Dear Friends,
When the apostle Paul exhorts the Ephesian Christians to be “strong in the Lord and in the power of his might,” and to “put on the whole armour of God,” that they might be able to “stand against the wiles of the devil,” what he is exhorting them to, is to have a right attitude of heart and mind towards the Word of God. The “whole armour of God,” simply points to the whole Word of God for our lives. And nothing could be clearer than the fact that if ever we are going to engage in that part of our Christian lives known as the Christian warfare, then, we are only going to do it aright in so far as we are clad with this armour, and in so far as we have a right attitude of heart and mind towards it.
The first essential for our souls, then, is to have a total trust in this whole armour of God – in this whole Word of God. We can see what kind of a breakdown in morale would result if a modern army, or an ancient army for that matter, had no trust in the arms and the armaments with which it was issued for its warfare. The same is absolutely true for the Christian soldier in his conflict with the world, the flesh and the devil. If ever we needed anything today, it is a total trust in the whole of the Word of God that God has given us for every aspect of our Christian warfare, whether we be on the defensive, or the offensive, as the case might be. We might learn from the example of young David, who would only put his trust in those weapons that he had tried and tested all his young life through. They were no doubt, scornful weapons in the eyes of others, but to him they were the very provision of the “Lord of Hosts” Himself, and as he went forth to fight his Goliath, he went forth with his heart and his mind totally settled, and trusting in their effectiveness to gain the day for him.
David in that conflict, of course, is but “one faint image” of our Lord Jesus Christ. Just as David went forth as Israel’s representative that day to fight against Goliath of Gath for that people, so our Lord Jesus Christ was to go “down into the wilderness” to enter into combat with our Goliath, that old serpent the devil, on our behalf.
This He did:-
“For me, He was baptised, and bore His holy fast, and hungered sore; For me, the fierce temptation knew; For me, the Tempter overthrew.”
What should ever stand as a lasting lesson for us is the way in which our Lord stood against “the wiles of the devil” at that time. It was by “putting on the whole armour of God.” Three times over He simply stated what God said in His word; “It is written;” that was His weapon, and He resorted to no other.
We are not to lose the ever-abiding significance of that. As the only begotten of the Father, He could have used any means at His sovereign disposal for repelling the devil’s attacks. As the Omnipotent, Omniscient Son of God He could have chosen a whole array of armaments of which we know nothing. When He therefore chose the Holy Word of God alone to fight the devil He set an example and a pattern for us that we fail to follow at our peril. There is not only nothing more pathetic, but nothing more arrogant, than to see the professed churches of Christ today taking on to engage themselves in the Christian warfare with weapons other than those which Christ Himself used. May God drive it into all our hearts, that the Living Word Himself, chose only the written Word for all His battles and for all His conflicts with the adversary. God forbid that we should think ourselves more able, or wiser than He! As He trusted that armour, so may we.
Let it be said, of course, that the issue of trusting in the whole armour of God doesn’t rest in trusting in the armour, in and of itself, but trusting in the God who gave the armour. It is this “whole armour of God.” It is the armour that God supplies and prescribes for the warfare into which we are called once we become His children in grace. Therefore, when we place our trust in that Book which we call the Bible, it is not the Bible, in and of itself, that we are trusting in, but in God who gave the Bible for our use.
One of the great failings of many people today is to imagine that some of the saints of olden days were a bit limited in their thinking, and a bit naive in their outlook. So, it was easy for them to adopt some of the things that they did, in order to "do exploits." But it was not easy at all! Moses was an eighty year old man, who had spent forty years in the splendour of Egypt’s court, and forty years in the solitude of Midian’s desert: he knew that you don’t cleave raging waves asunder with a glorified walking stick! It wasn’t the rod he trusted in, it was his God who told him to employ that rod for that purpose in his life. Gideon knew that you don’t scatter enemies with “pitchers and lamps;” but he wasn’t trusting in the pitchers and lamps, but in God who told him that those were his weapons of warfare.
Trace out the numerous incidents of that sort for yourself; they are legion; and what they do is, they set before us that great distinguishing mark between the carnal heart and the spiritual heart. The spiritual heart, or our hearts when they are spiritual will always bow to, and rejoice in, those things that God prescribes for us in our Christian warfare and pilgrimage. While the carnal heart, or our hearts when they are carnal, will always rebel against those things, and look for some weapon or arms more in keeping with the wisdom of man.
One of the great illustrations of that is found in Namaan the leper; that man who was directed from God as to how his leprosy was going to be taken away, by washing in the river Jordan, seven times. He was scandalized, and thought surely that the whole business would have been carried out in a spectacular manner. Most assuredly, Namaan refused the “means” he was too much a man of this world to trust in the likes of that for such a work in his life. But Namaan’s real problem was not that he wouldn’t trust the means, but that he wouldn’t trust the God who prescribed the means. And when we fail to have our lives directed by God’s Word – the Bible – it is not the Bible that we are failing to trust in, it is God who gave the Bible. Our problem is not simply that we have an inadequate attitude of heart and mind towards what is called “the armour,” but towards what is called the armour “of God.” The armour that God Himself employed, as the Son, when He fought with the devil on our behalf; the armour that God forever exhorts us to employ for all our works, and all our ways under Him.
Without one shadow of a doubt, that one who was chosen out be the mother of our Lord, Mary, pronounced one of the most final words concerning His word for us. At the wedding in Cana of Galilee – when the servants are instructed to fill the water jars with water so that He might turn it in to wine; that was something that just wasn’t done! You can’t turn water into wine! But Mary’s word sets the pattern for all time; “Whatsoever He saith unto thee to do, do it.” And when God’s word exhorts us to “put on the whole armour of God,” it will be a good thing for our souls if we learn to do it, and respond to the exhortation, regardless of how the carnal side of our beings might rise up against it.
There is one final aspect of the exhortation not to be overlooked in our present age, and it is where the text says, “Put on the whole armour of God;” the whole armour of God.
We have a tremendous tendency to be “selective” in our reading and our understanding of God’s Word. Sometimes we are quite prepared, and more than willing, to have on “the breastplate of righteousness,” but we can be rather slow to go forth with our “feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.” We are not only to think in terms of the wholeness of God’s words for our lives in its totality, but the wholeness of God’s word for us in its order and arrangement. If we read further on in Ephesians chapter six, verses 14 to 17, we will see that the Roman soldier that Paul uses for his model, doesn’t only put on his “whole armour, “ but puts it all on in the right order. The sin of the “liberals” and “modernists,” is that they reject the wholeness of God’s word in its totality; but we, in turn, who are called “evangelical,” or, indeed, “reformed,” must be careful that we don’t neglect the wholeness of God’s word in its order, and unity, and arrangement for our lives. We need, not only armour for our lives, we need God’s armour; and we need, not only the armour of God but “the whole armour of God.” So runs the exhortation.
What is necessary, therefore, is a right attitude of heart and mind towards that whole armour, and that is why the passage begins, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.” Get your heart and mind “stayed upon Jehovah,” and then, you will gladly “put on” this whole armour that He provides you with for all your way-faring life, and for all your war-faring life.