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EXPOSING THE ENEMY
Part 2
Ed Young
February 16, 1992
During my freshman year at Florida State University, our basketball team made it all the way to the semi-final game of the Mid-East Regional NCAA Basketball Championships. We were playing against the University of Kentucky. They were rated fifth in the nation. We were rated about 15th at the time. It was the biggest game of my life, but to be honest with you, I was not that nervous because I had not played in the last 15 games. I had sat on the bench, but in the locker room, you could cut the tension, the pressure, with a knife—the pre-game jitters. But I went ahead and got dressed for the game, I had my ankles taped, put on our custom-made uniforms with the Nike shoes with “Noles” on the back, Seminoles. (Nike did that for us. I was very happy about that.)
I remember as I was dressing I looked across the locker room at a gentleman named Greg Collinsworth, who was my college roommate, and I noticed Greg did not put on his uniform. He was stripped down to his boxer shorts and he put on his warm-up suit over his boxer shorts. He had dress socks on…put his shoes on with the dress socks. I said, “Greg, what are you doing?” He said, “I’m mad at the coaches, Ed. They haven’t played us in the last 15 games.” I said, “Greg, we could get in the game. Four guys could get hurt or something. We might play. Dick Enberg’s there, Billy Packer…this could be our chance.” He goes, “I’m not even gonna dress out. I’m sick of the coaches.” I said, “Greg, come on. Take the boxer shorts off.”
So, he goes out and we warm up and everything and I thank the Lord no one did get hurt and we were not able to play, but I remember thinking as a very naive 18 year-old, “Why in the world would a scholarship athlete who is preparing to play the most important game of his life or even sit on the bench not even dress out, not even use the equipment that was available for him to use and I just was dumbfounded.
You know what? God has called all of us into the game of life. We are in a struggle. Life is not a playground; it’s a battleground. And God says, “Get into the game.” But if the truth were known, ladies and gentlemen, most of us who go by the label of “Christians” are in our spiritual boxer shorts when we’re out trying to fight the battles that God has for us. We’re partially clad. Because the Word of God says that He has provided equipment for us, custom-made, tailor-made equipment called “the armor of God” that He wants us to put on and God says (this is great news) when we put it on, He will give us the strength, the power, the discernment to use it to defend ourselves against Satan.
Today, I’m in a three-part series entitled, “Exposing the Enemy.” Last week, we looked at Satan, his strategy, his methodology for all of our lives. We saw that Satan is like a lion. We also examined that Satan was like a serpent, that Satan blinds us, that Satan is second in power behind the Lord. So, alone, we’re no match for Satan. There’s no way we can muster up enough strength, enough mental toughness, to do battle with this particular evil force. Now, some of you who are skeptical are saying, “Well, I’m not sure I even believe in Satan,” or “Why spend so much time talking about an evil being when we could talk about God’s love, His forgiveness, His grace?” But we must expose the enemy and we must put on the full equipment that God has provided for us.
How do we do it? Well, the answer is found in the book of Ephesians, Chapter 6 and we’ll look at Verses 10-15. So, take your Bibles and turn and look at Ephesians, Chapter 6, Verses 10-15. Now, the Apostle Paul is giving all the believers a pre-game talk. He’s in the locker room and he stands up and he gives us four specific commands about the enemy in relation to the equipment he wants us to use to defend ourselves from the enemy when we play the game. Paul said, “I’m tired of you being spiritual streakers…of being spiritually nude,” and here’s what he tells us. The first command in Verse 10, he said, “Be strong.” The second command in Verse 11, he says, “Put on.” The third command, Verse 13, he says, “Take up,” and then the fourth command, in Verse 14 says, “Stand firm.”
Look at Verse 10 with me very briefly. Paul says, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.” That’s a very comforting word, isn’t it? A very encouraging word. Be strong in the Lord. And I’ve seen so many Christians, well-meaning Christians, walk up to someone who is depressed, or someone who is hurting and say, “Christ is the answer. It’s God’s way. Rely on Him.” All those words are great words. They’re excellent phrases, but how? Christ is the answer, how? The Bible says, “Be strong in the Lord,” “Rely on the strength of His might.”
