AT WAR (1): FOR BUSINESS OR PLEASURE (Ephesians 6:10-13) Read Eph 6:10-13.

One serviceman was lamenting to his brother that Americans dont seem to realize we are at war. The brother disagreed. A short time later, he introduced his out-of-uniform serviceman brother to a neighbor, explaining he was shortly leaving for Afghanistan. The neighbor replied, Really? For business or pleasure? Im sure he is like many others oblivious to the conflict that is not specifically touching their lives. My sister, Mary, who is here today, has a son, Eric, who was featured on CBS news last month in a 10 minute report of the unit he commands in Afghanistan. He knows we are at war. Our niece, Kristin, has a husband, David who is in the Marines. Hes had two tours in Iraq. They know we are at war. Most of us would prefer to ignore war if possible. September 1, 1939 was a red-letter day in Europe. Hitler, he invaded Poland despite multiple warnings that it would mean war. Two days later, British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain announced that diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis had failed and consequently this country is at war with Germany. What followed that announcement was nothing! Six months of nothing. Winter set in and for six months nothing happened. People began to call it the phony war. But it was not a phony war, and beginning on April 9, 1940, the world learned war Blitzkrieg-style as the Germans overran Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium and France all within 2-1/2 months. Beloved, may I say to you this morning that we are at war. We are at war with the forces of evil headed by Satan himself. But because it is an invisible war, we are prone to ignore, forget, even deny. We do not want war. We hate war. But we are at war, and if we do not prepare, at the moment we least expect, we will be blitzkreiged into depression, doubt, despair and defeat. Its like the European phony war. It is invisible by nature; and often nothing seems to be happening. But as happened then, our April 9 will roll around, and the spiritual tanks of Satan will roll over us like we are not even there if we are not prepared. Ive been there. I know. Paul is saying we are at war; be prepared. At first glance, Pauls reference to spiritual warfare seems out of keeping with the rest of the book. Chapters 1-3 our position in Christ. Chapters 4-6
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 urging that we become in practice what we are in position. Making our conduct match our calling. Live up to our name Christian. Then out of the blue, all this instruction about warfare. Why go off on this warfare tangent? The answer is amazingly simple once we think about it. It is because our practice cannot match our position in Christ without a battle. Our daily life is the battlefield for spiritual warfare. The battle is not out there. It it right here. It is surrounds us at all times. The battle is in our backyard in our life together at church where the enemy is determined to interrupt the unity and love that the Savior wants. We are a battlefield. Our personal conduct is a battlefield. No wonder holiness seems like a struggle. It is. Our marriage and family and work relationships are the battlefield. Were on the front lines at all times. From the moment you accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, youve been in the middle of spiritual warfare and it will last until the Lord takes you home or until He comes. We are and will be at war! Sunday, July 21, 1861 -- one of the most amazing days in American history. Abe Lincoln was four months in office. Civil War had been declared. Union confidence was high that military victory would be forthcoming as soon as the army was put into the field. Word filtered out that the attack would come on July 21. What followed was astounding. The public treated the coming battle as a sort of sporting event. Thousands of spectators skipped church to prepare picnic basket lunches, dress in their Sunday finest and drive in their buggies 20 miles south and west to Manassas Junction. It was like the Super Bowl. One horse owner held out for and got $1,000 to rent his bay horse for the day. Most of the senate leaders and scores of Congressman were among those who rode out, accompanied by pretty ladies in crinoline gowns to see the phenomenon of a modern battle. It was all a big lark. But, of course, it all ended very badly. The Union Army advanced valiantly at first, but they met Stonewall Jackson on Henry Hill and by late afternoon the tide had turned. It began to rain in torrents and soon the army was competing for the road with spectators in a mad dash back to Washington in the rain and the mud and the grit of battle defeat impressed upon every mind in a way they could never have imagined. The awareness that this could be a long and bloody and costly war dawned on everyone as a stark revelation out of the blue. Beloved, I worry that many of us coming dressed in Sunday casual each week are a bit like those disillusioned Civil War spectators. We are at war -- and we are clueless. Our concept of spiritual
