"Know Your Enemy"
Notes
Transcript
Intro: The wage of war around us right now at CPCC. How do we fight? What do we do?
Tuesday, June 6, 1944; 6:30 a.m.: 5,000 ships carrying 160,000 Allied Troops approached the southern beaches in France for the largest invasion in modern history, what we know now as D-Day.
Some of the men who survived the invasion said that they remember the steady stream of exhortations being broadcast over the ship intercoms in the final minutes as the ships approached the French beaches.
‘Fight to get your troops ashore. Fight to save your ships. And if you’ve got any strength left, fight to save yourself.’ ‘We may die on the sands of France, but we will never turn back.’
Another one: ‘This is it. Pick it up. Put it on. You’ve got a one-way ticket, and this is the end of the line.’ Over 2,500 Americans died that day, many in a span of about 15 minutes.
As the boats reached the shores, disembarking soldiers literally had to crawl over the bodies of other soldiers to get ashore.
Images like that make us grateful for the men and women who have given their lives for the cause of freedom.
I share it to emphasize that the men that approached the beach at Normandy that day had no delusions about what they were walking into.
None of them thought they were going to an exotic beach in France for a vacation. They knew they were walking headfirst into the onslaught of an enemy who wanted nothing more than to destroy them.
At the end of the book of Ephesians Paul pulls back the curtain on life and shows us that we are in the midst of a battle no less stringent with an enemy no less fierce. Read: Ephesians 6:10-24
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.
14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.
16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;
17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,
18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,
19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel,
20 for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.
21 So that you also may know how I am and what I am doing, Tychicus the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord will tell you everything.
22 I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage your hearts.
23 Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
24 Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.
The tragedy is that many of us have no idea we are even in a battle. We approach life as if it were a vacation, rather than a war, like a playground rather than a battleground.
But it’s not. And you and I might wish all day long it were, but that doesn’t change the fact that we really are in a battle, with a real enemy.
And unless we wake up to that, we’ll probably end up as one of the casualties. How silly to show up on D-Day with a beach towel and ducky.
But that’s how many of us spiritually are showing up for this battle. So, Paul starts his conclusion to the book of Ephesians by saying, Read: Ephesians 6:12
12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Paul believed in an unseen spiritual realm, and Jesus did too. In fact, Jesus spent a large portion of his ministry in direct conflict with the demonic forces and setting captives free.
Captives, of course, imply that there is someone or something you are captive to. So, Paul just picks up right where Jesus left off.
Throughout Ephesians Paul refers to the believer’s life as a struggle, a fight, and warfare against evil forces.
Then Paul goes and ends the book of Ephesians with a list of weapons we need to engage in that warfare.
C.S. Lewis said, “When it comes to the devil, people usually fall into one of two errors. Either they take him altogether too seriously or they do not take him seriously enough.”
Maybe you’ve known some Christians who fit into that first category. They attribute to Satan every inconvenient circumstance. You know what I’m talking about?
Maybe they think of a dead car battery, a traffic jam, or a price increase at Popeyes Chicken. “Oh, biscuits are now $4.40. Satan’s trying to ruin my budget so I can’t tithe.”
But others commit an equally dangerous error, and they ignore him altogether. This would be ignoring what we know about our enemy.
If what Jesus said is true it would be like walking onto the beaches of Normandy with no clue there was an enemy with machine guns pointed right at you!
For what it’s worth, Satan could care less whether you believe in him, because he’s not after your recognition; he’s after your destruction.
In 2 Corinthians, Paul calls him “an angel of light,” which means he’ll transform himself into whatever form is best suited to deceive you, even if it means you mistake him for an angel of God.
It makes sense his best deceptions in the American church don’t come from making someone’s eyes roll back in their head or foam at the mouth and levitate 6 feet above their bed.
No, his best work, his most cunning work come in the form of working stealthily, invisibly behind the scenes. But just because you can’t see him doesn’t mean he isn’t there.
