The following audio is from Shiloh Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. More information about Shiloh Presbyterian Church is available at shilopc.org. Turn your Bibles to the book of Ephesians. We continue to make our way through this letter, this epistle. of Paul to the church in Ephesus, and we're in chapter six. Last week, we looked at verses 11, or sorry, verses 10 and 11. This week, we're looking at 12 and 13, and this is on page 979, if you're using the Pew Bible. Let's worship the Lord by giving careful attention to Ephesians 10. In fact, I'll read from 10 to 13, just to give us the context again. Ephesians chapter six, beginning in verse 10, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 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 firm. Amen. Thus far the reading of God's Word. Let's pray together. Oh Lord God, as we turn again to your blessed word, we plead with you that you would come to us again, come in the power, Lord God, of your Holy Spirit and work in the hearts and the lives of your people. Enlighten our minds that we might understand your precious truth. Do open up our hearts, Lord God, afresh to receive your word, to receive the truth that you would teach us this evening and enable us to believe and to obey. Oh Lord, teach us your ways. that we might walk in them, O Lord God, by Your grace in Jesus Christ, in His name we do pray. Amen. Please be seated. Well, if I may piggyback a bit off of my recent sermon, New Year's Eve sermon about running in the race, I said, I don't know how many of us have ever actually gone out and run in a race. I would venture a guess this evening that probably even fewer of us have ever gone out and fought in a battle out on the battlefield, actually fought in a war. I never have and doubt that I ever will, but spiritually we're reminded that we are all called to fight. Soldiers of Christ arise indeed, as the hymn sung, or to make use of another classic hymn or a children's song, children this evening, it might possibly be the case that you may never march in the infantry, right, or ride in the cavalry, or zoom over the enemy. I'm confusing the words. You may never... Shoot the artillery, thank you. I'm not going to have us sing that now. You may never fly a fighter plane and zoom over the enemy, but if you are a Christian, young or old, you are in the Lord's army. Yes, sir. And I suspect that if we had a better sense of that, It would add to a profound sense of seriousness that we would take every time we received the Word of God, even the seriousness with which we'd be here in worship preparing ourselves for battle. We find ourselves impressed upon us in this section in Paul's gospel here, this military imagery that he uses. These are such important verses. You can see we've kind of decided to move through them a bit slowly here. We saw last week our strength is not in ourselves, it's in the Lord. We are to be strong in the Lord. We see that so powerfully by the imagery here, the command to put on his armor, and we're We're really focusing on that. We kind of see the same thing in verse 13 that we saw in verses 11. This is a call to put on the whole armor of God in order to be able to stand or withstand. The call is, having done all, to be able to stand firm, to stand, to withstand, and to stand firm. Of course, as Pastor Hulse said last week, and I would say amen to this, that, you know, the Christian life is not only about standing as if we simply remain stationary. We're also progressing. We're growing in grace. We are to take captive every thought for Christ. We're to demolish strongholds. We're involved in that great work of carrying the gospel to the ends of the earth. But certainly all of that happens as by God's grace we prepare ourselves and we stand firm against the attacks of the enemy. So our message again this evening is simply this. As soldiers of Christ Jesus, the Lord calls us to stand firm And as we think about that, as we focus on these particular verses before us, I want to suggest that what we see here are three ways in which the Lord enables us to do that, calls and enables us to stand firm. The three ways are first, He calls us to recognize the enemy. And then secondly, he calls us to understand the time. And then lastly, again, he calls us to take up our messianic armor. So recognize the enemy, understand the time, and then take up our messianic armor. Armor. First point then, recognize the enemy. Dear Christian, against whom are we called to stand firm? We saw last week, it's the devil. The devil is against us. We are not unaware of his schemes, as Paul writes elsewhere. Well, he further spells that out for us so powerfully here in verse 12, where we see those words, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Obviously, a very important part of fighting a battle is knowing who is your enemy, knowing about the one who's coming against you, who is the great enemy of the Christian. And our affirmation of faith this evening, we were reminded that we were able to identify, theologians refer to the three enemies of the Christian based on the scriptures, the world, the flesh, and the devil. And I think when we think about the world being an enemy of the Christian, we were well reminded of that back in chapter two. that all unbelievers, all people without Christ are by nature children of wrath, sons of disobedience, they were