Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 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. Wherefore, take unto you armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins gait about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. And for me that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. Amen. So we come today to a very familiar passage that have been innumerable sermons preached On this, I'm sure you've heard a few. Many books as well. It's the armour of God, is it not? Armour. So Paul is speaking here metaphorically. Now I know most of you will remember what metaphors are. Some of you maybe haven't, it's been a while since you were at school perhaps. Your similes and your metaphors are a bit hazy, so you'll forgive me for just explaining again that the metaphor just likens one thing to another. It's a sort of literary device. And so I might say, for example, Holywell Church is a hive of Christian activity. Of course, what I mean by this is that you folks are as industrious as bees in your work for the gospel. And these metaphors are seen all throughout literature, including the Bible. So here, Paul says that a full range of Christian characteristics can be likened to a suit of armour. And we are encouraged to, as it were, put on that armour each day because of the battles that we find ourselves in. To use one of them as an example, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, well, we don't take that literally, we don't try to use this book to hit people with, like it's some type of weapon. Of course, what does it mean? It means that we read the thing, we listen to it being read, we listen to people explain it to us, we take it on board, and we employ that in different aspects of our lives. And so that's what it means by wielding this sword of the spirit. Because you are no doubt familiar with this passage, hopefully not overly familiar, I planned to approach this from a slightly different angle today. I thought I would like to show that man, in his natural, unconverted state, could also to wear some kind of suit of armour. This, friends, is not the armour of God. But instead, it is a suit of armour he made himself. And the one in the background helping him on each day with that suit of armour is none other than Satan. Because during a person's life, Satan makes subtle suggestions to us Every one of us has heard Satan's voice, but I'm betting and hoping that no one here will say they've heard an audible voice from Satan. But he certainly, he has that ability. He has that ability to influence the minds of people. How he does that, I cannot say. But he might say, he might whisper to somebody Are you going to let her speak to you like that? She needs telling, she needs telling. Answer her back and Satan will gladly even provide the content of your reply and if he can get you to reply with something vicious, then he has his victory. So I want us today to imagine Satan whispering into the ears of man about a different suit of armour. Just as Paul encourages believers to put on the armour of God, so we can think of Satan encouraging a man to put on the armour of Satan. Of course, one of Satan's greatest strategies is to hide himself. He doesn't make known his involvement. in our lives or in the creation of this faulty armour. He convinces people that they've invented this themselves from their own great wisdom. So if you'd like to follow me again in the same passage, and this time I will present to you a version that perhaps Satan might whisper into the ears of one of his. Finally, my brethren, Be strong in yourself and in the power of your own might. Put on the whole armour of your own, that you may be able to stand against those and hold you back from pleasures. For we wrestle against flesh and blood, not against so-called spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armour of your own making. that ye may be able to stand proud every day, and having done all, to stand prouder. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with your own truth, and having on the breastplate of self-righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of rationalism, above all taking the shield of unbelief, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of an accusing conscience, and take the helmet of false religion and the sword of the flesh, which is the word of your own wisdom. The man or woman who trusts their own wisdom is fully kitted out in the useless armour of rebellion. And whether they like the idea or not, they've agreed to be in the army of Satan. And if we could inspect the ranks of that army, we would see people we know. We would see friends, best friends, relatives even. And we'd see them all there in their suits of armor, battalions of them. But that, my friends, must be the most unfortunate, tragic army in the history of this world. You see, in the long, long war against God, this army is fighting in a war whose end has already been determined. they are doomed to lose. Now, they may outnumber us, they may outnumber the church of God 100 to one, they may have a captain over them who is more powerful than us. He no doubt tells them that subconsciously perhaps, you know, we can get rid of this king of kings and you can rule with me and there'll be unbounded pleasures What Satan will never reveal to those who belong to him is that this Lord he hates, he does not merely involve himself in history. This is the God, my friends, who creates history. All events that have occurred, all events that will ever occur, fall out according to the wise purposes of the Lord God Almighty. And they always will. Satan's army is not something that people join. They don't consciously sign up. This is something they're born into. And they grow up in it. And then there they are, standing with all the others. So picture, if you will, this army of his as a big enemy camp, and then someone Someone in this enemy camp hears a noise. We'll call him William. There's bound to be a William in this room, but