AT WAR (4): ARMED AND DANGEROUS (Ephesians 6:10-13) Our text is Eph 6:10: Finally, be strong in the Lord

and in the strength of his might. The ABA Journal carried a story about Mel Martin, an attorney who picked up his friend, a judge, for lunch. As the judge changed from robe to jacket, Martin noticed a shiny black pistol holstered to the judges shoulder. The judge was not a firearms enthusiast, so Martin asked him why he was carrying it. The judge said that because of recent threats he had borrowed the pistol from the repository of confiscated weapons. I chose this one because its so mean-looking, yet it hardly weighs a thing. I hope I dont need it, because I dont even know how to load it. Its not hard, Martin said examining it closely. We can fill it at the water fountain on the way out. That judge was armed, but he wasnt very dangerous. God wants both. Verses 10-13 are our orientation to spiritual warfare. Our fourfold outline: I. The Opposition; II. The Objective; III. The Orders; and IV. The Obstacles. The opposition a very real but unseen demonic empire. Our objective -- to stand. Four times in these verses Paul emphasizes -- STAND. Last week we began to look at the two orders to enable us to stand be empowered (verse 10) and be armed (verse 11). And not with water pistols. III.The Orders A. Be Empowered 1. Our part Be empowered! There is our part and there is Gods part. We saw last week that our part is to do the things that build strength. We eat (feed on the Word); we exercise (practice holy living); we endure (show faith in adversity) and we expect (live for eternity, not time) Thats our contribution to the command: be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 2. His part Now we come to His part. And what is His part? In a word, His part is to make it happen. That sounds very simple, but most of the time there is a problem. The problem is we get in the way. We live like it was all on us. I feel like my argument will bring someone to Christ. I live as though it is on me to keep the church straight, get my children saved, keep my friend from divorcing, bring in the next big order. I forget that my job is to be faithful;
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His job is to produce results. Results are His domain. In spiritual warfare, the worst thing we can do is go at it with our little pop guns. So, how do we unleash God to do His part? Three words to help us be strong in the strength of His might! Acknowledge, Ask, and Act. Acknowledge our dependence God wants us dependent. Were usually not. So, adversity reminds me, I need God. I have several tough brothers. About thirty years ago I was sitting with one of them with his wife in a hospital when the doctor came to discuss the surgery he had just gone through. It was cancer. Few things get our attention like the C word. Cancer. The most aggressive form of testicular cancer had already reached his lungs and may or may not have infected the brain. Many of you know; its a helpless feeling, isnt it? The fragility of life comes into clear focus and we realize that even our next breath is totally dependent on God. Aggressive chemo-therapy was prescribed -- and we prayed. We prayed individually; we prayed as a family; the church prayed. And despite word from his doctor at one point that death was imminent, he is still alive and with us today. We are dependent on God. We dependent on Him to avoid the temptation represented by the new guy or gal in the office; to transform our selfish actions toward our spouse; to serve nursery duty effectively and lovingly; to direct children in the path He intends for them; to perform our job to His glory; we need Him all the time in every way. And we cannot we simply cannot be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might until we get that we need Him all the time! When we feel strongest is when we need him most. Maturity is when we can see that even without adversity. Look at the command in verse 10: Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Not my might. His might. Not my results. His results. Not my responsibility. His responsibility. Turn with me to Zechariah 4. Background: Zerubbabel had led a group of Israeli people back from a 70year captivity in Babylon starting in the 530s BC. He and a priest named Joshua had begun rebuilding the temple. But now there had been 14 years of inactivity due to opposition from Samaritans and discouragement internally. Everyone despaired of the temple ever being rebuilt. But God speaks to Zechariah who sees an elaborate lampstand, fueled by oil coming from two olive trees one on each side of the lampstand. In verse 6, an angel explains: This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts. 7 Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring
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forward the top stone amid shouts of Grace, grace to it! Translation: what Zerubbabel has begun, he will finish! The impossible mountain will be turned into a plain. But it will not be by human might or power. It will be in the strength of his might. The Holy Spirit of God will accomplish this. It is all grace; and the delay only insures that God will get the glory! Dont miss the symbolism. The lampstand in lit by oil coming from two trees, one on each side. Who are the trees? Zerubbabel, the civil leader, and Joshua, the high priest. Oil always represents the HS as v. 6 clarifies. Two human instruments empowered by the HS accomplish the work of lighting the nation through the re-building of the temple. The task could not get done without the men -- But on their own, the task is impossible. It takes Zerubbabel and Joshua, human instruments, depending on the HS to get it done. Exactly what Paul is saying when he says, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Ultimately He make it happen! Spiritual warfare is ultimately not my fight against the devil but Gods fight with the devil. The strategy is His. The direction is His. The power is His, and ultimately the glory is His. What is mine is the wonderful privilege to be an instrument in this battle an instrument through which His power flows. We are empowered, but the power is His. He makes it happen! Look at John 5:19: 19) So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. Jesus needed the Father? for everything? and we think we dont?! You think you can farm on your own, meet temptation on your own; cook and clean on your own; teach a class on your own, walk across the street on your own? Then the enemy has already won the battle, dear friends. John 5:30, 30) I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. Thats Jesus saying, I am totally dependent on the Father. John 12:49, For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandmentwhat to say and what to speak. Do we live this way? Are we better than Jesus? When we acknowledge our dependence like He did, we unleash God to do His part to make it happen. Ask for help Open the door for His strength to take over. Sometimes we think that it is strong Christians who pray a lot. And strong Christians do pray a lot. Why? Because they realize that they are weak Christians!! Come
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on, Beloved. The weaker we are the more we need Him, and since we are all of us impossibly weak in our own strength, every living minute of our life should be a cry for help. This is why Paul urges us Pray without ceasing. Pray for all things from the simple to the complex, from the easy to the impossible, from the secular to the sacred. One of the most effective prayers in the whole Bible was by Peter in Matt 14 when Jesus came walking toward the disciples on the water. Peter decided to give it a try, too, and the Jesus beckoned him to come. But we read in Matt 14:30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, Lord, save me. Lord, save me! That was what James in 5:16 would call an effectual fervent prayer. It had urgency behind it! It had a sense of dependence behind it. And it was answered immediately. If only our prayers had that fervency! And they would if we only realized that every step we take in this life is a step on a raging sea! We could go under any minute. We just dont see our urgent need. Trivial does not mean less urgent! Prayer gives eternal worth to everyday life. Moses wrote a great psalm -- Psalm 90 about how fleeting life is and how necessary therefore to number our days. Find ways to give them eternal value. He ends with this statement in Psalm 90:17, Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands! The Hebrew word translated establish literally means to make permanent. Moses is asking God to give worth to everyday tasks. Trivial does not mean less urgent. And prayer adds eternal value to the mundane as well as crisis! Remember our look at Matt 7:7: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Ask, seek and find are all present tense commands, meaning that God intends this to be the habitual pattern of our life, not one-time events. He wants us to be always asking, always seeking and always finding! This depicts a lifestyle of dependence on Him, constantly yielding new adventures in asking, seeking and finding. Like the husband who backed into a tree. His wife, usually the brunt of his driving jokes, stayed mum. The husband finally said, For heavens sake, cant you look where Im going? So God want us constantly asking Him to look where were going. Ask, seek, find and thus be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. So He can make it happen.