called. Ultimately, people are at war with God, and they will be against those who are on the side of God. And so, they are enemies of all who belong to the Lord. Now, we know that God restrains that evil by His common grace such that we can love and have friendship with the world in one sense. But ultimately, though they're not cognizant of this, we might say it's not intentional so much, they will be seeking to influence us in ways that influence us against the Lord. We pray for them, Father, forgive them. They know not what they're doing at times, but certainly the world will be at enmity with us in that sense. And so the world is an enemy. of the Christian. The flesh, our own sinful nature, continues to fight against and to war against and oppose God, and so we are called not only to take our stand against the world, but even the enemy that is within us, the battle against the flesh. But in this text, the focus is really on, primarily on that third enemy, the devil. You might recall that Jesus called him in John 12, verse 31, the ruler of this world. In fact, we saw back in this very letter, chapter 2, verse 2, Paul called him the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. To fight against the influence of the world is to fight against the devil. To fight against the flesh is to fight against the devil within us. We are at war against a great You know, Pastor Hulse made this point last week, and I think that it's such an important one that bears repeating, particularly with respect to the verses before us this evening, that there are those who make the mistake of thinking that we're making our way through this epistle, and then we get to chapter 6, and now we're sort of changing subjects, right? Now we're talking about spiritual warfare, you know, not boring things like, you know, obeying God in the home, you know, husbands loving their wives and wives submitting to their husbands, children obeying parents and being godly, and, you know, as even in our relations with employees, employers, as we've talked about, or before that, talking about, you know, mutual godly submission, obeying Christ in our relationships in the church. Now we're moving on to something different. This is more exciting. This is maybe we might think of chapter six of the place we'd go if we want to talk about dealing with people who are possessed by demons, driving out evil spirits, and so forth. We know, of course, from the New Testament that Paul did engage in that kind of spiritual warfare, even in Ephesus, We have those signs and wonders by which the power of Christ was shown forth in extraordinary ways. We might recall reading about the ministry of Paul in Acts chapter 19, how even his handkerchiefs or his aprons, even his sweat cloths that touched his skin were taken away, and they were carried to the sick, and their diseases left them and we read that even the evil spirits came out of them. Paul even commanded evil spirits to come out. I don't think that's what Paul's thinking about in this text, certainly not exclusively, and I don't even think primarily. What Paul is wanting the believers to see is that that kind of spiritual warfare we see depicted in those extraordinary ways in the apostolic signs, that is a warfare in which we are to see ourselves as engaged, in which we are engaged in all of life, even in the battle to learn to love each other and submit to one another in the church and in the home. Paul wants the believers to understand that even in that context, as he writes, we are battling ultimately not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual powers. This is a battle against the devil himself. Dear Christian, you do well to remember that the great enemy is not an unloving husband, right? Wives or husbands. The great enemy is not an insubmissive wife. Dear children, the great enemy is certainly not your parents, imperfections notwithstanding. We can act like the devil at times, but no, parents, the great enemy is not a troubled or an unruly child or in the context of the workplace, an unjust employer or an employee that just won't cooperate or is causing you trouble. Is it not true that we will better fight the battle which God calls us to fight as we understand those spiritual powers that are at war against us? Forces of evil unseen in the heavenly places. Isn't it true that generally we focus on what we can see, right? Think about how that's true when we, say, are dealing maybe with conflict in the context of the church. Maybe a brother or sister offends you, says something you don't like, or does something that you don't like. You need to remember that this is not only about that person who has offended you, right? Maybe that's all you can think about is the person. Now, the great enemy is not your brother or sister. The great enemy is that one Peter describes as the one who prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And he would love to devour you and your brother or your sister who offended you. Wonderful, as we think about this, what kind of impact it would have on our lives if we were more cognizant, if we were living our lives mindful of the unseen, mindful of the spiritual battle, how it would conduct ourselves differently in the kind of scenario I just mentioned. You know, you've been offended by someone. I think one application is that it would move us more quickly unto prayer. We're kind of jumping ahead