When we visited Staten Island, NY recently, we had the pleasure of sharing a few minutes of fellowship, between church services, with Rev. Dr. Daniel Mercaldo, senior pastor of the Church at the Gateway. We discussed spiritual warfare and in exchange for the address of this blog, he gave us a few Cd's of his teachings on spiritual warfare. We think we got the better end of that deal. I mention that because in the first of those teachings, Dr. Mercaldo talked about the armor of God from Ephesians chapter 6. That is where most people would start discussing spiritual warfare. I know it comes as no surprise to anyone that this series did not start there. We do have a tendency to do things differently sometimes. Although we did mention the armor in an earlier post (Part 2, July 14, 2009), we did not mention it piece by piece. In the interest of completeness, we probably ought to discuss it.
The thing to remember about the armor of God is that each piece represents a portion of our preparation for spiritual warfare. They are all necessary to completely protect us as we pursue the battle. Any professional in the world will extol the virtues of proper preparation for any endeavor. Spiritual warfare is no different. We cannot really overestimate the value of proper preparation and we dare not underestimate it either. Were we to go into battle without proper preparation, we would likely be injured at the least. We could be the cause of the whole battle turning against us as happened in Joshua chapter 7 when one man's disobedience resulted in numerous deaths and defeat for the army of Israel.
The full armor of God (Ephesians 6:14-18) represents everything we need to protect us in battle. On our refrigerator at home hangs a photograph of our nephew, Army Sergeant Thomas Miller. Tom is a medical services specialist with the 101st Airborne. The photograph was taken during a tour of duty in Iraq. In the photograph, he is dressed in battle gear complete with body armor and weapons. This series is primarily about weapons, but we also need the armor to protect us. We will see that each piece has it's own function in protecting us and is integral to each of the others. What is being described in these verses is the armor of the Roman soldier. Roman soldiers were everywhere at the time the New Testament was being written so the analogy would have been easy to picture.
The belt is the first thing thing a Roman soldier would have put on. The belt is likened to truth. Unless we are doing the truth--the right thing at the right time--we will be battling in vain. God has a right time for everything. We did mention in an earlier post that when we get ahead of God we go in our own strength rather than His. The results of that are always less than they should have been. Going ahead of God without His direction is actually called presumption and God calls it sin. There is no way we can prosper in any endeavor while we are sinning. It is a violation of God's justice for Him to help us sin. A word of caution may be in order here. Sometimes it will appear that we have gained victory in spite of our sin. Beware, our enemy delights in disguising his traps so that we do not see them until is it to late to avoid them.
The belt holds the scabbard for the sword. Without truth, we have no ability to hurt the enemy at all. The belt also supports the breastplate. Note the Roman soldier had no armor on his back. He was expected to stand and face his enemy in a fight to the death. Without getting too philosophical or ethereal, our fight is more important than most of us realize.
The breastplate is attached to the belt. The breastplate is likened to righteousness. Righteousness simply means being right. When we have the truth, we have a basis for righteousness. Conversely, without truth there is no basis for righteousness. Being right protects our internal organs. Psalm 51:6 tells us that God desires truth in the inward parts. He desires truth to work throughout our whole being and to radiate from the inside of us. It should be able to be seen by others in the way we live our lives. Those who read the first posts may remember us talking about "hypocritical liars". They have outward truth, but it does not match up with what is on the inside. We trust the readers of this blog understand that truth is absolute. A thing is either true or it is not. Truth is not situational or relative. If a thing is ever true it is always true. That is a basic law of the universe. It will change about the same time the law of gravity is repealed and we all fly away from the earth. No, we are not talking about the rapture of The Church.
The Roman soldier had two kinds of footwear. His everyday sandals had flat, smooth souls for walking on roads and smooth terrain. His battle shoes had long spikes on them to provide traction in soft or loose ground. Just as we see today with athletes who compete on grass or softer ground, the spikes provided traction when the smooth soles would not. When it was necessary to stand and defend a piece of ground the soldier would stomp the spikes into the ground and he would become virtually immovable. In any event, his feet were ready for the battle. He literally had is feet fitted with readiness.
We have all seen shields carried by soldiers, knights or warriors. Our shield is the shield of faith. When we have faith and know God will be victorious, it does not matter what our enemy throws at us. We deflect all those doubts and fears with our faith. Remember, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. (Romans 10:17)
The helmet is our salvation. It does not have to do with being born-again as we often think of salvation, but rather our deliverance from the enemy we are facing in the battle. The helmet, of course, covers our head and our brain which we know is the seat of our soul. Do not get lost here. The helmet of deliverance, or salvation, protects our mind and emotions. When we are inclined to think joining the battle was not such a good idea after all, the helmet helps us not be swayed by what we think or feel. As a personal example, I am having a very difficult time focusing on writing this week. Writing this blog is my part of the battle so far. Maybe it really was not such a good idea to start this? No, regardless of what I might think or feel, this is the right thing to do. We will be delivered out of this war in victory.
What does praying in the Spirit have to do with spiritual armor? I think we will leave that for Part 10. God bless. See you soon.
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