How do we do that? Verse 11 answers that question for us because Verse 11 in Ephesians, Chapter 6 tells us to “put on the full armor of God.” You see, it’s our responsibility. It’s not our armor; it’s God’s armor. It’s available for all of us. But, we try to become like toddlers, a lot of us. We say, “God, dress me. I can’t get dressed by myself. Dress me, God.” But God says, “I’m giving you a freedom of choice and one of the beauties of being a created being is we have freedom. God doesn’t force us to love Him or love someone else. We choose that. And He tells us, “I have this custom-made, tailor-made equipment for you. It’ll give you everything you need to do battle, to defend yourself against the evil one. Put it on!”
Are you the type of person, though, who just examines the spiritual wardrobe? “Boy, God, that’s a nice-looking jacket, nice shoes. I bet those would work real well.”
I have a friend of mine that I fish with. He’s from Houston. His name is John Marksdale and John is into equipment. This guy loves equipment so much! When we go fishing, he’ll have five or six graphite boron rods with the reels and the new line and about six or seven new tackle boxes and he’s at the docket saying, “Ed, this lure works in a lily pad, now this lure is a crank bait. It goes down and this is the hottest new thing from Bagda. Have you seen this? And he usually goes on and on and on. And I usually say, “John, I’ll see you later.” I’m in the boat. I’m off fishing, but he’s still at the dock. “Look at this. Unbelievable. I can’t believe it.”
I thought about believers. We think, “Look at this equipment; it’s great. Yeah, I can put it on. I’ll stand here….” But God does not just want us to “put it on,” He wants us to take it up and to use it. So Verse 11, another command. We’ve got to put on the “full armor” of God, not some of it, but the full armor of God, that you might be able to stand firm against the schemes.” The word “schemes” in the Greek, “methodios,” we get the word “methods” from.
Satan, the evil one, has methods. He has play book books. He has gadget plays for all of our lives; and these plays have worked for thousands and thousands of years to totally tear us down, to get us to settle for something second in our life, to get us away from God’s Plan. Because we’re fighting the “Spiritual Mafia.”
Satan is a defeated foe. Christ defeated him at the cross. We’re not fighting for victory, we’re fighting from victory. But Satan does not like us to know that he’s been defeated. He doesn’t like us to know that we’re fighting from victory and he’s the accuser, he’s the tempter, he’s the deceiver. And he whispers lie after lie after lie to us. But his whole agenda is “to steal, to kill, and destroy.” And one of his favorite things to do is to get someone to kind of laugh and say, “Satan’s not real. Come on, I’ve never seen someone with a pitchfork and a nice goatee and horns, or a person who looks like Lurch on the Addams Family say, ‘I am Satan, I’m here to attack you.’ I’ve never seen that. I don’t even see this person.” But as we examine and expose the enemy, it brings fear to our lives because he is unseen. He attacks out of nowhere. But the Word of God tells us if we put on the full armor of God, in Verse 13, if we take it up, we’ll be able to resist in the evil day and we’ll be able to stand firm.
But look at Verse 12. We talked about this last week, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood,” and the word “struggle” is a wrestling term. Paul was into athletics, the WWF type. Understand that it’s a struggle, but the struggle is unseen. It’s in the heavenlies. So the struggle takes place in places that we can’t see, but it takes place in the heavenlies and you say, “Well, how does this affect me?” Because when I know Christ, my relationship goes all the way to the heavenlies so we are part of that fallout. We are part of that battle.
Satan’s trying to mug us. He’s trying to steal from us. He’s trying to rob us of the blessings that God has given us. He does not want you, he does not want me, to put on the equipment that God has provided. So Verse 13 says we’re to take it up, we’re to use it. Verse 14, the final command in the locker room, Paul says, “Stand firm,” and this term is used three times–stand firm. It’s like the hymn we used to sing, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” So, we’ve got to stand on Christ.