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warfare is to come and watch the preacher do his thing oblivious to the battle raging around our own lives on a daily basis. Do we know we are at war!? Are we prepared for war!? That is Pauls message in verses 10-20 of Ephesians 6. We are going to study his instruction from God under the outline the Wartime Perspective (10-13): Wartime Provisions (14-17) and Wartime Power (18-20). My prayer is by the time we finish, we will be much better prepared for war than we are today. Lets start with Wartime Perspective. This is our orientation to the warfare of which we are a part, having signed on when we accepted Christ as Savior, wittingly or unwittingly. Top down view. We will look at I. The Opposition; II. The Objective; III. The Orders; and IV. The Obstacles. I. The Opposition The opposition. You cant fight an enemy you dont know. A huge problem in Vietnam was that everyone looked, talked, acted and dressed alike. They didnt have convenient gray uniforms for one side and blue for the other. Countless lives were lost on both sides because someone trusted the wrong person. So, who is the enemy in the invisible war? Verses 11-12: Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 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. Clearly stated. The enemy is Satan and his demonic followers. Please note who the enemy is not. The enemy is not flesh and blood. The enemy is not your husband or your wife. The enemy is not your boss, or a disreputable colleague or a competitor. The enemy is not Mom and Dad or President Obama or any other authority in your life. Those are all flesh and blood, and while it is possible that some flesh and blood person could be so dedicated to the forces of evil that they represent evil incarnate (in the flesh) someone like Hitler or Osama comes to mind our real battle is beyond the world of that which we can see and is against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Beloved, we are up against the spiritual Mafia. Thats the enemy characterized three ways here. A. Its Spiritual
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First, it is spiritual. And it finds its ultimate expression in the heart of a personal spirit being called the Devil in verse 11. Now, in our time, we are seeing a revived interest in things spiritual a renewed belief in spirituality. But the vast majority of people, even ministers, do not believe in a personal devil. They acknowledge an evil spiritual force at work in the world, but while they believe in a personal God, they do not believe in a personal Devil. So, we must be very clear on this point. The same Bible that presents a personal God also depicts a very personal devil. It describes both good and evil angelic beings who have personality. Scripture makes no effort to prove any of this; it simply takes it for granted and occasionally takes us behind the scenes, pulls back the curtains of our physical world to give us glimpses of ultimate reality. Such glimpses are invaluable in understanding a spiritual enemy whom we cannot otherwise see. So lets start with the Devil, who according to verse 11 is scheming for our downfall. Who is this Devil? Satan -- The Devil (which means accuser or slanderer) is called by many other names in Scripture. Most prominent is the name Satan which means adversary. He is also called a serpent, a dragon, a roaring lion, the father of lies and many others. All his names indicate his opposition to man and God. But it was not always so. The original title ascribed to this being was Lucifer shining one. This title is given him in one of those rare occasions when the curtain is pulled back to enlighten us spiritually. Turn to Ezekiel 28 to catch a glimpse of the unsurpassed beauty of Satan as originally created. In that chapter, God first condemns the Prince of Tyre, but beginning at verse 11, God moves, as sometimes happens in Scripture, from the earthly being to the power behind the throne. Many of the things he says could not be true of any human being. The curtain has been pulled back and we get a startling revelation beginning in Ezek 28:12 God speaking to Lucifer or Satan: You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty (the pinnacle of Gods creation). 13 You were in Eden (not true of any man but Adam), the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, (skipping to verse 14) 14 You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God (mountain speaks of the government of God and indicates Lucifer was Prime Minister); in the midst of the stones of fire you walked (this speaks of proximity to the throne of God itself). 15 You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, (everything great; everything good and then the most damning phrase in the Bible) till unrighteousness was found in
