The Armor of God (Part 1): Stand

Posted On August 16, 2020

“Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”

Ephesians 6:13 NKJV

I’ve had Ephesians 6:10-18 on my mind lately. I feel like the verse that defined my spiritual directive over the past year was Romans 12:2 (NIV): “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — His good, pleasing and perfect will.” This verse has indeed transformed me. Now I feel like God is ready to lead me into a new phase of spiritual growth, and the passage He is instructing me to focus on is this one in Ephesians 6 about the armor of God. When trying to decide on a topic for this week’s post, this Scripture again came to mind. So I thought we could explore it together. In fact, there is so much to discuss that we will take two weeks to cover it. This week we will focus on Ephesians 6:10-15. My Student Bible includes the following note about this passage: “Ephesians concludes with a concise analogy, perhaps inspired by a glimpse of a Roman soldier, outfitted in armor, patrolling the grounds of Paul’s prison. Paul viewed the Christian life as a kind of warfare, and he wanted his readers to prepare for combat with a dangerous opponent.” The dangerous opponent Paul refers to is the devil himself along with “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12 NIV). So this is pretty scary stuff. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the idea of having to face a battle against evil. But the truth is, we face evil every day whether we want to or not . . . and God wants us to be prepared.

Stand Against Evil

“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 schemes. 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.“

Ephesians 6:10-13 NIV

I can’t read these verses without thinking about Stephen King’s The Stand. This story is also about taking a stand against the devil and his evil forces. We’ll come back to The Stand in a minute. First, I want to take a moment to talk about what we mean by “the devil.” I think C. S. Lewis sums it up well in the preface to The Screwtape Letters. Here is what he has to say:

“The commonest question is whether I really ‘believe in the Devil.’ Now, if by ‘the Devil’ you mean a power opposite to God and, like God, self-existent from all eternity, the answer is certainly No. There is no uncreated being except God. . . . The proper question is whether I believe in devils. I do. That is to say, I believe in angels, and I believe that some of these, by the abuse of their free will, have become enemies to God and, as a corollary, to us. These we may call devils. They do not differ in nature from good angels, but their nature is depraved. . . . Satan, the leader or dictator of devils, is the opposite, not of God, but of Michael. I believe this not in the sense that it is part of my creed, but in the sense that it is one of my opinions. . . . It seems to me to explain a good many facts. It agrees with the plain sense of Scripture, the tradition of Christendom, and the beliefs of most men at most times. And it conflicts with nothing that any of the sciences has shown to be true.”

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

In an essay titled “God’s Agents” by Walter R. Hearn and Howard F. Vos in The Portable Seminary, Satan (“the adversary”) is described as an angel who, because of his pride, turned against God. The authors mention Revelation 12:7-9, which describes a war in heaven between the angels, led by the archangel Michael, and the fallen angels, led by Satan. They also remind us: “Although Christians are warned to be on guard against Satan, who is still the ‘prince of the power of the air’ (Ephesians 2:2), there is no biblical basis for excessive fear of the devil or evil spirits.” So I don’t want to put too much focus on Satan, but we would be fools to discount him altogether. Just as I believe angels are at work in the world offering us help and support, I also believe Satan and his demons are at work trying to turn us away from God. As Christians, we need to be aware of their temptations and we need to be prepared to stand against them.

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors . . . .”

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

In Stephen King’s story The Stand, there is a character named Mother Abagail Freemantle who is an elderly religious woman with the gift of prophetic sight. As the story begins building toward its dramatic climax, Mother Abagail gives four men these instructions:

“‘You are to go west,’ Mother Abagail whispered. ‘You are to take no food, no water. You are to go this very day, and in the clothes you stand up in. You are to go on foot. I am in the way of knowing that one of you will not reach your destination, but I don’t know which will be the one to fall. I am in the way of knowing that the rest will be taken before this man Flagg, who is not a man at all but a supernatural being. I don’t know if it’s God’s will for you to defeat him. I don’t know if it’s God’s will for you to ever see Boulder again. Those things are not for me to see. But he is in Las Vegas, and you must go there, and it is there that you will make your stand. You will go, and you will not falter, because you have the Everlasting Arm of the Lord God of Hosts to lean on. Yes. With God’s help you will stand.'”

