Sermon Tone Analysis

The Breastplate of Righteousness

The Armor of God: The Breastplate of Righteousness

August 20, 2022

William E. Hughes

The deeper the well, the sweeter the honey

Thus far in our series on the Armor of God, we learned that we are in a very serious conflict of the ages.

It involves a battle with the enemy within us and an enemy that is outside of us.

In order to gain the victory over the enemy within us – which is our fallen natures, our sinful condition, the apostle Paul teaches us that we must walk in the Spirit, which means we must walk in the things that the Spirit affirms, these are the things that are revealed by Jesus in His Word as holy attitudes, holy thoughts, holy words, and holy behaviors.

Our walk must be a steady gait, a walk that is constant and consistent, a constant, consistent forward advancement.

Given all of the advantages that we have in Christ, as outlined in chapters 1 through 3, Paul says, this is how we cope with the enemy inside of us!!!

We also examined the several avenues through which Satan wages war.

Through appetite he controls the whole being.

He works through agents who have not been drinking at the fountain of living water.

And he works through the crafting of the ideological forces in politics, culture and religion.

We examined the fact that the Bible teaches that in the last days Satan will work through a very sophisticated hierarchy of wicked demons.

And through this very sophisticated hierarchy he will develop a scheme to divide the world along ideological lines.

He will craft the ideology of Pharaoh on the one hand and Nebuchadnezzer on the other hand; the king of the South and the King of the North, which is represented in the book of Revelation as the beast that rises from the bottomless pit and the beast that rises from the sea having seven heads and ten horns.

These are of the world, Right Wing and Left Wing, an ideology that is culturally against-God, it is politically against-God; it is religiously against-God, and Satan, like a puppeteer, plays one against the other!

And ultimately, he intends that the right wing ideology will prevail!

The king of the North will prevail!

The beast rising up out of the sea will prevail!

Satan is the architect of this world system and his plan is to weaponize it in order to kill, steal and destroy.

Finally we learned and agreed that we are living in the evil day.

We learned that in this evil day, in order for us to stop the incursion of Satan into our lives through this very sophisticated ideological worldly system in which we live, we must put on the whole armor of God.

We must take it up and put it on, day in and day out until the war is over at the return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

We learned that our first preparation is to put on the belt of truth.

We learned that the belt of truth is about truth as content and truth as character.

And the source of truth is Jesus who declares himself to be the Way, the Truth and the Life.

To put on the belt of truth is to put on Jesus!

But in order for the belt of Truth to have its full effect it must be backed up by the second piece of armor, also described in verse 14, “And having put on the breastplate of righteousness” –

It would be nice if you were a Roman soldier and you got your belt on and you pulled up all the loose ends and you got your mini-tunic going, and you’re serious, you’re committed, but you just can’t run into battle unless you put on one other thing and that’s the breastplate.

Now there’s something about the breastplate that is really, really special because the breastplate covers the most vulnerable part of the soldier’s body.

Sometimes a Roman soldier had a breastplate made of very heavy linen to which were attached overlapping pieces of iron or shell or horn.

But more often it was made of metal, sometimes woven chain metal, which would be very, very heavy.

Sometimes the woven chain metal was linked together with rings of metal and sometimes it was a thin pounded plate of metal.

No Roman soldier would have thought of going into battle without his vital organs protected.

If you are shot in the leg, arm or shoulder that might not be so bad, but to get shot in the chest - that’s serious.

It’s serious because this is where your heart is.

This is where your lungs are.

📷 The Jews regarded the heart as the seat of man’s inner life, our will, our thoughts, our feelings.

It may be the home of evil desires as expressed in Romans 1:24;

📷

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts…[1]

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Also in Mark 7:21–23 where Jesus said,

For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts…[2]

And the list goes on…But the heart was also considered the center and the source of our spiritual nature.

The heart is the very center of our response to God as expressed in Eph.

6:6,

Not with eye service, as men pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart[3]

The heart was also considered to be the home of the Holy Spirit as we read in Romans 5:5,

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5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

[4]

1 Co 6:19–20

19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God…[5]

Since God dwells in us as His Temple, then the heart is the inner sanctum, it is the holy of holies where He dwells.

All the issues of life spring from the heart.

Solomon declared…..

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart…[6]

Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart oh God…

For this reason, we can say that the heart is the center of our relationship with God.

The heart represents our relationship with God.

That is why we say, “It’s not about religion, It’s about “relationship.”

Now this vital area of our chest cavity is also the place of breathing!

Although the Bible does not state it explicitly, it is a basic Christian truth that "Prayer is the breath of the soul."

Where there is communication there is relationship; where there is relationship there is communication.

No breath.

No life!

And so this breastplate will protect our communion with God.

That means that our entire prayer life is covered.

Anything protecting the heart, then, influences what we say.

It influences our confession.

It influences our witness.

It influences what we say and how we say it when we speak about our God.

And so the heart and the lungs represent the center of our spiritual experience--our relationship with God, our prayer life, our communion with Him, and our witness and confession of Him before others.

Each is a vital area of our life and it needs protection.

And so we are instructed to put on the breastplate of Righteousness!

The righteousness of God.

It is Righteousness that protects us.

That’s what protects us from the arrows and the spears and the swords and the crushing blows of the hammers that were wielded in battle.

We’re protected by the breastplate of righteousness in the most vital areas of our spiritual being.

But what kind of righteousness are we talking about?

Are we talking about the righteousness that brings freedom from guilt or sin, which I believe is the heart of the gospel

Or, are we talking about the kind of righteousness that manifests itself in obedience to the Divine and moral Law of God which I believe is the soul of the gospel?.

If Paul is talking about a righteousness that brings freedom from guilt and sin, he’s talking about a righteousness by faith as he describes in Philippians chapter 3:8-9

…..I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, [7]9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:[8]

Here we FINDthe good news, the glad news, the joyful news!

It is a universal headline written in bold letters colored red by the blood of Jesus!

It is the news that God has provided a way by which we may be cleansed from our unrighteousness, and be clothed and filled with His perfect righteousness.

Praise Him, Praise Him, Praise Him! Jesus our blessed redeemer!

Praise our merciful and loving God!

We find that this provision was made and revealed to Adam as soon as he fell from his high and holy position as ruler of this world.

Unrighteous men and women from the very beginning of this fierce and lopsided battle with sin and Satan have clung to this provision!.

1.

We know that Abel embraced it, for Jesus, in Matthew 23:35, speaks of him as "righteous Abel."

And Paul declares in Hebrews 11:4, that Abel "obtained witness that he was righteous."

2. Noah embraced it because in Genesis 7:1, God said, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation."

3. Paul says in Romans 4:3, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness."

4. Peter speaks about Lot in 2 Peter 2:7-8,

"And delivered righteous Lot, sore distressed by the lascivious life of the wicked (for that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their lawless deeds)."

And of Zacharias and Elisabeth, living just before the birth of Christ, it is said in Luke 1:6, "They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless."

In other words, Zacharias and Elisabeth, as husband and wife, agreed to obey God, they agreed to seek out salvation through the means provided, and as a result were accounted “righteous before God.”[9]

Now let me say something that you already know!

This righteousness is a gift!

It cannot be earned, bought or sold.