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you. This, Beloved, is the origin of sin. First one. From where did it come? From a spontaneous generation in the heart of this most gifted, beautiful and honored of all of Gods creation. It was internal to Satan. Enough was not enough. Pride and jealousy took over and the insatiable desire for more filled his heart. Skip to verse 17, 17 Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. We get a vivid picture of how this played out when God is speaking to the King of Babylon, but suddenly pulls back the curtain again to address Satan as the power behind that throne in Isaiah 14:12-14, 12) How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star (literally, Lucifer), son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! 13) You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; 14) I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High. Prior to this, in the perfection of creation, there was one will in town the will of God Almighty. Now, suddenly, there is a new will a will that is in rebellion, that is challenging the authority of God Himself. Naturally, God immediately set boundaries beyond which Satan cannot go, but within the limitations of those boundaries God is allowing Satan to operate with the expressed purpose of ultimately demonstrating once and for all that no will outside of His own can succeed. In time, every purpose, every intention, every plan, every scheme of Satan will be exhausted and the supremacy of God will be demonstrated to the everlasting praise of His glory. God will fulfill His ultimate plan of Eph 1:10 for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. Our redemption is part of that overall purpose to unite all things again around the single will of God at which time perfection in every sphere will once again reign. Want to be around for that? I wouldnt miss it for anything and everything this world and the power behind the throne, Satan, have to offer. But thats the battle, Beloved. And thats the opposition. And while the victory is assured, the battle continues until God says, Enough. And we must choose which side we are on, and then we must join the fight. Like the closing days of WWII, the victory is assured, but the battle rages until the enemy is totally conquered. Meantime he is a vicious, able and clever foe. And we are at war. Now, the Devil was not alone in his rebellion. The sin that originated in his heart infected others of Gods spiritual beings and they followed him into rebellion. We must never underestimate his power and attractiveness. Were
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at Eph 6:12 again, 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. Who are these rulers, authorities, cosmic powers and spiritual forces? The first two words, rulers and authorities, are often used together in Scripture and can be used of human beings. But more often they are spirit beings, good or evil. Here, the first clause of the verse dictates that they are spirit beings, and that they are evil. These are demons, fallen angels, under orders from Satan and actively involved in spiritual warfare. They occupy the heavenly area around the world in which we live and they have cast spiritual darkness and evil over their domain. The fact that Paul uses four different terms for these beings indicates some kind of differentiation among them. Perhaps they are ranked in military fashion, perhaps some are more powerful than others, perhaps some are experts in one area of temptation and others in some other area together they are a powerful spiritual Mafia in twisted rebellion against God. We see them powerfully behind the scenes when God pulls back the curtains in Daniel 10. In Daniel 9, a prayer of Daniels is answered before he even finishes praying. However, in Daniel 10, the heavens were silent for three weeks. Then, suddenly, an angel appears, sets Daniel to trembling and delivers this startling announcement in Daniel 10:12ff, Then he said to me, Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. 13 The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia. What a message delivered so casually. God started an answer to Daniels prayer as soon as he prayed. But the answer was delayed because the prince of Persia (an evil angel, a demon, assigned to the nation of Persia) withstood him, delayed him. How did he do that? Did he have some kind of spiritual sword or weaponry or something? Dear friends, we do not know that. We do not know how, but we know what spiritual warfare! And it affects physical things, including the timing of answers to prayer. God gives us amazing insight here -- that angels operate in the realm of time, that real battles rage between angelic beings and that the outcomes affect us. Anyone more incentivized to pray? B. Its physical (and personal) Now, Beloved, spiritual warfare is physical and personal. We are at war. Paul uses the word against 6 times in verses 11-12. Six times. And its not