what else can I do? So we got this William, and it's as if he hears someone silently calling his name. And he leaves the camp to investigate. And he finds himself on a path It's quite narrow. As he turns around bent, he sees something rather unexpected. Standing in the path blocking his way is the great captain of the armies of God. And William sees that on the outside of this warrior's leg, something is written. It identifies this fearsome warrior as the word of God. And the Lord stands in a state of battle readiness with his sword drawn. And William realizes that the Christ that he's mocked so often is more fearful than he ever imagined. Where, he thought to himself, where was the smiling, hippie-type character who just loves everyone unconditionally? Where was that man? William was facing a God of war. And it's clear, even if he had the backup of his entire army, this enemy cannot be defeated. This champion is undefeatable. And William can see that this Word of God in the flesh is threatening to destroy him. And he's forced to admit to himself for the first time that this Jesus Christ, the Lord of hosts, will come after William in fury because of his rebellion, because of his allegiance to that army. And in just a few brief moments, William is made aware of the full extent of his rebelliousness. He spent his whole life fighting on the wrong side, And now he stands utterly defenceless in the presence of the Lord. And he knows he's guilty, and he knows he has no hope of being delivered. Well friends, what else can a man do in this situation? He begs the Lord not to destroy him. He acknowledges his faults. The Lord of Hosts tells William he must surrender. He must lay down his arms. he must approach the Lord empty-handed and vulnerable. This he does. And to his great surprise and joy, he finds as he approaches the Lord that he has sheathed his sword, removed his helmet, and he stands with arms open wide now, waiting just to embrace William with an embrace of forgiveness, absolute and eternal forgiveness. William has changed sides and his new master beckons him to go and join the ranks of the army that stands behind him. Several of those soldiers of Christ show William a new piece of military kit. And so now he's a member of the Lord's army. William now has the right and the ability to put on the whole armour of Christ. That little allegory brings us to today's theme, which is the armour not of man's own making, but the armour of God himself. Armour he provides for me and you, for our Christian warfare. The younger me would have tackled these scriptures differently. I'd hate to listen to sermons I used to preach, but I will tell you what I would have done. I would have scrutinized each part of the armor and I would think of as many qualities of the armor and its materials and everything and try to find some connection with those and where they exist on the body. But I've come to learn that the scriptures are not meant usually to be put under the microscope in that fashion. These pictures provided, these metaphors, they're not meant to be over-analyzed. And people, meaning me, have in the past gone too far in trying to find things that were not meant to be found. I'll give you an example, shall I? I could have spoken about the breastplate of righteousness, And of course the breastplate, well that protects a man's torso. And so I could have tied in righteousness with the heart or something to that effect. Well here's the thing, when Paul uses the same armour imagery when he writes to the church in Thessalonica, he talks about the breastplate not of righteousness but of faith and love. So that throws a great big spanner in the works, doesn't it? So in mixing up the pieces like this, Paul shows he didn't really intend for us to create doctrine by matching pieces of kit to parts of the body. A sinner needs the righteousness of God, but we cannot restrict its importance to just one aspect of our being. In any case, I'm sure he doesn't want us to focus on the bits individually so much as as a whole, the whole armour of God. We're to instead think about the armour as signifying God's complete protection in our warfare. What I'd like to do now is look at who our enemy is. I want to think about the armour that God has provided for us and then finish by thinking about how we put it on. So, a few things about the enemy then, first of all. The armour's neat because we have an enemy. In the first place, we have an enemy. You could say we have three enemies. We don't use the Book of Common Prayer, but most of you are familiar with it, and it helpfully describes our enemies. as the world, the flesh, and the devil. I thought that was in the scriptures. It's in the book of common bread. But the world, the flesh, and devil. So the world obviously refers to other people. They're all enemies of God. Then you have the flesh. And so that refers to our own sinful nature. And so until we are clothed with our new heavenly dwelling place, tabernacle and our new bodies, then man remains, the Christian man remains a danger to his spiritual self. And then finally, there's the devil, also called Satan, and the dragon. Now usually, friends, when the Bible talks about Satan, it includes all the other fallen angels as well. And all those wicked spirits, they just prowl around trying to get people to think and act in ways which bring dishonor to God. Verse 12 there, verse 12 it is, it tells us that our fight is really against a world of unseen spirits. We perhaps don't talk about this much. Maybe we don't want people to think we're charismatic or something. But this is what it's all centered around. They're called principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, and spiritual hosts of wickedness. As I understand it, different descriptions of the same creatures. So out of the world of flesh and the devil, Paul's talking about only the devil here. And maybe he just wants to emphasise this one, on this occasion. Or maybe he thinks that the principal power behind the