Winning the Spiritual Warfare

Ephesians 6.10-20

It will come as a surprise to absolutely nobody that we face spiritual warfare in our walk with God. We’ve all been in the thick of a spiritual battle. It’s a comfort to know that God, in His Word, recognizes the reality of these conflicts and provides armor for them. That’s where we want to go this morning.

1. There is a struggle

Ephesians 6.12: “For our struggle…”

This is a picturesque word. it comes from a verb that means two things,

i) ‘to swing round and round’ I happened to catch a clip on my computer of a wrestling match, and I couldn’t help but notice how they circled round and round as they grappled with each other in their struggle. Have you ever felt like your life was going around in circles? Struggle!

ii) The second meaning is ‘to sway backwards and forwards.’ I saw another clip of two white tail bucks doing battle. One would push the other back, then the second one would dig in and push the first one back. Have you ever felt that your life was a series of advances and setbacks, advances and setbacks? Struggle!

Part and parcel of our walk with God is the struggles we go through; the battles we fight.

• 1 Timothy 6.12-Paul talks about “the good fight of faith.”
• James in chapter 4, verse 1 of his letter writes about “the lusts that war in your members.”
• The apostle Peter counsels us to abstain from sinful desires because those desires “war against the soul’ (1 Peter 2.11).

All of these are pictures of struggle and most of us, if not all of us, have been out on one or another of these battlefields, or one something like them.

How intense can these struggles be? Answer: Pretty intense! In 1 Timothy 6.12, both the noun and the verb – “fight the good fight of faith” the words for ‘fight’ come from the word from which we get our English word ‘agony’

The first, the noun, is used to designate a place where people gather for a competition; the second, the verb, describes competing for a prize, contending with an adversary or endeavoring to accomplish.

I think we can all agree: Our walk with God involves some struggles! We might want to ask, “Why is that? If God is all powerful and he’s looking after us, why is there a struggle? Answer: Because…

2. Identifying the Adversary: Why Spiritual Warfare is Real

1 Peter 5.8:

“Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour”

Who is our adversary?

• The church down the road? No.
• The Federal Government? Maybe the Provincial one? No.
• Brother ‘Razor-Edge’? Or maybe Sister ‘Sandpaper’? Not them either.
•  Sometimes men think it’s their wife; sometimes women think it’s their husband.

It’s NONE of the above! “Your adversary” says Peter, is “the devil.” He prowls about, looking for someone to devour.

But please note this: Just because he’s out there prowling doesn’t mean he has to find lunch! And just because he roars like a lion doesn’t mean he is one!

Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah

It is the righteous that are bold as a lion (Proverbs 28.1).

Satan, since Calvary, has little more power, as one observer noted, than a mouse with a megaphone!

He makes a lot of noise; he makes a lot of claims; he makes a lot of accusations; he whispers a lot of questions; he tells a lot of lies – but he is really only a defeated foe. His chief weapons are deception, uncertainty and fear and far too often we play into his hands through ignorance and unbelief.

There is a struggle because there is an adversary. God in his Word tells us who the adversary is, and he tells us about the nature of the struggle.

Ephesians 6.12:

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood (that is ‘people’) but against… the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

The middle part of the passage describes those spiritual forces. They are the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers of the darkness of this age, and it is these demonic schemers who are the engineers and architects of temptation and deception and intimidation and oppression and all the other stuff that brings struggles into our lives.

But the question that everyone wants answered is,

3. How do we win?

How can we obtain and maintain victory in this conflict?

Good News! That’s where the passage in Ephesians 6 takes us.

“Put on the whole armor of God,” it says, “so that you may be able to stand firm (that’s victory, isn’t it?) against the devil’s schemes.”

I do not propose to examine each piece in the armory, but rather, to examine with you, how the instructions are put together because it seems to me that this gives us a clue as to how they can best work for us.