Many Christians are naïve when it comes to what’s happening in their lives because they are just as disbelieving of what they can’t see.
If you want to see evidence for the demonic, you won’t find it by looking through a microscope but by looking in the rear view mirror, not at your kids, but in the rear view mirror of your life.
Can’t you look back and see how certain temptations were just too perfectly timed and specifically tailored for you to be merely coincidental?
How was the wrong person put into your life at just the right time? Or the right questions were planted in your head to throw you off track?
Or the suspicion in your heart came at just the right time? Or the perfect storm seemed to happen in your marriage or friendships to really drive a wedge between you?
You can try and explain it all away, but the reality is when we pull the layers of our lives back, we can see evil has been at play. Think about this for a moment.
Occasionally, you encounter something where something inside of you says, “Now that is evil.” Acts of terrorism, mothers killing their children
I just watched a special on the Holocaust and saw how embarrassed Germany is now and they say, “How could we ever have done something like that?” Why does this happen?
It’s because we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, authorities, and spiritual evil in high places. God tells us about these things for two reasons we see here in Ephesians 6:
To make us (vs. 18) more alert. When you recognize there is more to your temptations than lusts or doubts or relational problems, that there is an Enemy strategizing your destruction, it will make you more aware.
It’s not just about lust, or weakness or personality conflicts, it is demonic. He comes for us when we’re tired, or down, and seduces us with the lusts of the flesh.
For me, He’s there waiting for me offstage when I have done well, to whisper in my ear how awesome and extraordinary I am. He likes me when my guard is down and builds up my pride.
And when that does not work, he tears me down by whispering how pathetic I am and points to all the failures in my life. He increases the attacks on trying to convince me to indulge in the flesh.
The other reason he tells us is to drive us to greater dependency on God. If this were merely a battle against other humans, or with my own lusts, that would be one thing. But it’s against an enemy with supernatural power.
And so, Paul concludes the book of Ephesians by reminding them of the presence of these spiritual forces to turn them once again away from trusting in themselves. Read: Ephesians 6:10
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
Read: Ephesians 6:13
13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.
There are two phrases there that we want to home in on. Stand firm and, Be strong in the Lord in His strength and His might.
There’s only two places in the Christian life in which Paul says a Christian can and should flee: sexual immorality and the love of money. When it comes to moneys and honeys, you get out of
town.
Everywhere else, you must learn to stand firm, because you can’t escape. Listen, you can’t protect your family from Satan by putting your kids in private school or homeschool or limiting their access to the outside world.
I’m not saying that those things are necessarily bad, my family has done all those things, but you must learn to stand firm in the battle not thinking you can always run from it.
And being strong in the Lord has nothing to do with any power in you my friends. This is about His might in you.
In fact, in this battle your strengths are more often liabilities because those are the places you forget to depend on God and lean on his strength.
If you feel weak and unqualified to engage in the spiritual realm, that’s a good thing, because you are more likely to lean on God’s power in those places.
We always say that in the Christian life weakness is an advantage because dependence is the objective.
“If dependence is the objective, then weakness is an advantage because weaknesses are places you most naturally depend on God.”
You see, here’s something important to remember here: Paul is not introducing NEW content right here at the end, like something he wants to add on and say, “Oh yeah, these random pieces of spiritual armor are important, too!”
Every writer knows you don’t bring up new material in the conclusion. These are simply ways of applying the gospel Paul has talked about now for 6 chapters.
For a lot of believers, we were taught about spiritual armor as these strange, mysterious things that you had to have to ward off demons, like magic amulets or Expecto Patronums.
But that’s not what Paul is doing here. Each of these 7 pieces of armor is simply a way of applying the gospel that Paul has just spent 6 chapters talking about, to your whole life.
But we are going to dive into those pieces of armor in much more details next week. Here is what today was all about. Recognizing that there is an enemy and understanding him more.