Stephen King, The Stand

These men are called to stop what they are doing and go. They are not called to defeat evil, just to take a stand against it. And they are promised God’s support. God may not be calling us to drop everything and go to Las Vegas to face off with the devil (thankfully!), but He does call us to put on His armor and be prepared for spiritual battle. Like the four men in the story, we are not called to defeat evil. Christ has already done that. We are just called to “put on the full armor of God” and take our stand. So how do we do that? The next few verses, Ephesians 6:14-18, give us our instructions. Let’s look at them and see what God advises us to do. We’ll examine verses 14-15 this week and verses 16-18 next week.

“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.”

Ephesians 6:14-15 NIV

The Belt of Truth

“Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn’t think of doctrines as primarily ‘true’ or ‘false,’ but as ‘academic’ or ‘practical,’ ‘outworn’ or ‘contemporary,’ ‘conventional’ or ‘ruthless.’ Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. . . . Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes.”

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

In The Screwtape Letters C. S. Lewis writes a series of letters from the point of view of a demon named Screwtape instructing another demon named Wormwood how to turn humans against God. In the passage above, Screwtape explains that keeping doctrine outside the realm of “real life” is an effective way of keeping us from believing it. It’s important for us as Christians to embrace the idea of truth. William Barclay in his commentary on Ephesians 6:14 describes the belt of truth: “It was the belt which girt in the soldier’s tunic and from which his sword hung and which gave him freedom of movement. Others may guess and grope; the Christian moves freely and quickly because he knows the truth.” In The Student Bible Dictionary by Karen Dockrey, Johnnie Godwin, and Phyllis Godwin, the definition of truth is: “Actual fact rather than pretense, appearance, or claim. God is the one Source of truth, and Jesus is called the Truth (John 14:6).”

As humans, we all believe in something. What we believe determines how we choose to live. As Christians, we believe in Jesus Christ. We believe that He is the unique Son of God, sent to save us from sin through His sacrificial death and resurrection, restoring us to fellowship with God. We are instructed in Romans 10:9 (NIV): “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” There is nothing we can do to earn our way into heaven. We just have to accept the gift of life that Jesus offers us and make Him the Lord of our lives. This is the truth we believe, and because we do, we can get on with the life God calls us to lead.

“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'”

John 14:6 NIV

We are also called to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18 NIV) and to share the truth with others in a loving way: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15 NIV). Randy Alcorn reminds us that Jesus came “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 NIV) and we should have both when we share the gospel: “Truth hates sin. Grace loves sinners. . . . The greatest kindness we can offer one another is the truth. Our job is not just to help each other feel good but to help each other be good. We often seem to think that our only options are to (1) speak the truth hurtfully, or (2) remain silent in the name of grace. Both are lies. The answer isn’t grace or truth, but grace and truth. . . . Truth resonates in the human heart. People may resist it, yet it’s the truth they need, for it’s the truth that sets them free.”

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

John 8:32 NIV

The Breastplate of Righteousness

“Think of your man as a series of concentric circles, his will being the innermost, his intellect coming next, and finally his fantasy. You can hardly hope, at once, to exclude from all the circles everything that smells of the Enemy: but you must keep on shoving all the virtues outward till they are finally located in the circle of fantasy, and all the desirable qualities inward into the Will. It is only in so far as they reach the will and are there embodied in habits that the virtues are really fatal to us.”

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

As we see in Screwtape’s advice to the demon Wormwood, making righteousness a habit is an effective weapon against evil. William Barclay’s discussion of the breastplate of righteousness reminds us: “When a man is clothed in righteousness he is impregnable. Words are no defence against accusations but a good life is. . . . The only way to meet the accusations against Christianity is to show how good a Christian can be.” In The Student Bible Dictionary righteousness is defined as “Rightness by God’s standards. . . . Justice, fairness. Matching life with God’s commandments, love, and purposes. Action based on love for God and a relationship with God.” In The Portable Seminary it is defined as “All that is right, good, upright, morally pure, just, reverent; unswerving obedience to God and his commands.”

God wants us to be “holy and blameless” (Ephesians 1:4 NIV). He takes us as we are, but His love for us prevents Him from leaving us as we are. Once we have accepted Christ, He wants to make us like Christ. In Christian Believer J. Ellsworth Kalas tells us: “Our purpose in turning to God is that we should be saved. God’s purpose is that we should be holy. . . . Although the various bodies of Christendom have different views of sanctification, all agree Christians should seek purity of life. To put it directly, God’s purpose for believers is not spiritual mediocrity. . . . . all communions agree that believers should grow in their faith and be influenced by faith in their conduct. . . . . The Christian life is a high and holy calling. Anything less is a disappointment to God. And to the believer too.” Making us holy is the job of the Holy Spirit. But He can’t do His job if we don’t let Him. We must develop spiritual habits which allow the Holy Spirit to work effectively in our lives. We have to be disciplined in making time for prayer, Bible study, worship, service, and other aspects of Christian living which create opportunities for the Holy Spirit to do His sanctifying work.

