Transcript

If you have your Bibles please turn with me to Ephesians 6.

Greg Ebie tells the following: In the autumn of 1944. Germany had been beaten back behind its borders. The Nazi war machine was nearly destroyed. The repeated bombing raids of the Allies all but assured that Hitler’s forces would never rise again.

Around the perimeter of Germany’s borders, the Allies spread a thin line of forces. One person observed that Allied forces were so scattered that a man could slip between its lines without being observed.

All across Europe, there was celebration rejoicing in Germany’s defeat. The war was effectively over. The only problem was: somebody forgot to tell Germany.

Even as his forces were being shattered and driven back Hitler was devising a plan for one last onslaught.

Underground factories churned out more weapons, armament and ammunition. More of Germany’s young and old men were conscripted and trained for war. And as Europe rejoiced, Hitler planned.

Hitler’s goal was not to drive back the Allies into the sea, as much as it was to divide the British to the North and Americans to the South, so demoralizing them that they would seek peace on his terms and not theirs.

On December 16, 1944 Hitler’s army began The Ardennes Offensive, also known as The Battle of the Bulge. Over 1,000,000 men fought along an 85 mile front. When the fighting ended over a month later (Jan. 25, 1945), hundreds and thousands of men died because somebody forgot that the enemy still lived and that the war was NOT over.

In its entirety, the Battle of the Bulge, was the worst battles in terms of losses to the American Forces in WWII. The winter battle of 1944-45 led to 81,000 American casualties, including 23,554 captured and 19,000 killed.

No one will ever know how many of these could have been spared if the Allies had reinforced their positions instead of celebrating an early end to the war across Europe.
Similarly, in the spiritual realm, Satan has been utterly defeated. What had appeared to be Satan’s greatest victory was actually his ultimate defeat.

Satan and his demonic forces were crushed as Christ triumphed over them by the Cross and His resurrection. But while Christ has won the victory, the warfare is not over, as Satan continues to plan, scheme, and lead an underground covert battle of deception.

As the Allies could have spared many casualties, by reinforcing their positions and being prepared, so in the spiritual warfare we are engaged in, by being prepared and putting on God’s armor, we can keep from being a casualty by Satan’s attacks.

In this spiritual warfare, Satan strives and wars to discourage and demoralize us and keep us from growing in Christ and serving Him. He tries to keep our focus on self and the temporal, and he desires to destroy our testimony for Christ through sin.

The Christian life is a battle, and in this spiritual battle, God wants us to stand for Him, and to stand against the wiles of the enemy.

Ephesians 6:10 says, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.”

Paul has been showing the believer in this book that we are “in Christ,” in perfect, total, eternal union with Him. And as we are, we find that His life is our life and His power is our power. We draw the power for living the Christian life from Christ.

Ephesians 1:19,20 says, “And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead…”

Being strong in the Lord and in the power of His might has to do with, by faith, living in the resurrection life and power which resides in every believer. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is the power we’re to use to stand in this spiritual battle.

Every believer can stand in the battle against the surprise attacks, schemes, influences and temptations of the enemy on the terms of the resurrection power of Christ.

It’s been rightly said that “the strength of the Christian life is dependence on God.” And so Paul points us to be “strong in the Lord,” to depend upon Him.

Before salvation, Paul says we are “without strength” (Rom. 5:6). We are weak and absolutely unable to please God or save ourselves.

Salvation is only through trusting Christ, and by Him alone we have victory over and deliverance from sin’s penalty and punishment.

After trusting Christ as Savior, we are still weak, and we are to live the Christian life the same way we were saved: by grace through faith in Christ.

His strength is more than sufficient for the battle, and we are guaranteed victory over anything Satan throws at us as we turn to the Lord and depend on Him.

The question was asked in a S.S. Class one time: How can we defeat Satan? One little girl answered: “Let Jesus answer the door when Satan starts knocking.”

To be instructed to be “strong in the Lord and in the power of His might” tells us that our might is not strong enough for us to be able to stand in this spiritual battle, and it tells us that we face an enemy much stronger than we are apart from Christ.

And so we need the infinite strength and power of our Lord in this spiritual battle, and we appropriate that strength by yielding to His indwelling Spirit, through prayer, and by knowledge of, faith in and obedience to His living Word, rightly divided.

As Israel was told in Deut. 20:4, the same is true for us: “For the LORD your God is He that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save [deliver] you.”

Ephesians 6:11 says, “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

To “be strong in the Lord” and to be able to “stand” in this spiritual battle, Paul says we need to put on God’s armor. The first thing we note is that it’s His armor, the “armor of God,” which He supplies to His Church. But it is our responsibility to put it on.

And this armor is all about our relationship with Christ, each piece stems from knowing Him and being like Him. Christ is the truth, He is righteousness, He is the peace, He is faithful and our shield, He is our salvation, and He is the Word of God.

Romans 13:14 says, “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” And so putting on the whole armor of God is literally putting on the Lord Jesus.