other two, sin in the world and sin in us, is Satan. In other words, he's the number one enemy. But he works through other people, including God's people. But whatever Paul is thinking, we can see an important point. It suggests that our primary focus in our warfare should be on the unseen enemy rather than the people and organisations of this world. Now that comes as a surprise for some people. We might think our duty is to oppose the Church of Rome or things like that. Our primary focus in the warfare should be on the unseen enemy. If we are going to enjoy a victorious Christian life, surely the first thing we need to know is, well, who the enemy is, where he is. So first, we need to understand the tactical advantages Satan and his angels have over us. Firstly, these evil spirits have been around for thousands of years. They've had thousands of years to fine tune their tactics and they are very good at bringing people down. There's not a single person who's ever lived who they haven't had victories against. Just think about that. The second advantage they have is that they are invisible to the human eye. It allows them to go about their business 24 hours a day, unseen to us. They can keep us all under 24-hour surveillance. They can watch us. They can watch us in our homes. in college or school, in our jobs, in church. They can watch us and then they can use this intelligence that they've gathered and they can learn how to better tempt each one of us. Or they might simply go to God. They might go to God with a list of your sins and just accuse you before the throne of God. That's one of yours. Look what she's done, look what he's done when no one was watching and accuse us. So they're invisible, they have that advantage. And thirdly, these evil spirits are also powerful. Their activity is not restricted to the heavenly realm. We know that surely. It takes place, their activity takes place in our material world also. They can influence us psychologically, making us say or think sinful things. They can, I believe, make us ill. They can make us disabled. They can kill us. They can affect the weather. They can cause natural disasters. Now, it's important to always remember Not a single one of these beings can lift a finger against us unless it's been given to them by God. No matter how victorious they seem to be, no matter how much we panic in the week because it seems as if the battle is going one way, we need to remember our God still reigns and always will, and things are never out of his control. Here's a few verses to describe Satan's activities then. 1 Thessalonians 3 and 5 says, For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter have tempted you, and our labour be in vain. 2 Corinthians chapter 2, Lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices, plans. And Revelation 12 says, I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ. For the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night, tempting us, deceiving us, and although greatly restricted, still slandering us. So we've reminded ourselves about how dangerous an enemy Satan is and all the different ways he can wage war against God's people. But the Lord, in his mercy, provides for each one of us an effective suit of armour for us to wear. And so I will briefly go through some of these, all of these items. As I said earlier, I don't wish to find connections between the helmet of salvation and the mind, or the breastplate and the heart. So that being so, let's have a look at the first one in verse 14. That is the belt of truth. The belt of truth. And so, in our story earlier with William, he had to remove the belt he had on. It represented his own carnal wisdom. Throughout his life, he thought he knew best, but he had to abandon that and get rid of the belt of his own making. And following his surrender, he was presented with a belt of real truth. And so in coming to God, the sinful man or the sinful woman must acknowledge it's God who knows best. He is all wisdom. Then there's also the breastplate of righteousness. Now the sinner thinks he's a good person, I think without exception, because generally they look at the people around them and they, well, they consider themselves at least as good as all those people there. But if he comes to repentance, he must throw down the breastplate of his own goodness, He's to understand that that is nothing but a piece of rusty old metal. And then the Lord presents him with a shining new breastplate, and it's Christ's very own righteousness. We also have in verse 15 the shoes of the gospel. The soldier in Satan's army always marches to the beat of Satan's drum. And in all their journeyings throughout life, they neither share the gospel, nor understand it. They have, always have an opinion on something, but they never have anything which can help the soul eternally. But when the gospel comes to a man, in a saving way, he kicks off his worn out shoes, and he accepts these new ones. And then he has an ability and a willingness to then take that gospel and share it with other people. The very gospel by which he was saved. We also have the shield of faith in verse 16. The shield of faith. The people of this world are filled with unbelief. Now, they may believe in God. They may even believe Jesus Christ died on a cross. They may believe in a religion of atheism. Their god might be some celebrity, some singer, or some other such thing. And we have cults and all kinds of things. Everyone, I think, can be described as having It's all unbelief though. And so the person, the person like the guy in our story, who's being persuaded to lay down his arms, has to drop that thin, ineffective shield of unbelief. And instead, they are presented with a steady new shield of faith in Christ. In verse 17, We have the helmet of salvation. The helmet of salvation and I was reminded of all the cults around today and false religions that there are and all the things people put before God and when God converts somebody, they remove that offensive