here, because Paul's going to speak to that, isn't he, in verse 18, where we see that command, we're to be praying at all times in the Spirit. As I was thinking about that and reminded of that this week, I was struck again by how powerful prayer is, and I sort of felt that power even earlier in the prayer meeting. I would commend those who are here present, and God's people were praying together, let's not Don't miss that. Don't fail to avail yourselves of this means of grace that God has given to us. We'll think more about this when we get to verse 18, but prayer better not be for you just a future sermon that you can look forward to. A prayer is an absolutely vital part of living in union with Christ. We must be praying, right? This is such an important part of life in the Spirit. Well, I think it will help us, help move us to prayer as we remember the reality of the battle, the great enemy And when there's a conflict between you and a brother, you'll be more quickly inclined to say, we need to come together and pray about this, whatever issue is between us, right? Maybe in your families, right? Is there conflict in the home? Are the children not getting along? How important is it for us as parents to gather the family and say, look, look what the enemy is doing. He's trying to destroy us. We need to pray together. We need to come together and we need to pray. Make use of Heidelberg 127, which we affirmed this evening. Together, come together and remember who the enemy is and pray for the Lord's help and standing against him. Those kinds of warrior prayers should be something that should be part of our family worship, certainly, at times. We are called to understand the enemy so that we can better stand against the enemy, stand firm. But then the second way that the Lord enables us to stand firm this evening is he enables us to understand the time. Understand the time. What do I mean by this? Maybe it'd be helpful to use an illustration here. If we can think back to that tragic event, recent event of October 7th, that attack on Israel. If we can just imagine what it was like just moments before the attack took place and thinking particularly what it was like for the victims. They had no idea what kind of day it was about to turn out to be, right? No idea that Hamas was about to wage an attack on their people, on the Jewish people, an attack greater than any attack since the Holocaust. and making the point I'm making here, in no way am I blaming the victims at all, but how differently would they have been conducting themselves had they known the evil of the day? Obviously, likely the area would have been evacuated and the Israeli army would have been ready and probably the whole thing would have been avoided. Certainly, the day would have been very different. But the point I'm making here is that we are to live our lives understanding the evil of the day. Note those words in verse 13, that you may be able to withstand in the evil of the day. This is a passage then about understanding not only the who, the enemy, but the when, the evil of the day. Interesting words. What exactly is Paul referring to when he speaks of the evil of the day? I don't think he's referring only to one particular day here. If we go back to chapter five, you might recall that he said that the days, plural, the days are evil, 5, 15, and 16. He wrote, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil. when we understand Paul's eschatology, not just Paul's eschatology, but New Testament, proper biblical eschatology, I think we rightly understand that really there's a reference in this passage, reference in Paul's writing here, to the entire present evil age. That is the entire age leading up to the return of Christ, the great world-ending day of judgment which Christ brings. Think about those words of our text, verse 12. Again, not only about the who, but the when. The who, the cosmic powers over the when, this present, present I don't think that Paul there is speaking only of something going on particularly in Ephesus. I don't think he's referring only to those days, you know, coming up to 70 AD and the destruction of the temple. I think this is a reference to this entire present evil age in which we live. And on the one hand, this should be for us a wonderfully encouraging description I mean, we don't have to go too far looking at news or looking at some of the things we see happening in our own nation to be reminded that these are dark days. We live in dark times. Maybe you feel weakened by that fact or filled with fear and anxiety. But we do well to remember that we are living in a darkness indeed, but it's only present. That is to say, that Christ has brought us to the very end of the age. The present darkness is just that. It is present, meaning it's not eternal. Paul writes elsewhere, 1 Corinthians 7.31, the present form of this world is passing away. It's present. It's not future. It's present. It's not eternal. It will come to an end. The present darkness will soon give way to the light and the glory of the age to come when Christ comes and all of the glory of His kingdom. Jesus is coming again. And so even the darkness, even the evil, terrible though it is, and we don't relish it, we strive against it and then fight against it in the way the Lord calls us to do so. But the evil for us is a continual reminder that it has not overcome the light. The light continues