Chapter 4 has already instructed us to “put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (4:24). And putting on the armor of God is about putting on the new man, yielding to the new life within, to God’s life and strength within.

The armor of God is a complete outfit. By it, we are protected from head to foot. It contains both defensive and offensive pieces. And by it we have the necessary defense and protection in this spiritual war to be able to stand and bring glory to God.

The armor is a unit, it is one. Just like the “fruit of the Spirit” is one fruit with nine elements, so this armor is one armor with six (or seven) pieces. We need the whole unit, all pieces to be able to stand in the spiritual battle and not be vulnerable to Satan’s darts and schemes. Thus we are instructed for the “whole” armor to be put on.

And the words “put on” are in the imperative and are a command of God for our good.

God’s will is for us to array ourselves in His armor in order to meet our spiritual foe, taking to ourselves all He provides for living and standing in this battle.

Paul might have been chained to a Roman soldier as he penned these words, and looking at the soldier’s armor and by the inspiration of the Spirit, he makes an analogy of God’s spiritual provision for us in the fierce and real spiritual war we are each engaged in.

And Paul says we need to “put on” or clothe ourselves in this armor for the purpose of being “able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” Having this armor on will allow us to “stand” and this word literally speaks of standing firm.

“Stand” is a military term and speaks of “being fixed and firm, resisting the enemy, maintaining the ground, holding a critical position while under attack.”

And Paul says we can firmly stand by God’s power and in God’s armor against Satan’s “wiles,” or his deceitful plotting and scheming against us and against the Church, by which he tries to make us fall in the Christian life and lead us away from Christ.

And some of the things he strives to do in his scheming are what Paul has been teaching us in this book. In his book, “When the Enemy Strikes” Charles Stanley says, “The devil actively seeks to separate husbands and wives, parents and children, employers and employees. He seeks to destroy friendships and divide churches.”

The subject matter of the latter half of the book of Ephesians has been about these very topics. Satan wants to destroy your Christian marriage. He wants children to rebel against their parents and their instruction. He wants to cause division in the home, the church and the workplace. These are all a part of his scheming, and we need to beware.

Ephesians 6:12 read, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

There was once a boxer who was being pummeled in the ring by his opponent. Blow after blow by his adversary left him with a bloody nose, swollen eyes, and an enormous amount of pain.

The battered boxer’s trainer, trying to encourage his man between rounds, kept telling him, “You’re doing great. That bum is barely touching you.”

To which the boxer responded, “Then you better keep your eye on that referee, because someone’s beating the daylights out of me!” In the real spiritual battle we’re in, we can sometimes feel that “someone’s beating the daylights out of me.” And we feel discouraged, depressed, down, and defeated, and we wonder what’s going on!

Paul says we “wrestle” or literally “struggle in hand to hand combat” against the unseen world of demonic forces. Paul shows us how we not only struggle in this battle against Satan himself but also his demonic host in “high” or heavenly places.

Our struggle is not against “flesh and blood,” not on a physical plane, but rather on a spiritual plane, in a spiritual battle against a spiritual enemy, requiring spiritual armor and spiritual power to stand. The demons, like the devil, are not “flesh and blood.”

And the battle is against battalions of fallen angels, against evil spirits who wield great power. The demonic world we cannot see is the formidable enemy we face.

And this is a desperate battle with eternal consequences. The devil and his demonic army attack the church and labor to destroy Christian testimonies and cause the Church to lose its passion and light, and cause us to have a very dim light for Christ.

Satan and his demons can’t take away your salvation in Christ, because you are sealed with the Holy Spirit and the almighty power of God, but they can rob you of your testimony and desire to live for the Lord.

The devil and his angels work to deceive the lost and to “blind the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (II Cor. 4:4).

Satan and his army promote false, deceptive doctrines of demons according to 1 Timothy 4:1, which are false information, false teachings that substitute something different or someone different or anything else different from Christ alone and His grace and love.

The world is full of dark beliefs and philosophies, and people are spiritually dead and they need the Lord and His light and His salvation. And we need to shine brightly and hold forth the Word of life and stand in the spiritual battle so people might find life in Christ.

Millions upon millions are wrapped up in superstition, emotionalism, legalism, mysticism, idolatry, works, trying to earn their way to “heaven.” Faith alone in Christ, that He died for our sins and rose again, is not even contemplated. And our hearts should break. For according to God’s Word, this is the one and only way to heaven and eternal life.

The millions upon millions who are lost and deceived by false beliefs and false religions speaks to us all of the reality of the struggle within the spiritual battle.

And they need to be rescued & liberated from the power, dominion, & authority of Satan’s kingdom of darkness and be “translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.”

Matt Woodley writes this, A few summers ago I watched our 18-year-old son participate in a real X-ball paintball tournament. With sophisticated paintball guns that shoot 13 paintballs per second, the matches are quick and exciting.

They’re also chaotic. The X-ball concept depends on five players from each team shooting at their opponents and working their way up a large outdoor field.

