THE ARMOR OF GOD

A few weeks ago my weekly blog was centered on the Apostle Paul’s concluding statement to the Ephesian church, which he begins with a challenge to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might” (Ephesians 6:10).

Today we look at Paul’s following exhortation: “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11).Interestingly, Paul repeats the exhortation just two verses later: “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” (verse 13). I believe the repetition underscores the importance of what he is saying.

But the question arises, why is Paul so strident about our need for the whole armor of God? Let me offer several personal observations about why I believe he is so intense about this.

First, human nature tends toward comparison shopping. For example, when we buy a car, most of us take the approach that we need to look around and see what we can afford and what we’ll be comfortable with. We do the same type of thing in many other areas of life. We pick one or two items out of many that are available to us.

We must not take the comparison shopping approach when it comes to the armor of God but, unfortunately, some try to do that. They become “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” people and they pretty much ignore a lot of the other parts of the armor. Others become “shield of faith” people; still others are “breastplate of righteousness” folks who have little or nothing to do with anyone else. Comparison shopping is not an acceptable approach to the armor of God. Paul adamantly says, “Put it all on—all of it!”

Secondly, the reason this statement follows Paul’s statement about our need to “be strong in the Lord” is that no one can adequately handle the armor of God in his own strength. We have to lay aside the “John Wayne attitude” that we can do this on our own—because we can’t. Anyone who is foolish enough to think he can use the sword of the Spirit or the shield of faith without the strength of the Lord is bound for defeat. We are talking about God’s armor and to put it on and use it properly, we must have His strength. If we don’t get our strength from the Lord then the armor of God is useless to us.

Thirdly, when Paul uses the phrases, “Put on the whole armor” and “Take up the whole armor,” he is clearly telling us that this is going to require an effort on our part; it’s going to require time and discipline on our part to get it done. “Put on” means “to hide in, to be clothed with,” so the word picture here is that we should consciously put on each piece of the armor just as we would clothing.

I know some Bible teachers say that every day we should go through the process of “putting on the armor” by literally acting out the putting on of each part and verbally asserting that it is in place. I believe we need to do that just once and then remind ourselves regularly that each piece is in place. In so doing we are also reminding ourselves of the value and purpose of each piece of God’s armor. The armor does not fall off as long as we remain in regular communion with Him and it doesn’t fall off when we sleep.

Another very important reason Paul emphasized taking up all the armor is that unless we take up the whole armor of God, we are leaving ourselves vulnerable. Those who take up just two or three pieces of the armor have left themselves exposed to the wounding effect of the enemy’s persistent attacks on the exposed areas.

Paul finishes verse 11 by asserting, “. . . that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.”

“To stand against.” The words as Paul uses them mean “to be set, to take a position and hold it.” This is precisely what James was teaching when He said, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). The word resist means “to stand against, to oppose, to set one’s self against.”

“The schemes of the devil.” The word schemes means the deceptions that the devil will use to try to entice us into error or bad behavior. This is an extremely important point of understanding for us to get hold of. When the disciples asked Jesus about the the signs of His coming and of the end of days, He said, “Take heed that no one deceives you” (Matthew 24:4, Mark 13:5 and Luke 21:8, NKJV).

We need the complete armor of God so that as the days become increasingly evil, we will stand strong for the Lord.