Four commands. I’ve often wondered, “Why did Paul compare the Christian life to a battle and why did he talk about the armor of God.” As I researched the book of Ephesians, most scholars believe that the Apostle Paul was chained to a Roman officer when he penned these words, inspired by the Holy Spirit. So he looked at this Roman officer’s uniform, his armor, and thought, “Hey, that relates to the Christian life!”
Folks, you’re in for a special treat this morning. You’re not going to believe what we are going to do for you in the next 10 minutes. Due to modern-day technology, we have in this arts center an authentic Roman soldier. But not only that, this Roman soldier, before our very eyes, will clothe himself in the armor of God, in the tailor-made equipment that God has for him. Would you like to see this Roman soldier? Mr. Soldier [out walks a man dressed in a typical Roman soldier uniform] And there he is! Straight from Rome! Nice to see you. Greetings! [Laughter] That’s a beautiful skirt, isn’t it? I love that gold piping on there, that’s nice, very nice. But the armor of God is what we’re going to talk about. So, what I want you to think about—use your imaginations. For some of you, this is going to be difficult, but use your imagination—as we dress this Roman soldier, I want you to mentally, by faith, to spiritually take up this armor, and put it on.
Now, this morning we’re only going to talk about three elements of the armor. I want you to remember the order of the armor and then next week, we’ll look at three other elements of armor. There are six elements, six pieces. But this morning, we’re just going to look at the first three due to time limitations. But folks, if we’re going to do battle with the evil, if we’re going to stand firm, if we’re going to put it on, we’ve got to appropriate the full armor of God. And the full armor of God, it’s Jesus, that’s what it means, it’s Christ. These are word pictures talking about who we are in the Lord. So, we need to appropriate, to put on Christ, every single day. And, I’ll tell you something else. If most of us spent just half the time getting dressed spiritually that we do getting dressed externally, physically, going shopping at the malls and at this outlet and this sale and this tie and this dress, we wouldn’t have many of the problems that we have today. So, the armor of God.
Now, the first part of armor that I want to talk about—and I would like for this gentleman to put on—is called “the belt of truth.” It’s in Verse 14—the belt of truth. But before we put the belt of truth on, because we’re authentic, a Roman soldier would put on a long, flowing robe over his short mini-skirt as he was preparing for battle, and this is one of our baptismal robes, but for demonstrative purposes, it’s like a real, authentic Roman toga or tunic, okay? Here we go. You look great! The belt of truth, see it there in Verse 14? The belt of truth. The Roman soldier would put this long robe on, then he would take the belt of truth, and this belt was the cornerstone of his wardrobe and put the belt around his waist. I’ll get you to buckle that, John. He kind of looks like Arnold, doesn’t he? “I’m here to pump you up.” So, he puts the belt of truth on. Now, the belt held a lot of fighting utensils, weapons, and many other things, but as he was preparing himself for war, it would be pretty tough for him to maneuver and to fight in hand-to-hand combat with a long dress, wouldn’t it? Ladies, you understand.
Last week I was doing a wedding and it was a pretty large wedding and the bride had this gorgeous, long, flowing train. I knew in the rehearsal that we were gonna have problems as she came up the steps because she kind of bounced up the steps with her groom and I thought, “Well, if she runs that quick, she might get caught in the dress,” you know, because she had these high heel things on. So, I was standing there and I had done the service on the lower level and I said, “Now, we will do our response vows.” So, I turned and made my way to the upper level and I turn around and I kind of give the wedding nod, kind of like this. The music is playing, and as she’s coming up, her foot goes like this [slipping motion] and her husband-to-be caught her with one arm and kind of brought her back up and everyone went, “Ooooh!” We couldn’t believe it. So, if you’re trying to do battle with a long dress on, a long robe on, you can’t do it! It’s impossible; you can’t maneuver! Even as quick as John Gary is, he can’t do it. So, what does this mean: the belt of truth? Literally, “to gird up your loins.” It means, when a Roman soldier got ready to fight, he would take the robe and tuck it in his belt and now, he is ready. He’s free. Look at those legs…go ahead, John, move around. He’s fast, he’s lean, he’s ready to go, okay!
