Everest, let alone the cranks in, uh, in Derbyshire. You see, the important thing was to ensure that you had grips when you were climbing.

Why? Well, unless you did, you might slip down and then you would be in a great problem. The same sort of problem as the psalmist was in when, in Psalm 73, he has this to say in his, in his opening verses. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped.

I had nearly lost my foothold. What was the problem? Well, you see, he hadn't got his trainers. He didn't have his boots.

I would rather have gospel boots with, with, with, uh, studs on them than some of the fancy slippers that are offered in some of the meetings today. I need to be able to, to stand. I, I need stability.

Now, my friend, let me put it to you like this. Are you standing for the Lord Jesus? You, you can stand for the Lord Jesus in terms of your creed. That's what you believe.

You stand firm there. Have you got slippers on or have you got boots? You know, somebody comes along and they say, do you believe in the inspiration of scripture? It's not easy to answer yes to that if you're at the sixth form college and you've got the biggest brilliant cynic who's talking to you. But you say, yes, I believe.

Do you stand firm, my friend, as far as the virgin birth is concerned, the sinless life of the Lord Jesus, the fact that when he died on the cross of Calvary, that that was an atonement for your sins? Do you tell people of that? Do you stand firm on this? Or do you go like a jelly when they start to ask you? You go to the tabernacle. There, that Jewish place where the rabbi preaches on a Sunday, enormously long sermons, the glorious resurrection of Christ. You stand on that.

You've got your studs in your boots and you'll hold to that, whatever anybody might say, whether claiming to be a theologian or not. Stand for the creed of the gospel. But not, of course, just for the creed, also for conduct, for your Christian behavior.

Now, it takes a lot, doesn't it, to stand in this area in these days. After all, the morality of the New Testament is so old-fashioned now that that people just do not believe that there was ever a time when our nation really tried to live up to it. Things have gone so fast down the plug.

When I was at school, my headmaster and the staff, as far as I knew, and I'm talking about when I was a pupil at school, were not Christians in the sense that we understand the Word. But they did preach and practice, to my knowledge, a Christian morality. But I can remember, even in my days as a school teacher in London, convening a large meeting, not a religious meeting, in North London, in which the medical officer of health came along to speak to the boys about sexuality and what have you, and how to get out of difficulties, if you've been sleeping around, and who to go to, and what clinic to go to, what method of birth control, until I'd heard so much from him.

Being the chairman, for the last few minutes, I plundered time and I spoke on self-control, the only control that he'd never made mention of. You've got in these days, my friend, and I've just given you one area, there are many other examples that one could give, you have in these days, if you're a Christian soldier, to stand and it's not easy. When everyone around you is going their way and slipping and sliding, you as a Christian, you dig in and you say, no, not me, not my house.

We will serve the Lord, to quote an Old Testament leader of bygone days. Oh my friend, the reason why the Apostle Paul, you see, is so concerned about our feet being shod, the reason why it's such a necessity for him, is because, well, for your feet to be shod well, is going to mean that you can stand, you have stability in your Christian life. And what's more, not just stability, but let me suggest to you also, mobility, mobility.

After all, the Apostle makes this almost plain, doesn't he, in the 15th verse, without digging in too deep into the language that he used to write this letter, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. That word readiness, surely that indicates mobility, it's a word which is only used here in this setting in Scripture, though there are various renderings of the word in the adjectival form in other passages of Scripture. For instance, do you remember the parable that our Lord taught of the foolish virgins? These women who were not ready for the bridal occasion when the groom came along, there were 10 virgins, and five were wise, and the other five were foolish, and when the bridegroom came, the ones who were wise, who had their lamps all lit, and had sufficient oil, they went, they were ready, they were ready when the bridegroom came.

The others, unfortunately, they were somewhat slack, they hadn't taken the necessary precautions, and when the bridegroom came, they were absent, buying oil in the marketplace. Now our Lord says, as far as looking for his coming is concerned, that we are to be ready, and it's that sort of word, at least a derivative of that word that Paul has here in verse 15, when he speaks about the gospel shoe, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. Ready, mobile, and now if you can use either hand as a boxer, you are ambidextrous.

I've been trying to work out a word for if you can use either foot. Someone can come along and tell me afterwards, I couldn't find it in the dictionary, but this is the idea, you see, you've got both of your feet shod, prepared, well studded, and you can go to the right, or you can go to the left. You're not caught on the hop, here is a very difficult situation that's popping up, and you're not off guard.

Why? Well, you see, not only are you stable, but you're mobile. You can deflect that arrow of the devil, you can deflect that temptation, and as a soldier of Jesus Christ, you're so mobile that you can go to the very place where the battle needs to be fought. Now that's a very interesting thing that they had to learn in the last world war.

You see, military strategy varies, doesn't it, down the centuries, of course it does. I mean, you wouldn't have fought the last world war, or the war in the Falklands of three years ago, with the same strategy of the Roman soldiers. If you imagine our fellows in the Falkland Islands, always sandals on, and wearing a breastplate, and a sword, and a shield, a fat lot of good that would be against an exocet missile.

You see, you've got to change your strategy, and sometimes you've got to mobilize your forces. One of the reasons why great military generals in times of old, like Alexander, for instance, was so successful, was because of the mobility that they had trained into their troops. Now, the Christian is the same, you see, he's got to be mobile.

We don't live in the Victorian era. We're not fighting the fight of the Victorians. We are fighting the fight of today, and the fight of today is perhaps, in one sense, in this country, much more difficult than the fight that the Victorians had.

