Sermon Tone Analysis

“Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

“Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.

Stand therefore.”[1]

Christians are at war.

This is not a war against a physical foe or fought with physical weapons.

We neither seek to kill nor injure any person; neither do we endeavour to destroy any structures erected by man.

We are fighting a spiritual war, and the enemy against whom we struggle are angelic beings fallen from their previous position as servants of the Living God.

God does not call His people to conquer new territory; rather, we occupy ground from which the enemy has fled before the Risen Master.

The mission we have received calls for us to hold that ground which has been entrusted to our care.

*Appointed to Stand* — “Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

“Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.

Stand therefore.”

Four times in these few brief sentences we are commanded to stand.

The thrust of the apostolic plea is for Christians to remain firm in the face of sustained assault.

Paul uses two separate words that function as synonymous concepts in the text before us.

First, the Apostle urges Christians to don the armour of God in order “to stand against the schemes of the devil.”

He uses the same word at the end of verse 13 and again in verse 14 when he commands believers to stand, having prepared themselves for the conflict.

In verse 13, Paul uses a different word when he speaks of withstanding in the evil day.

However, in this instance, the word is derived from the former word.

Thus, the Apostle makes a very powerful plea—nay, issues a most powerful command—for Christians to stand firm in the face of spiritual assault.

Since we are commanded to stand, we should ask where we are to stand and against what are we to take a stand; the questions are intimately related to one another.

Obviously, we are not standing on some physical ground, as though the western world is to be defended, or some particular nation or continent is to resist an invasion by pagan religions.

The ground for which we have received responsibility is the spiritual ground that is bathed in light.

Let me explain by challenging you to think of some seemingly unrelated biblical instruction that is in reality vital.

Throughout the Word of God are references to the darkness of the world and the light in which the people of God dwell.

You will recall that Jesus presented Himself to all mankind as “the light of the world” [*John 8:12; 9:5*].

Citing Isaiah, Matthew wrote of Jesus’ birth,

“The people dwelling in darkness

have seen a great light,

and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death,

on them a light has dawned.”

[*Matthew 4:16*][2]

The words are reminiscent of Zechariah’s prophecy at the birth of John the Baptist.

“You, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;

for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,

to give knowledge of salvation to his people

in the forgiveness of their sins,

because of the tender mercy of our God,

whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high

to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,

to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

[*Luke 1:76-79*][3]

Concerning the coming of the Master, John wrote, “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it” [*John 1:5*].

Since the fall of our first parents, mankind is said to dwell in darkness.

Think of just a few of the contrasts that are found in the Gospel between the light the Master provides to those who follow Him and the darkness to which mankind has become accustomed.

For example, “This is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” [*John 3:19*].

John is assuredly provocative in his assertion that mankind loves darkness rather than light.

People are uncomfortable in the light; they cannot stand the light because it exposes the chains than bind them.

Shortly after He had entered into Jerusalem to the loud acclaim of many of the people, Jesus taught the crowds concerning His work.

Let’s listen in as the Master instructs those who listened.

“The light is among you for a little while longer.

Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you.

The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.

While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light” [*John 12:35, 36*].

The Master made it quite plain that one was either walking with Him in light, or they were walking in darkness.

There was no half-light of dawn—only darkness or light.

Though many—even many of the religious leaders—believed Jesus, they had grown so accustomed to the faux light that this darkened world affords, that they would not openly confess Him, fearing the loss of accolades they received in the synagogue.

Therefore, the Saviour cried out, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me.

And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.

I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.

The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.

For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak.

And I know that his commandment is eternal life.

What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me” [*John 12:44-50*].

Again, the Master emphasises that those who fail to receive Him are in darkness and will remain in darkness, regardless of any personal efforts at betterment.

Again, one is either in the light, or she is yet in darkness.

There is no twilight or dusk—only darkness or light.

Let’s establish a truth that will make some professing Christians terribly uncomfortable.

Those who are unsaved, those who are lost, those who have never placed faith in the Risen Master, are in darkness.

This says nothing of their ability to think, or their ability to reason, or even their worth as a person—it is a spiritual statement that addresses their ability to understand the will of God, or even to appropriate that wisdom when challenged to do so.

We who are believers in the Living Christ should not be proud, imagining that we are in some way superior to those who are still outside the precincts of grace.

Christians have been delivered from “the domain of darkness,” having been “transferred … to the Kingdom of God’s Beloved Son” [*Colossians 1:13*].

We soon forget what it was to be in darkness, because we now walk in the light.

Unfortunately, we often compromise the light we have received in a perverted effort to make outsiders like us, all the while trying to live both in the dark and in the light.

Indeed, at one time each of us was “darkness,” but now we are “in the light in the Lord” [see *Ephesians 5:8*].

It is not merely that we were */in/* darkness, but according to the Word of God, we */were/* darkness.

We were incapable of differentiating between darkness and light.

We had preferences, but held no convictions.

We formulated our moral and ethical positions on the basis of our personal desire rather than grounding them on the authoritative Word of the Living God.

Recounting his salvation, the Apostle told how the Lord appeared to him and said, “I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” [*Acts 26:16-18*].

The Word of God is quite clear that “the god of this world [Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” [*2 Corinthians 4:4*].

There is a very real contrast between the believer and those who are held in thraldom by the evil one.

John defines this contrast when he writes, “We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” [*1 John 5:19*].

Jesus spoke often of the darkness of this world.

Presenting Himself as the light that dispels darkness, Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” [*John 8:12*].

On another occasion, Jesus cautioned, “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light.

Your eye is the lamp of your body.

When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness.

Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness.

If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light” [*Luke 11:33-36*].

Increasingly, we witness in this day a transition from what has unquestionably been a biblical-based morality (the prevalence of light) in western society to something that is unrecognisable as biblically moral (the ascendency of darkness).

Increasingly, the view that biblical morality or biblical ethics is wrong, gains traction in society.

Today, we witness God’s people castigated as bigots because they do not agree that unnatural sex or sex for the sake of sex, is moral.

In fact, those who speak against such acts are said to be immoral.

One homosexual activist has recently advocated that “homophobia should be identified as a sickness, with families court-ordered into treatment programs.”[4]

Likewise, advocates of the murder of the unborn present their arguments favouring abortion as a higher morality than preserving life.

That such attitudes are gaining ascendency should come as no surprise to the Christian.

The Apostle to the Gentiles foresaw precisely such events when he wrote, “In the last days there will come times of difficulty.