Act in Faith That allows God to make it happen. Young David understood this. We all know how against all odds he killed Goliath the Philistine giant that had all of Israel scared to death. But have you ever read what David said to Goliath? Did you know he preached him a sermon before he killed him? Its in I Samuel 17. When Goliath sees David coming out to fight, he is both amused and insulted. He says, What am I a dog that you come at me with sticks and stones? Youre a joke! Look at Davids reply beginning in I Sam 17:45, Then David said to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin (armed to the teeth in human strength), but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47 and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORDs, and he will give you into our hand. David wasnt passive, was he? He didnt just come to sit and watch God. This is not let go and let God. Far from it. David is active. He says, I will strike you down. I will cut off your head. I will feed you to the birds. He was active, but though he was on the front lines and every eye was on him, still he recognized the battle was the Lords. The Lord would use all of his preparation faith built by feeding on the Word, his practice of godliness as well as with his slingshot, his endurance against lesser enemies and his expectation of victory. Its all there and God would use it all, but the battle was the Lords. The might was the Lords. The accuracy was the Lords. The result was the Lords. He made it happen -- Pauls message in Eph 6:10. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Jesus illustrates this in Mark 3. He finds a man with a withered hand in the synagogue on the Sabbath day and calls him over. He then backs the Pharisees into a corner by asking in verse 4, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? But they were silent. (Jesus is saying, So, guys, should I heal him or not? knowing full well that their tradition said that helping anyone short of a life-threatening situation was anathema. But they couldnt answer for fear of the crowd) 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, Stretch out your hand. He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. Now, Beloved, I have a question. How could that guy with a withered hand
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stretch it out? How could he do that? Do you see what Jesus is doing here? He is asking that man to do the impossible. Stretch out your hand! Stretch out my hand? Jesus, are you kidding? I could easier fly than stretch out my hand but when he did his part, God did his part. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Act in faith. Do what He asks. Live a life of bold adventure in Christ. Do it even when it looks impossible. Listen stretch out your withered hand and see what God will do. This is His first order to enable us to stand Be empowered. God acting through our effort. B. Be Equipped (be armed) V. 11: Put on the whole armor of God. Repeated for emphasis in verse 13: Therefore (since you are engaged in spiritual warfare) take up the whole armor of God. Be equipped for the type of warfare that engages you. The two orders together be equipped and be empowered! Be armed and dangerous, in the strength of His might. Are we armed and dangerous? Now note that the armor is Gods. Its not mine. And the fact that Paul urges us to put this armor on suggests we dont come automatically armed. We must put it on, but we might through apathy, unbelief, neglect or simple pride decide we dont need God except in emergencies. Foolish, but possible! But, Beloved, as the old hymn writer said, The arm of flesh will fail you. You dare not trust your own. We are not naturally equipped for spiritual warfare. Without Gods armor we are walking naked through the minefield of life. It is the armor of God, not the presumption of Dave that I need. A picture from China on June 5, 1989, showed a single, white-shirted young man standing alone in the middle of the street where a line of tanks had pulled right up to his chest before stopping. He was protesting the crackdown on civil freedoms that had resulted in injury and death of other students on previous days. His complete vulnerability is graphically depicted. The government chose not to run over the young man, although he immediately disappeared. But that picture thats us without the armor of God. The tanks of a ruthless spiritual enemy are bearing down on us, intent on the ruin of our life, and we are defenseless apart from the armor of God. Thats why Paul indicates extreme urgency attaches to this command. He urges it twice in three verses. Put on the armor, Paul urges, and leave it on. Every contingency of life has been dealt with by God ahead of time but we must put on the armor and keep it on. Sometimes we take it off. We are most vulnerable just after some spiritual victory. We have avoided
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temptation or shared our faith. Then look out. Paul says in I Cor 10:12, Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. C. S. Lewis used to say that he never felt more vulnerable than just after some debate where he had been defending and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thats when doubts flood in. We must be always armed. Sometimes we just get weary. Worldly temptations look so good, relaxing, inviting, comfortable. Perhaps your armor has weighed heavily lately. So Paul says in Gal 6:9, And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So many of Gods best people suffered this fate failed to finish strong? Elijah called down fire from heaven, killed 400 prophets of Baal and then fled at the threat of one woman. Samson was taken down by the hand of Delilah before affecting his greatest victory in his own death. David performed powerfully for the Lord before being felled by the temptation of a beautiful woman. Gideon won one of the most spectacular military victories in history, only to turn around and erect his own idols. Dear people, let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. Jill Briscoe tells how she fell into bed exhausted after a busy week of travel and ministry. Feeling a little sorry for herself, she looked to pastor husband Stuart for some sympathy. He just grinned and asked cheerfully, Are you feeling weary in well doing? Yes, she replied. He smiled back: Its a great feeling, isnt it? Dear people, he was right. Put on the armor and never take it off. One final note we must be armed fully. It is the whole armor that is required. Partially armed is unarmed. Satan will find our vulnerability every time. Achilles was the great mythical hero of the Iliad. Born of a human father and the goddess Thetis. When he was still a baby, his mother attempted to clothe him in immortality by dipping him into the River Styx. The sacred waters covered everything except the heel by which she held him. He became, of course, a mighty warrior against Troy winning many battles against mighty opponents like Hector. But in the end, he was taken down when Prince Paris shot an arrow that penetrated his heel his Achilles heel which led to his death. Gods objective for us, Beloved is to stand to keep our feet in the great spiritual warfare we joined when we joined Him. Two commands enable us to stand. Be empowered in His might; be equipped in His armor. Armed and dangerous, in the power of His might. Lets pray.
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