“For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.”

1 Thessalonians 4:7-8 NIV

The Gospel of Peace

“Wear shoes that are able to speed you on as you preach the Good News of peace with God.”

Ephesians 6:15 TLB

As William Barclay explains, “Sandals were the sign of one equipped and ready to move. The sign of the Christian is that he is eager to be on the way to share the gospel with others who have not heard it.” The Student Bible Dictionary defines gospel as “Good news (Mark 1:14). Christian message about the life and sacrificial death of Jesus Christ that brings salvation to all who believe. The first four books of the New Testament which tell about Jesus are referred to as the Gospels.” The Student Bible Dictionary defines peace as “Absence of inner or outer conflict, unity, wholeness (Lev. 26:6; Luke 1:79). Peace (Hebrew shalom) was a common biblical greeting that meant both the absence of conflict and God’s highest blessing.”

We are instructed to share the good news of the peace we find in Christ. But we’ll be much more effective in sharing this news if we first find peace ourselves. This means we may need to let go of some things in order to make room for Christ’s peace to find us. As Randy Alcorn reminds us, “Jesus calls upon us to carry our crosses yet paradoxically promises a light burden and rest for our souls. If the burden feels heavy and our souls aren’t at rest, maybe we’ve picked up more than He intended us to carry or we haven’t fully come to Him. Many think they hear God say, ‘Do more’ and ‘Do better.’ But not, ‘I’ve done it for you — rest.'” Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30 NIV). We don’t need to try to do everything. We just need to give ourselves to Jesus and let His peace wash over us. Then we will have the energy we need to share the good news: in Christ we have eternal life. And more good news: eternal life starts now. Randy Alcorn reassures us: “Has your life left you unprepared to face death? Be encouraged! You’re still alive, and life means opportunity. Today you can change the course of your life, to God’s glory. . . . This life is your opportunity . . . . Choose to invest it in God, in His people, in His kingdom program. Outlive your life by investing it in eternity!”

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

John 14:27 NIV

This week’s Scripture passages focus on truth, righteousness, and the gospel of peace. There is a printer-friendly pdf version below the image. I have also included a YouTube video of some of Mother Abagail Freemantle’s best moments from the television adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand. The video was created by Andrew Christianson to offer some spiritual encouragement during the coronavirus. Next week we will discuss Ephesians 6:16-18. These verses describe more pieces of God’s armor — the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit — and instruct us to pray in the Spirit. Until then, may we all stand firm in the faith as we put on the armor of light!

“Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith . . . . And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ . . . will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.”

1 Peter 5:8-10 NIV

References:

• Alcorn, Randy. Seeing the Unseen, Expanded Edition: A 90-Day Devotional to Set Your Mind on Eternity. Multnomah, 2017.
• Barclay, William. The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians. rev. ed., The Westminster Press, 1976. The Daily Study Bible Series.
• Dockrey, Karen, et al. The Student Bible Dictionary. Barbour, 2000.
• Geisler, Norman L. “How Does Christianity Fare at the Religious Roundtable?”  The Portable Seminary, edited by David Horton and Ryan Horton, Bethany House, 2006, pp. 420-427.
• Hearn, Walter R., and Howard F. Vos. “God’s Agents.”  The Portable Seminary, edited by David Horton and Ryan Horton, Bethany House, 2006, pp. 121-123.
• Horton, David, and Ryan Horton, editors. The Portable Seminary. Bethany House, 2006.
• Kalas, J. Ellsworth. Christian Believer: Knowing God with Heart and Mind — Study Manual. Abingdon Press, 1999.
• King, Stephen. The Stand. Anchor Books, 1978.
• Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters & Screwtape Proposes a Toast. The Macmillan Company, 1971.
• “Mother Abigail – Coronavirus.” YouTube, uploaded by Andrew Christianson, 20 March 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXrJLvX9Rhs.
• The New Student Bible, New International Version. Zondervan Publishing House, 1992.
• The Stand. American Broadcasting Company, 1994.

Images:

• Roman Soldier at Dusk featured image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
• Armor image by ArtCoreStudios from Pixabay
• Nevada Highway image by David Mark from Pixabay
• Breastplate image by 89758 from Pixabay
• Helmet, Sword, and Belt image by Nadine Doerlé from Pixabay
• Roman Soldier Image by Mojca J from Pixabay