to shine and soon the darkness, soon it will come to an end. And here again, it's not like this is a brand new subject at this point in the epistle, right? Remember what we saw back in chapter 5? We saw that command to bond servants, the command was not simply, obey your masters, It was a command to obey your earthly masters. Paul was reminding them their rule is earthly. That is, it is temporary. Soon it will pass away. Obey them, knowing that soon they and you and the whole world together will stand before the true master, the one who comes as the judge of all of the earth. this present darkness. We are living in the last epoch of history, that period between the first and the second comings of Christ. The very text I cited earlier, John 12, verse 31, Jesus was in anticipation of the cross. He said, now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out. We know, in fact, we glory in the truth that when Jesus went to the cross, the death and the resurrection of Jesus, we heard that preached this morning, that should be a reminder for us that the death and resurrection of Christ has marked the end of Satan and all of their minions, his minions, that their time is short. And yet, of course, our text reminds us so well that they continue for a time. They continue to rule over this present darkness. They continue to wage war against us for a time. Kind of confronts us with the tension, eschatological tension between the already and the not yet. But the call to understand this is a call to wage war in hope. Think of those words of the Apostle Paul, Romans 13, 11 and 12. Besides this, you know the time that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep, for salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is far gone, the day is at hand. hand. There's the hope, right? There's the nearness. And what's the application? What kind of impact should that have on the way we live? Spiritual warfare. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. So leading up to that great day, there will be fierce battles. There will be evil days indeed. Of course there will, because the evil one knows the kingdom of coming. He knows what it will mean for him. He hates it. And the nearer and nearer we come to that day, he'll strive all the harder to oppose the kingdom. And that's why we ought to live our lives expecting October 7th-like days. Paul saw his work as a work of preparing his people to be expecting that, preparing his people, God's people, right, for battle, leading them into battle. Lord calls us to do the same. I was laughing a little bit as I was thinking about what that means for us as church leaders. I don't mean any disrespect to Pastor Holst or to your ruling elders, but I suspect I can speak for them as well as I would speak for myself when I say if the day ever comes where circumstances in our nation require us, your elders, being drafted into the military and leading you out onto the battlefield, it's gonna be a, there's gonna be trouble, right? Those won't be good days. But spiritually, that's exactly what the Lord calls us to do. We have a duty to be preparing, to be leading, to be instilling, and part of our duty is to instill a sense that we are at war as God's people. We are waging war against an earthly power far greater than Hamas, right? Or any other earthly power. We will face evil days, we will face fierce battles, but that makes it all the more marvelous that we are promised, we are commanded, we are enabled to stand firm. And that brings us to the last way in which the Lord enables us to do that. He enables us, He calls us, He commands us then to take up our armor. I said specifically messianic armor. What an important message this is. Again, we saw it last week, verse 11. We see it again in verse 13, essentially the same command. We are to put on, we are to take up the whole armor of God. It says that you may be able to stand or withstand We're going to spend three weeks kind of unpacking that a little bit. We're going to take up, there are six pieces of the Christian's armor, so we'll take two pieces per week. But on one level, it's important to say this is such a simple message. This is nothing so terribly complex. How do we do this? Where do we get this armor? How do we put it on? In one sense, this is a way of simply reminding us that as those who belong to Christ, we have His armor. We are strong in Him. That's what Pastor Hulse showed us last week from verse 10. We are called to be strong in the Lord, in the Lord. This is union with Christ language. We are strong by virtue of our union with Him. I mentioned messianic armor. As we examine Paul's words, one thing we'll find is that he's drawing upon prophecies from Isaiah, and those are messianic prophecies. We think of Isaiah chapter 59 and its description of the nation and their sad state. Israel was in rebellion, or particularly Judah, in rebellion against the Lord. The covenant nation desperately needed the Savior, and so they were weak. They were helpless. They were lost. And we read about how the Lord was looking upon them, and He was seeing that there was no one, no one to save, no one to intercede. There was no man, no one who could bring salvation. And so God Himself determined He would act. His own arm would bring salvation. God himself would come in the person of the Messiah, and in so doing, God himself would come as this great conquering