Now, the belt of truth refers to salvation. Now, follow me, stay with me. It refers to salvation. The moment we receive Jesus Christ, as we invite Him into our life, as we receive the finished work on the Cross of what He did for us, He frees us up. We have great freedom, we can move, we’re agile, we’re mobile, we’re light, we’ve gotten rid of all that trash that was holding us back. So, the belt of truth. And Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”
But again, the accuser likes to say, “Hey, if you give your life to Christ, it will really stifle your creativity. It will limit you. You won’t be able to be the kind of person that you really need to be.” And we believe those lies; we accept those lies. And how do you feel when you believed a lie or lived a lie until one day you discover it is a lie. You feel betrayed! You feel taken advantage of. You’re hacked. You’re angry. And a lot of you are living your life on lies: “Oh, material goods will make you happy. If you finally reached that area in society, that will really give you meaning. If you join that club or if you drive that or if you do this, that will give you meaning,” but that’s a lie. If you do those things, fine and good, but make sure you have buckled first of all, the belt of truth, which is salvation.
Remember, we spell biblical Christianity D-O-N-E, done! We’re not religious; religion is spelled D-O. “I do this…I can’t do this…I better do this.” That’s religion. Christianity is D-O-N-E, and once you receive the D-O-N-E work of Christ, then He’ll give you the ability from the inside out to D-O, to do the works that He wants you to do. The belt of truth.
Take your Bibles and turn now to 1 Peter 1:13. 1 Peter 1:13 tells us to “gird up our minds.” If we could look into our minds, many men and women have things that are holding them back, that are hindering us, that are causing us to trip, to stumble, maybe to fall just like that bride did last week because we’ve not dealt with sin. Hebrews 12:1 says we’re to cast off the sin that so easily entangles us. Let’s take off the warm-up suit, take off the ankle weights, take off the combat boots, and be able to move and free your legs up so the Christian life is freedom.
Now, what’s the next part of the armor? Yes, we’ve talked about the belt of truth and you know what I call this belt too? The spiritual utility belt. Remember Batman? I used to love to watch Batman? Every time Batman would get into a difficult situation. “Robin, if you could only reach my utility belt.” He would reach it, and the utility belt would always get him out of trouble. That’s where we begin, folks. Remember, the spiritual utility belt. That’s knowing Christ personally.
The next part of the armor is exciting. That is called the breastplate of righteousness and this breastplate of righteousness covers the front, it covers the back, it covers the vital organs. A Roman soldier is going into battle, they’d try to hit him with a spear or an arrow or maybe take him out with a Chuck Norris chop. He’d have the breastplate of righteousness on. Now, the word “righteousness” means two things. First of all, it means “right conduct.” It means rightly, godly, holy, pure living. You see, if we let anything in our lives control us away from God, it provides an opportunity for Satan to come in and attack us. If we have some type of sin of the mind or some type of habit or some type of relationship, the armor is half on and Satan will come in and he’s gonna nail us time and time and time and time again.
Now, we’re to live holy lives. Why? Out of guilt? We should think, “God, if I’m not holy, if I don’t live a pure life, you’re gonna take a big baseball bat or stick and whack me upside of the head.” Is that why I should live like that? No. I should be motivated out of love, out of what Christ has done for me, out of His unconditional love. This breastplate of righteousness refers to godly living. How is your life? How would you live your life this week if you knew that Christ was gonna be with you every second of every day? Would you still talk the way you do? Would you still go to the same places? Do the same things? If Christ was right there? He is there. He’s right there. He’s closer than you can even imagine.
Now, another meaning of righteousness has to do with the righteousness imputed to us by God once we receive Christ. You see, we stand in the presence of God, not on our merits, but on Christ’s merits. So we are totally righteous. We are completely justified. We are pure and holy because we’ve received Christ and this has been imputed to us.