Although there are certain qualifications I'd like to make about Victorianism, if I was giving a lecture on the subject, there are certain things which I feel were wrong. But you see, we're now up against such tremendous obstacles, that we need all our forces involved in fighting for the very principles of the gospel of peace. When I first came to the tabernacle here some years ago, I was asked if I would take a particular platform for a group of people who were propounding one aspect of teaching on the second coming, and I refused to go.

I have never joined a Christian organization which has as its emphasis just one particular doctrine, because I see no reason in the New Testament to do that at all. We are called to defend the whole counsel of God, and here at the moment, as Christian people in the United Kingdom, we are called to ensure that those who are ignorant of the gospel are informed as quickly as possible. And we do so by being mobile, by taking to the gospel into the areas where it needs to be taken, by defending the gospel and attacking with the sword of the Spirit in the areas of ignorance where people are.

You see, when the devil sidetracks the Christian church into not being mobile or fighting the wars of yesteryear, then he really has deflected us from our main objective. You say what you mean. Well, let me give you a couple of examples.

Let's take the battle of the versions, shall we? The Authorized Version, the New English Bible, the Revised Standard Version, and so on and so forth. How much time has been given into the argument, spilling the ink, trying to defend one particular version over against another particular version? I was in India some years ago, and there was a man who was refusing to give out a certain version of the Bible, simply because he didn't feel it quite had the accuracy that his version had. Now, if you had the option, that would be fine, but he didn't have the option, and so what did he do? Well, he was somewhat reluctant to give out these versions of Scripture to Hindu people, who needed any help whatsoever in teaching them about the Word of God.

Some of us, perhaps, who are fighting the battles of yesterday, instead of realizing that the battle that needs to be fought today is to take the message of salvation into the areas where people are totally ignorant, and that's 90% of worthy. You know, some of us get a little upset about what hymn we sing, and what song we sing, and what hymn we don't sing, and what song we don't sing. And yet, my dear friends, if this is what breaks fellowship amongst God's children in the United Kingdom, then may heaven forgive us, when there are so many, many issues of vital importance for the advance of the gospel that need to be attended to.

We are to mobilize our forces and fight the devil on ground that needs to be taken. There are some people who will never come along to a prayer meeting. Why? Well, you see, the way that this particular prayer meeting is conducted and controlled, they don't really like it, and so what? Well, rather than go to a prayer meeting, they will stay at home and watch their television or whatever else.

And I ask you, are they really fighting on the right territory? Or have they made secondary issues primary, when there is a great importance of getting people together to pray and to ask the Lord, in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, to open the hearts and the minds of men and women to the truth of the glorious gospel? You see, the reason why I'm making these points, it's for this cause, for us to realize that those of us who are called to be Christian soldiers are to be mobile, and we are to fight the battles that need to be fought at this moment. And the major battle is the battle for the souls of men and women, and together as Christian people, whatever we may feel on these secondary issues, the one thing that binds us, the one common denominator, is that we are called to work for the Lord Jesus Christ, and to tell others of the great and the glorious gospel, which alone can save them. Now, these things I ask you, are you fully aware of? Are you fully convinced of? That this is what you're supposed to be doing? Taking up the gospel of peace.

You who have peace with God, Romans 5.1, peace with yourself, in as much as you know, as Philippians 4 tells you, in whatever state you are there with, you can be content. Peace with one another, as Romans tells us again, to live peaceably with one another. We who have this triplet peace, are we taking it to other people? Are we saying, well look, this is what we have.

This is what sort of girds us. This is the gospel of peace that shoes us, and we can move along stable. We can move along with a degree of mobility.

Sorting out the secondary issues from the primary issues, and bringing to those who desperately need to know, the knowledge of God through Jesus Christ. You need to have your feet shod, until that time comes, when you stand in the presence of the Lord. And it's only then, when you can take the shoes off your ground, because off the ground, off your feet, and stand on holy ground, because there there's no warfare.

There all is peace and tranquility. But as far as your life here on this earth is concerned, you need my friends, so desperately, to shoe yourself, to shod yourself, with a gospel of peace, and to go forth, in the name of the Lord Jesus, to promote His message. May the Lord enable us all to do that, more and more.

Amen. 236 in the supplement, is what we're going to sing. Jesus is King, and I will extol Him, give Him the glory, and honor His name.

We'll have it up on the overheads, but friends with a blue supplement, can turn to it on page, on number 236. Jesus our Savior, forever the same, the one who's called us to be soldiers, the one who gives to us the penalty, the whole armor of God, for us to be able to withstand. Let's follow Him my friends, this week.

Follow Him down all the hours, down all the days, down all the opportunities, with our feet shod, so that we don't pick up the snares of the devil, so that we're not affected, and compromise upon our lives, so we don't slip in the clay. Let's move on, mobile and stable, in the cause of the gospel, linking hands with one another, worshiping and working for the King. Father, we commit ourselves to you.

Be with us now, as we go on to the rest of this day. Sanctify this, the Lord's day to us, in all our joy, in all our merriment, in all our fellowship, and help us Lord, to acknowledge you in all that we're doing. We pray, bring us back here this evening, to listen to the word from your servant, as he preaches to us the gospel, maybe from the context of his own ministries.

We ask Lord, for your blessing to be upon him, and that great subcontinent of India. Now hear our prayers, and send us away, knowing your hand, the hand of the mighty God, Father, Son, and Spirit, resting upon us. Amen.