The goal is to “kill” (or hit with a paintball) the other team’s players so you can capture their flag. But it’s not an easy task. The main problem is that in the midst of thousands of flying paintballs it’s tough to spot your opponents.

The other team can crouch and dive behind bunkers and barriers. To make matters even worse, as your team’s coach shouts the right information about your opponents’ locations, the other team’s fans start yelling false information.

When I heard the other fans intentionally confusing my son’s teammates, I was shocked. It sounded like cheating to me—or at least not civil. But after the match my son calmly informed me, “O, yeah, that’s called ‘counter-coaching.’

They’re trying to distract our players with false information. It’s part of the contest, Dad. We have to deal with it all the time. It just means that we have to focus on our coach and block out all the other distractions.”

The lost are led astray by false information, but believers can be also. The Bible clearly warns us that there will be plenty of “counter coaching” from the culture, the devil, and from our own distracted hearts in our spiritual battle.

And there’s only one way to combat spiritual counter-coaching: know the voice of Christ, hang on to His Word rightly divided, trust and obey Him—even when the crowd or the devil tells us to do something else.

We must focus on Christ, and hang on to the truth of His Word so we are not deceived or distracted in the battle, so we are not led astray by false teaching, and so we remain focused about the main things God wants done in the Christian life.

Our Lord said in His earthly ministry that the everlasting fire of the Lake of Fire was “prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41).

Satan and his host know what the Word of God says, they know it says they are sentenced eternally to the lake of fire, and so they are working desperately and ferociously and fervently and fiercely to change that fate if they can. But they can’t, and they won’t.

They have been, and are, and will war ceaselessly to break the power of God and to destroy the things of God, especially you and me, to destroy the church.

And to do so Satan has highly organized and structured his enormous forces for the most destructive warfare possible.

Each of these groups of demons listed here is preceded by the word “against” and represents a particular category of demon activity and level of authority.

Principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, spiritual wickedness describe different stratas and levels of rank, authority and responsibilities, among this evil host.

Paul does not explain the details of this demonic hierarchy and it’s only speculation to guess what they are, but what he does clearly show us is that there is design, sophistication, purposes and order in their ranks.

And that is to be enough for us to realize that in being this organized our adversary is dangerous and well-prepared for battle.

The number of the fallen angels is enormous. Hebrews 12:22 describes the elect angels as “an innumerable company of angels.” One third of this “innumerable” host of angels fell with Satan at his defection. We can be certain that this 1/3 is also innumerable.

Satan is a powerful foe, but he is not all-knowing or present everywhere. But it’s because of his massive army that he’s able to accomplish so much all over this world.

And this fallen host has been around a while, a lot longer than we’ve been around, so not only are they formidable in number, they’re formidable in being highly experienced, knowing the nature and tendencies of man and what can cause him to fall, knowing every trick in the book.

As it’s been said of the forces of evil: “They are plentiful, they are powerful, they are prepared, and they are predatory.” They are vicious, looking to devour. And it is dangerous for us to think we are safe or don’t need to worry about them.

It is dangerous for us to think that we have mastered Scripture. It is dangerous to believe that we are spiritually mature enough, to feel that we are strong enough to live and stand for the Lord.

We are vulnerable to Satan’s attacks and can fall when we have this attitude. Recognizing our weakness makes us the strongest in life. Because when we do so and trust the Lord’s power there is safety and protection and strength and victory.

Being on the Lord’s side is being on the side of the One who is far above all these demonic forces, it’s being on the side of our Lord who after His Cross and resurrection, “spoiled principalities and powers,” and made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Col. 2:15). We are on the side of infinite power and victory.

We can rest in knowing we’re on the side of the God of all glory, whose power is incomparable & infinitely greater than these demons, whose authority is above them all.

As far as the demons’ formidable numbers, the Lord assured King Jehoshaphat as his army faced the superior forces in number of Moab and Ammon, “Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s” (2 Chron. 20:15).

Ephesians 6:13 says, “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

In being reminded of who our enemy is with their organization and schemes, it shows that we need God’s armor. And as Paul tells the Church we need to “take unto you the whole armor of God.”

We don’t “make” this armor; we just have to “take” it. It is available from God, it is His provision of strength, but we have a responsibility to do our part and to take it by turning to the Lord in faith, by growing in God’s Word and applying it to our lives, and by faithfully praying.

We need to take up the whole armor of God, that we may be able to “withstand” when the conflict reaches its fiercest intensity, and still be found standing when the smoke of battle has cleared away.

The “evil day” refers to any time when the enemy strikes and attacks and comes against us like a flood. Satanic opposition seems to occur in waves. It advances and recedes.

Even after our Lord’s temptation in the wilderness, it says that the devil left Him for a season (Luke 4:13).

And “having done all,” having done all things necessary in being ready and prepared, putting on God’s entire spiritual armor, when the adversary attacks we will stand, and not turn or run. We will firmly hold our ground, unmoved for the glory of our Lord.