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just war at a distance. Paul says, For we wrestle. We wrestle . This is hand-to-hand combat. Paul could have used the general word for battle more expected when describing an armed soldier. But he wants to emphasize the hands-on nature of our combat, so he uses wrestle -- not firing computer-guided missiles at a distant enemy. This is up close and personal. It was personal between the Satan-driven serpent and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It was personal between Christ and Satan in the wilderness at the beginning of His ministry. It was personal in Luke 22 beginning at verse 31 where Christ pulls back the curtain for Peter and says: Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you (plural), that he might sift you (plural) like wheat, 32 but I have prayed for you (singular) that your faith may not fail. And when you (singular) have turned again, strengthen your brothers. 33 Peter said to him, Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death. 34 Jesus said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me. Fascinating. First, just like Job, it shows Satans limitations. He cant do diddly without permission! Thats encouraging. But before you get too comfortable, look again closely. Jesus says, Peter, Satan is demanding to have at all of you to take you out. He wants to nullify them at the crucial hour of crucifixion. Jesus goes on: But I have prayed for you (singular) Peter that your faith will not fail. Good, so Peter will stand. But no that is not what Christ prayed. He prayed that Peters faith would not fail. Peter, in fact, did fail. As did all the disciples. But Jesuss prayer was answered. Peters faith did not fail, not ultimately. He never ceased to believe in Christ. But he acted the coward knowing he was betraying innocent blood. He suffered defeat before his faith brought him around again as Jesus had prayed. A tragedy turned to victory. Great but did you ever ask yourself, why didnt Jesus just pray that Peter would not fail at all? That none of the disciples would fail? Jesuss prayers were always answered. Why didnt He rescue them? Why? Because it was not the Fathers will. Thats the only possible conclusion to draw. It was the Fathers will that they go through this hand-to-hand combat with the enemy that they would lose, only to be strengthened in their faith later. Beloved we wrestle with the powers of evil because the Father desires us to do so. But it is very personal, very combative, intense and trying at times. The enemy is resourceful and personal. C. Its evil
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Our opposition it is spiritual; it is personal, and finally, it is evil. It looks wonderful at times, but it is always set on evil. Paul says, For we wrestle. The stakes were high in official Greek wrestling matches. In some instances the loser had his eyes gouged out with resulting blindness. So our spiritual opponent wants to turn out our spiritual lights -- we wrestle against against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Out opponent shows us physical beauty and desirability for the sole purpose of bringing on spiritual blindness. We are wrestling against, in verse 11, the schemes of the devil all looking smart, desirable, and even religious, but all intended on our blindness and destruction. There is no good in our opponent. He will heed no plea for mercy. Crying Uncle wont help. He cannot take eternal life, but he can render us totally ineffective and wretched as he did Lot whom Peter says was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard. The opposition promised Lot peace and contentment and pleasures galore in Sodom, but all he got was the torment of his righteous soul, the loss of his wife and the incestuous pregnancy of his own daughters. He wrestled and lost, Beloved, and he paid dearly for the opposition is evil. Conclusion Now, there is much more we could add, but let me close with this. We are at war. We cannot declare neutrality like Switzerland; we are at war. And the opposition is spiritual, personal and the personification of evil. No picture you have ever seen is graphic enough to define the horrendous evil of our enemy in whom sin found its origin. The enemy is powerful, organized and relentless. I Peter 5:8 summarizes: Be soberminded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone (someone its personal) to devour. But but, here is our hope. It is all we need. I John 4:4, Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. Greater than that roaring lion is the lamb of God who is within us. Were not, but He is. Thats why we must; we must be filled by (controlled by) the Spirit. We must. We must be just as relentless in our dependence on the Father as the opposition is in his intent to destroy us. One November 2, 2010, it was reported that a woman in Houston, Texas was arrested, jailed and charged with manslaughter for shooting a man 6 times in the back as he was running away with her purse. The judge asked for an explanation. She replied that she was waiting for a bus to take her home from her job as a waitress. Because she was alone, she had her right hand on
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a pistol that was in her purse which was slung over her shoulder. Suddenly, she felt herself being spun around, and a man was running away with her purse. Simultaneously, she realized that her right hand had hung onto the pistol. Fear was replaced by anger as she hollered, No way punk. Youre not stealing my tips and wages. She took aim and fired six times. The judge asked, Why did you shoot six times? She replied, Because when I pulled the trigger again, it was out of ammunition. Relentless! She was acquitted and back safe at work the next day. Beloved, we have a ruthless enemy. We must be equally ruthless in identifying and with Gods help killing the temptations that promise the world, but lead to disaster. We are at war and there is no room for compromise. Lets pray.