“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.” – Ephesians 6:11-12
Have you ever stood in a room the moment when a cloud floated in front of the sun and seen the room get darker? Sometimes, even though a thicker or gloomier part of the cloud is not further blocking out the sun’s light, you may have experienced the darkness in the room appear as if it were increasing, when it wasn’t. We know behind that cloud the sun has not changed. In time, the cloud will either float by or dissipate to reveal the golden glow of its light once more.
Perhaps you’ve experienced being in a house at night and, in a flash, you lose power. The lights and all that were running moments before go off, and all is dark. Back twenty years ago, most of us would have felt our way in the dark to that junk drawer in the kitchen, in the hopes that you had fresh batteries in your flashlights so you could have some helpful and warm light in the darkness. Now, most of us would immediately go to our pockets and scrounge for our phones with their screen’s glow and built-in flashlight.
The fact of the matter is, you and I are smack dab in the middle of a genuine war between the “Light of the world” (John 8:12; 9:5; 12:46) and the “prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2) and his “cosmic powers over this present darkness,” (Ephesians 6:12). Don’t read wrongly into this. This is not close to an even fight. “All authority in heaven and on earth” belongs to our crucified and risen King (Matthew 28:18). Satan is a doomed foe, who has a leash given by Christ for a short time, with a sure and final defeat coming (see Revelation 20:1-3, 7-10).
Yet, until that final defeat, the spiritual darkness is real. The enemy of our souls is a breathtaking liar and a dealer of doubt. The temptation towards despair and defeat can be debilitating and seemingly drown out the Son’s light. How are we to keep our wits in a world so broken? How are we to remember truth in a realm of tricky falsehoods? Where are we to find reliable light when we “feel the shadows deepen[1]”, when we see apparent believers deconstruct, when we hear of our heroes having moral failures, when the Bride of Christ seems to be getting beaten by the waves of the world?
The Bible gives more than one answer to these questions. We’re not to forget that we’re in this War of the world with our brothers and sisters – so we don’t neglect meeting together. We’re to remain in the vine, in love and in active dependence on Jesus, corporately and individually. We’re to spend much time on our knees, calling out to our wise, warrior King to fight one another’s battles and to strengthen us within them. These are all things we should encourage one another to continue in more and more, as we walk out this life and await our Lord’s return.
But I want to focus us on a combat strategy for this spiritual battlefield in which we reside, that I fear many of us too frequently neglect.
It has often been said of Paul’s description of the believer’s armor of God in Ephesians 6:10-20, that as we’re commanded to put on the armor given to us by God in Christ, in order to stand against the schemes of the devil, that we only have one offensive weapon – “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” (Ephesians 6:17). It is doubtful this fact of only one weapon is meant to make us despair of other arms that we might have been given. No, it’s likely meant to bring to our attention the necessity to unsheathe the powerful sword of the Spirit we’ve been provided, and fight daily with it individually and corporately as a body. No soldier with enough wherewithal to realize they are living on a battlefield, in the midst of the fighting, would neglect to wield their weapon for either their sakes or their fellow soldiers.
It’s crucial, vital, and essential, that every soldier have a weapon when at war. Beloved in Christ, you and I have been bought by the blood of the Living One, who died and is alive forevermore (Revelation 1:18). By God’s grace, through faith given to us that we’ve placed in Him, He has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. And yet, for now, we are sojourners in this dark and fallen warzone of a world. Yet, we’ve been given armor by God and commanded, together, to put this armor on ourselves daily. But we must remember this armor comes equipped with a weapon! How do we not only defend ourselves and fellow soldiers in this war, but advance on the enemy’s strongholds? How do we remind ourselves of the indestructible Light of the world while in cloudy shadows of Satanic darkness? How are we to find ever constant and reliable light in those times when we look around and all power seems out and we feel alone with all the lights off?
We remember the Light and Living Word, and how He utilized a particular weapon (the sword of the Spirit – the Word of God) when He fought and defeated that same serpent we daily face. Imagine with me if every week we meditated together on one to two verses – fighter verses! While we give opportunity to quote these verses on Sunday morning around 9:40, think of these more as verses to recall and speak to ourselves throughout the battles of the week. Verses to point us back to the truths that shine brightly in the midst of dark circumstances and seasons. Verses to fight for joy and for reminding each other of the great and precious promises of God that the enemy cannot touch or take from us. While we are in the spiritual battle for Christ, will we neglect the swords he’s given us?
Take our verse from last week for example– “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Jesus was delivered up for the sins of every believer, and raised back to life to make us right with God. So we have been called by God not guilty, or right in His sight. This has happened by faith in His Son that He’s gifted not us and not by our own works. Now, through this, (don’t miss this) we have peace with the Living God of the Universe! Meditating on the gravity of the truths in that one verse alone are enough to renew our minds and cause to pass quickly most of our fears and disappointments as clouds passing by the sun. This is only one verse! There is a new one each week for the health of not only your souls, but for your family members’ souls, for us as a body at DGCC, for our neighbors, and our coworkers.
There are many ways to use this weapon of the Word of God. But let us not neglect memorizing and meditating on it to fight off the devil’s darkness, and our own sinfulness, with the words of the Light of life. Let this be one more way to experience, “the joy of the Lord,” who is, “our strength,” (Nehemiah 8:10).
[1] A line taken directly from Andrew Peterson’s hymn “Is He Worthy?”