helmet of theirs and they throw it away. and then through Christ they receive salvation full and free like a stunning new piece of headgear. It's all coming together now and finally there's the sword of the spirit. The one who's being made an object of God's grace stands. Stands there before the captain of their salvation and they have nothing on them but this sword called the flesh and now they see a total worthlessness And so that possession that they've had all their lives is suddenly flung into a ditch. And the general of the hosts of God presents them with a new sword, the Word of God. And then the same man or woman, they not only benefit from this Word of God themselves and their own souls, but they are able to have a desire to share it with other people. And so, So the new soldier in Christ's army stands there fully kitted out in the best possible gear. And while I imagine there's nothing angers Satan so much as losing one of his to the army of God. I thought that some of you might be wondering why Paul would be telling believers to put on this armor if it's about things which are already theirs. Think about this. If they belong to Jesus, they already have salvation. They already possess righteousness and faith. How can they put them on? We need to know what it meant if this passage is going to be any use to us. And I'll take just one piece of this armour to use as an example, and I'll do my best to make this clear. And we'll look at righteousness. An example first. Imagine someone is in court, because of tens of thousands of pounds in unpaid council tax. And in our country, strangely, you can go to jail for getting in trouble financially with your council tax. And then anyway, someone's in court, and just at when the proceedings are about to start, the clerk of the court stands up and announces to the judge that all that person's debts have been paid. In other words, All the demands of the law on that person have now been satisfied. The debt has been paid and the person heading for jail finds himself declared innocent. He's told he's free to go. And this is how it goes in some way with the sinner who comes to God in repentance. Since Christ paid the penalty for their sin, the judge of all the earth, God himself, pronounces the sinner innocent. They're declared to be righteous. And this is the very righteousness of Jesus himself. It's perfect. It can't be added to, it can't be minimized in any way. But, friends, in the Bible, Righteousness is used in more than one way. In the scriptures, it's often spoken of to describe godly behavior, and that changes. If you've been a believer for more than a fortnight, then you know that we fall into sin. And even though you repent of that sin, what do you do? You turn away, and a day later, you commit the same sin that you've been forgiven of, and you have to go back again to confess the same sin. And we don't even do it twice. We do it continually to our shame. Well, this brings us to the point that Paul is making. You have the righteousness of Christ, if you're a believer today, you have that as a possession. It describes who you are now, the righteous. You'll always be accepted by God because of that, okay? But God urges us to fight hard to make sure our lives reflect that perfect righteousness. Listen to what the apostle John said to his fellow believers. Little children, let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he, Jesus, is righteous. So, not sure if you've got onto that, but the apostles are effectively saying that if you've been declared righteous, act like it. Act like it. And I said I'd mention about how this armour is put on, and so towards the end of the section, it reminds us that prayer is central to all this. Prayer is central. And I don't know how many times you've heard people encourage you to pray, but I, without apology, do it again. Because I think we need reminding all the time the importance of this type of communication with God. And so it is as we put on this armour, we put on the armour by praying to God that he would deepen your understanding of spiritual things. You put on the armour of God by asking to help you live a Christ-like life, to act like the righteous person you are. You put on the armor by seeking courage from God, to be bold in telling other people about what Jesus has done for you. You put on the armor by begging God to increase your faith. You put on the armor of God by thanking God for the blessings and salvation which it represents. And you put on the armor by praying as you approach the Word of God that you'll not only be familiar with it yourself, but will do all you can to spread the truth of it. And having the armour on, you can fight the unseen enemy. You can better resist temptation. And you can march out into this world as a better witness for Jesus Christ. The victory, friends, The victory in this war has already been secured. These glorious emblems of the bloody cross and the empty tomb, they, together, they represent the great victories that Jesus won over Satan and his kingdom. Christ, friends, has, if you like, taken the high ground. and your job and my job is to defend it. If you're not a Christian today, if you're not sure that you're a Christian today, if you have no confidence that you are a follower of Jesus Christ as the captain of your salvation, I urge you today to Surrender to him. If you are not for Jesus, you are most certainly against him. Everyone who fights against him faces nothing but everlasting destruction from the face of God. And so I urge you to surrender to what I did. God saved me. Lay down your arms. Remove all that useless armour that you made for yourself. Admit your rebellion and see just how quickly Jesus and that great man of war embraces you as a brother or a sister, assuring you of an eternity in God's paradise. when all the war is over, assuring you of his great delight at the thought of spending eternity with you. Friends, thank you for listening. Amen. We're going to sing now, hymn number 867.