Spiritual Warfare Part 4

Introduction

Story of D-Day — Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1944 ! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!

I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

What we have here before us might be Paul’s night before the battle letter to the troops....

Therefore — In light of what has been said. What has been said? The army against us has been revealed. The forces of darkness have been exposed and presented.

We face a foe that is stronger, smarter and infinitely more capable than we are in ourselves. This foe is “inhuman, powerful and evil.” It could be an overwhelming picture just presented to us. But Paul doesn’t leave us to wallow in fear and panic.

In light of what we are up against it is up to us to put on the whole armor of God. We need to be armed and protected with the equipment God supplies.

We will need the totality of it. If we leave even one piece of it behind we leave ourselves exposed to the enemy’s attack and such an attack could be a terrible blow to the believer’s life.

We do not need to invent or manufacture our armaments. We do not need to come up with our own weapons of warfare.

God has furnished each piece of our armor. He provides it. Everything we see of this armor is something God has done for us.

We simply need to put it on and put it on we must…right now…today! A soldier puts his armor on before the battle. Once the battle has been engaged it is late to put on the armaments for war.

So when the day of evil comes — There will come an attack. There will come a day when evil forces of darkness come against all of us…both individually and corporately.

Tornado sirens and the drill at our house...

There are no warning sirens for the day of evil. We receive no signal…no falling barometer to warn us of the approaching storm. There is no way to forecast it…we simply know it is to come and that day of arrival could be any moment.

But we need not fear this attack from an enemy which appears so daunting and overwhelming to our own faculties. We can and must stand our ground!

Roman soldiers depended upon one another to stand their ground. Shoulder to shoulder the Roman army was a formidable foe. Each soldier depended upon the other.

And when this day comes we are meant to “stand.” — To stand is to resist successfully the temptations and schemes of the evil forces at work against us.

Having done everything — We fight to the end. We don’t give up. We take up our armor, resist the devil, demons and powers. We battle and win so as to stand again and in complete possession of the field…field taken, battle won.

Battle of Thermopylae — On the fifth day, the Persians attacked. A wave of soldiers bore down on the Greeks, who had installed themselves in the pass in typical formation: A phalanx of spearmen with heavy shields overlapping. Wedged into the narrow pass, the Greek tactics proved devastatingly effective. They repulsed the first wave of attackers, and then a second group composed of the Persians’ finest warriors, called the Immortals. Xerxes, Herodotus writes, stood up three times throughout the course of the battle, fearful for his safety as he watched his best soldiers die in droves.

The next day of fighting went a little better, though Xerxes reportedly levied a death penalty at any soldier who retreated from their position. The Greeks sustained few losses while resisting the Persians' best attempts to break through their line. Their superior armor and long spears, combined with military tactics suited for the terrain they defended, likely helped give them the advantage.But on that second night, a betrayal sealed the Greeks’ downfall. A local shepherd, hoping for a reward from the Persian king, offered to show the Persians a mountain path that could be used to bypass the Greeks and attack from the rear. Xerxes immediately dispatched a force of men under the commander Hydarnes. The soldiers marched through the night and, by dawn, were ready to fall upon the Greek positions.

Leonidas, alerted to the Persians' movements, made a quick decision. Faced with near-certain defeat, he sent most of his men away. A small contingent, Leonidas included, would stay to guard the pass and hold off the Persians for as long as possible. The remaining men included the famed 300 Spartans, as well as Thessalian and Theban soldiers. In all, they probably numbered around 1,500 men.

“In that place they defended themselves with swords, if they still had them, and with hands and teeth. The barbarians buried them with missiles, some attacking from the front and throwing down the defensive wall, others surrounding them on all sides,” writes Herodotus.

We are not simply meant to endure the battle but win it! We are meant to win the battles against these evil forces and take the field from them.

Here is where a lot of us misunderstand spiritual warfare! So many view it as something to be endured but not so. The enemy may pick the fight but we finish it! We, in the name of Jesus, wearing the armament supplied by our Savior, take from the enemy the spoils of war.

Too many lives have been surrendered on a battlefield when we as believers should have rushed in with the weapons of our warfare, filled with faith and the courage which comes from our God at work in us…so that we might rescue the perishing…rescue the marriages, save the lost and bring back those whose lives have been taken prisoner by forces of darkness.

Belt of Truth

Remember, we are taking up or putting on the new man. We are walking in the person Christ created us to be…that is what the armor is…the new man.

Truth — Sincerity or truthfulness.

Sincerity — Free from pretense, deceit or hypocrisy.

Truthfulness — Being true

Our defense against the attack of the enemy begins with freedom from pretense (an attempt to make something that is not the case appear true.) Deceit (the action or practice of deceiving someone by concealing or misrepresenting the truth.) Hypocrisy (behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel).

We live in times where most people believe it ok to do all three of these. In fact it is expected. And the exercise of any of the three makes one vulnerable to attack for it removes the belt of armor…it allows the enemy to deeply wound in some of the most vulnerable of ways.

Scientists now say that a series of slits, not a giant gash, sank the Titanic. The opulent, 900-foot cruise ship sank in 1912 on its first voyage, from England to New York. Fifteen hundred people died in the worst maritime disaster of the time.

The most widely held theory was that the ship hit an iceberg, which opened a huge gash in the side of the liner. But an international team of divers and scientists recently used sound waves to probe the wreckage, buried in the mud under two-and-a-half miles of water. Their discovery? The damage was surprisingly small. Instead of the huge gash, they found six relatively narrow slits across the six watertight holds. Small damage, invisible to most, can sink not only a great ship but a great reputation.

Even a little lack of integrity…even small lies…will sink our ship.

It is not always easy to tell the truth. It is not always easy to represent the truth in an honest and forthcoming kind of way.

God has provided us supernatural grace with which we might do the right thing and always stand in the truth…wear the truth…walk in the truth and be the truth.

Conclusion

1 John 4:7-8 — We must take up our arms against a common enemy and the groundwork is laid for such a fight in our relationship with one another.

1 John 4:7–8 KJV 1900

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

We must love one another. We are all we have humanly speaking. We cannot expect friendship with the world. We cannot expect them to fight our battles with or for us. We are an army of saints and we must love, defend and care for one another.

Take up your arms — Not a single piece can be left off. Not a single part of our armor can be left aside without dire consequences to both ourselves and those depending upon us in the battle ahead.

The first piece of our armor is the belt of truth. Our relationship with God, with one another and witness before the world cannot be undermined by deceit and hypocrisy.