From verse 13 to 20 there are in the original text three imperative verbs – three commands. The rest are explanatory details. These forms allow us to grasp what the main thrust is and what the supporting instructions are. So, let’s look.

i) The first of the commands is in v13: “Take up” the full armor of God. NIV says “Put on…” The picture is of the armor laying at our feet, and we either ignore it or we bend over, take it up, piece by piece, step by step, and put it on. The use of the strong imperative here is God’s way of saying to us, “You have got to do this!”

Note- it’s YOU, US, who have to do this. God will not do it for us. He has provided it; it is our responsibility to take it up and put it on.

So, this is the starting point for victory in the spiritual battles. We are commanded to take the initiative and take up the armor that God has provided and put it on.

ii) The second imperative is in the very next verse – verse 14 and is rendered in the NIV, “Stand firm then…” The rest of verses 14,15 and 16 describe what we will have had to do to reach that position. The objective is to stand firm. Putting on the pieces of the armor is the preparation required to do so.

It’s a little bit like saying, “Do good work today.” We understand that means getting ready and dressed ahead of time. So, putting truth in place, putting righteousness in place, having the readiness of solid footing and taking up the shield of faith are the basic means by which we defend ourselves against the enemy’s attacks. They are the prerequisites to standing firm. That is how we win our personal spiritual battles.

The enemy has two basic approaches to try to get us off our stand in Christ. One is he tries to draw us off or lure us off. That’s what temptation and deception are about. The other approach is to try to push us off.

That’s what intimidation and accusation are about. There are two other schemes he uses. One is to puff us up with pride. God’s antidote for that is “Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God” (James 4.10). And if the devil can’t puff you up, he will try to push you down-that’s oppression.

We have to resist that too and we do that best by focusing on the truth of our relationship with Christ. If we have the armor in place and we keep our eyes on the Lord and his truth, we will be able to win those battles. We will be able to stand firm. The Bible says, “Submit yourselves to God.

Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4.7). Resist his temptations; resist his efforts to accuse or intimidate. Resist his efforts to puff you up; resist his efforts to push you down or off. That’s what standing firm is about. And we are given spiritual armor to equip us to do that.

iii) Take

When we have put on the basic armor; when we have become established in faith and truth and righteousness, then it’s time to receive our team helmet and our ministry sword and go on the offensive for God. and that’s the third imperative.

“Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God” (v17). The one command covers both objects. This word translated “take” would translate literally as ‘receive and retain; welcome and hold on to. It is as if God is presenting us with the helmet and the sword and we are grasping them with eager hands. I realize that we have to have our personal defenses from God in place, but to know the full dimension of victory we must also mount some offence. Too much of the time we are only defensive.

I’m learning more about hockey through being involved in the AA Midget Chapel and one of the emphases that I’ve got hold of is you can’t win if you don’t score! As ambassadors of Christ, we need to mount some offense – put some points on the board, so to speak, and this imperative tells us that God will partner with us to do that. God is not calling us to ignore our own struggles, but one of the enemy’s tricks is to get us so wrapped up in our own struggles that we don’t address anything else.

Now, read on. This passage in Ephesians 6.10-17 flows seamlessly into vv 18-20, which is a powerful invitation and encouragement to prayer. This is most fitting because prayer is the dynamic by which all the other stuff works. So, pray when you take up the armor.

Pray when you put it on. Pray when you use it. Pray in the Spirit. Pray for one another. Pray for the preaching of God’s Word, that it will be done fearlessly and effectively – not just in the pulpit, but in the streets and shops and homes and interactions between believers and unbelievers everywhere, all the time.

Put on the armor of God. Keep it on. Sleep in it if you have to! And stand firm against the enemy’s temptations, accusations, intimidations, lies and oppressions.

There are struggles. But there is Victory! And there are no shortcuts. If we want to win the spiritual battles we will need to get into the locker-room of prayer and get our armor on. Then we’ll have to accept our team identifying the helmet of salvation and learn to use the sword of the Spirit – God’s Word.

Then we will be able to declare with confidence,

“Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Corinthians 15.57).

Written by Arni Schmeichel