Remember a couple of weeks ago I did the chair deal? You’ve got God the Father in one chair, Joe Christian in the other chair and Jesus Christ in the other chair and a person walked up and said, “God the Father, which one of these two is more righteous, more holy, do you accept the most, do you love the most—Joe Christian or Jesus Christ?” You know what God the Father would say? “Positionally, they’re equal. They’re equal.” Not because of Joe Christian’s merits but because remember, he’s received Christ, and that righteousness has been given to him.” So, we are to clothe ourselves in righteousness, in godly conduct, to realize who we are in Christ because Satan comes to us and he’ll say, “You don’t deserve to be used in the Kingdom of God. You remember what you did? Do you remember how you used to talk? Do you remember…? Do you remember…? Do you remember…?” and we start believing these lies and thinking, “Why, you know, I’m not really righteous. You’re right, Satan, I don’t deserve to be this and I’m feeling kind of defeated and depressed.” Don’t believe those lies. Just hey, hit the armor and say, “I’m clothed in the righteousness of Christ. I have the belt of truth. I have the breastplate of righteousness.”
But the armor gets better. The last part has to do with the shoes. We’re to shod our feet with the “gospel of peace,” and I’ll get you to put these shoes on John, if you would, please. We’re to put on these gospel boots. I call these “Air Gospel” boots. So you’ve got the spiritual utility belt, you’ve gotten the spiritual “flapjacket.” You’ve seen a quarterback slip back to pass and they expose themselves and whop, the lineman will come in, 290 pounds. Well, that’s our spiritual flapjacket. You’ve got the belt of truth and now you have these “Air Gospel” boots.
Now Roman soldiers, they had cleats on the bottom of their sandals. Are you ready for that? We couldn’t do that because we didn’t want to damage this art center’s floor. But I’ll never forget when I was five years old, a long time ago. They didn’t make cleats for children and I said, “Mom and dad, please give me cleats, please give me cleats.” And they went out and bought a pair of these Buster Brown shoes, and they took them to a shoe store and the shoe man, who used to work at the golf course, put golf cleats on the bottom of these Buster Brown shoes. I thought they were bad to the bone. I was so excited and I’ll never forget, I opened them up and I said, “Oh, I’ve got cleats” because I used to go to football games and watch the big, you know [clicking sound]. And so, I put on one cleat and gave the other cleat to my best friend, Robert Campbell, and we went around the yards trying to get into grass and taking out divots and stuff and we loved because I felt so stable in that left foot, that left cleat.
Well, the “gospel of peace,” we stand on the solid rock, we dig in with these gospel shoes, it gives us great stability. We’re in there! And so many, many people in this world, gee, you’re not stable. You’re basing your life on so many other things—it’s sinking sand, it’s moving, it’s like a lot of the land here in Irving. It’s shifting all the time. And you say, “That’s where I’m standing.” But Christ says, “No, no, no, put on these air gospel cleats, the gospel of peace.” And see, the word “peace,” not only do we have peace with God, but also peace with our fellow man. The gospel of peace. It says, we are to prepare ourselves, we’re to shod our feet with the gospel of peace. That word “shod,” it means “ a readiness to share the gospel with words and also with action.”
So what happens? Satan attacks. He gets at us. What do we do? Do we say, “Well, I’ve got the gospel on me, the gospel boots of peace, I’ve got the belt of truth.” Is that what we do? No! Remember the order? Every time Satan comes after you, think about the order. Remember, the belt? “Satan, I know the truth. The truth has set me free. I know Christ. I’m saved. I’m sealed. That’s it. And because the righteousness of Christ has been imputed to me, hey, I have this breastplate of righteousness on. I’m righteous.” So, I know the truth, and because I know the truth, I’m righteous and because I’m righteous, and because I know the truth, what does it give me in my heart? Peace. It gives me peace. See the relation?
What a beautiful word, from the Bible. So what am I asking you today? A very simple question. Are you trying to do battle in your spiritual boxer shorts? Are you partially clad? Or have you put on these three elements, these three dynamic pieces of armor God wants you to put on? Next week, we’ll completely dress this Roman soldier out, so stay with us. Be here next week and we’ll look at the offensive weapons and other helmets and swords and things that relate to this warfare, this struggle that we’re in.