warrior, coming to conquer sin and death and to save his people. And what is his armor? Well, it's his own righteous character, his own divine attributes, righteousness and truth are his armor. What a beautiful prophecy, really about Christ and about the incarnation. The Messiah would come and he would be the perfect image bearer of God. Indeed, he is God. the God, man. And so, what does he wear? He wears his messianic armor, righteousness and faithfulness. We'll see that from Isaiah 11. Isaiah chapter 59, but friends, this is just the simple, beautiful gospel message. Israel's story reminds us of our own story, that we were weak, we were helpless, we were sinners, and God came to us. He came as our conquering warrior, our Savior King. Romans 5, 6, for while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Dear Christian this evening, do you believe what you cited in the affirmation of faith? Do you see your desperate need of Christ? You needed Him, and He came to save you. You continue to need Him. And in some ways, what we have in this text and what we're seeing in the coming weeks, really this evening, is the message is simply this. This is a call to see how desperately you need Him. a call to simply remember that, that part of the way of fighting the fight is to wake up every day and say, Oh, Lord, I am weak. I'm weak, but I need you. I'm weak. You are weak. You're a sinner. But Jesus loves you, right? Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong. They are weak. but He is strong." And that simple song describes it for us so well. We are weak, but we have a Savior. Oh, He is so strong. You are weak of yourself. but you belong to Him. And what a powerful reminder this is of that simple truth, a reminder that you are strong, a call, a command to be strong in Him is this command to put on that very armor. the very armor of Christ Himself. Again, this is such a beautiful way of reminding us of our union with our Savior and a call, a command, reminder of our duty to live out of our union with Him. A call to clothe ourselves with Christ. Really a call to be in the Word. called to devote ourselves to prayer. When we are giving ourselves to those means of grace that God has given us, we are putting on our armor. We need Him. One way, one thing I think the text reminds us when it says put on the full armor of Christ is that we don't simply need part of Jesus, we need all of Jesus, desperately need all of Him, put on every bit of Christ, all that He is, all that He's done for you. You need His grace, you need forgiveness, you need His commands, you need all of the blessings that are ours in union with Christ, you need justification, you need sanctification, you need glorification, and Jesus gives you all of this. But the command is put on the whole armor of God. That word translated whole armor, it's the Greek word panoplia, and we get the word panoply from that. It's a complete set of armor, and Christ, we have an all-sufficient panoply. How amazing it is to think that these powers that are so great, that they hold sway, they hold rule, of course, under God's sovereignty, but hold rule over the whole world. Those powers are at war against us, and yet in Christ, as we abide in Christ, they can do nothing. They can do nothing to make us fall. We are promised that as we clothe ourselves by God's grace, we put on that armor, we will withstand. That is amazing power. That's what we're promised. Draw near to God, He'll draw near to you. Resist the devil and what will he do? He will flee from you. As I've lived here in North Carolina, one thing I've experienced like never before, amazed by all of the trees, but I've never had so many large, tall trees so close to my home. And recently as those winds were blowing and there was that tornado warning, I was again finding myself looking out the window and saying, I hope those trees are strong. because if just one falls over, the kind of damage it might do to my house. I was amazed at the end of the storm once again to think, those must be strong trees. Those must have deep roots. Of course, some of you know by painful experiences, sometimes those trees do end up falling down, but hear the promise. spiritually, those who abide in Christ, those who have that warrior, those who, as Paul commands us to be, are deeply rooted in Christ. We are so strong that even the greatest storm, even the strongest winds, all of the attacks of the enemy will not possibly be able ultimately to cause us to fall. We will at times stumble, no doubt. but the one who is in Christ, the one who is clothed in the armor of Christ, will in the end withstand on the last day. And we praise God for that. And so the command then is to remember this, you are strong in Christ, be strong in Christ, clothe yourself, put on all of Christ, and you will be able to withstand all of the attacks of the evil one. So, brothers and sisters, let us see our need of Him. Let us be eager to learn about what that means as we think about how we do that practically. Let us be eager to take up the whole armor of God, and so let us be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Let us ever be doing that in our lives. And a day will come when Jesus will come in all of His power, all of His glory. The battle will be over, finished forever and ever, and we will know His strength perfectly in glory forever and ever. Praise God. Let's pray together.