Sermon for January 16th (The Armor of God)

Today is an important day. Today is the day when we give notice to the Devil. We will tell him this: “No more!” We will listen to NO MORE of your lies. We will follow you NO MORE. We will fear you NO MORE! Because you have already been defeated by none other than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” Amen? Amen! Today, I will begin teaching all of you both the necessity and joy of putting on the full armor of God so that each of you can take your stand against the devil and his schemes.

Over the next several weeks I will seek to prepare you for a great battle. It is a battle that we must fight every single day of our lives and, yet, most of us don’t even realize it’s happening. You don’t recognize who your enemy is and you walk onto the front lines unaware of your protection or your weapons. We wage this battle against the Devil. Ephesians 6, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

Have you ever heard the following quote, “The greatest lie the Devil ever told was that he doesn’t exist.” Before we go any further, I realize that I must deal with this great lie because very few of you probably even believe that there is such a thing as the Devil. So why would you prepare to fight something that’s not there? In fact, many of my seminary professors seemed intent on diminishing the Devil’s existence as well.

I remember taking a pastoral care class and reading about an evil spirit causing King Saul to be sad. The bible story tells us that the king would only find relief when David, later king David, would play music. Our professor explained that it probably wasn’t an evil spirit, even though that was what the Bible said it was. My professor explained that it was probably just clinical depression. In another story, there is a girl who is thrown to the ground with a demon and was foaming at the mouth. But in my class, well, we were told that it must have been epilepsy.

We asked, “Well, why then did the Bible writers call these things demons or evil spirits?” Good question. The answers you’ll often hear are that these writers were “uncivilized” and “unscientific” people. They didn’t understand what we do now. But here’s the thing. If you believe that Jesus was the Son of God, unequaled in wisdom, knowledge and power, one with the Father and all, then how do you explain this? “Jesus appointed twelve—designating them apostles—that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.” Why would Jesus give his disciples authority to cast out demons if he knew that there was really nothing there? Wouldn’t he have known the “truth”, being God and all, even if these “poor uncivilized people” didn’t? Why did Jesus cast out demons himself? Why did he talk to them?

You are going to have to make up your mind on this because this issue comes up over and over again, especially in the gospels and the book of Acts. If Jesus didn’t know the truth and was acting just like a “man of the times” then how can we believe that he was really God in the flesh? How is it that he knows everything else, but was still under the impression that demons were there when they weren’t? Or was Jesus acting according to the “prime directive” ala Star Trek and so was unable to tell the truth about what was really happening? Kinda just going along with what everyone else thought? Otherwise known as lying to keep up appearances? “Sure I’ll cast out this demon for you (wink, wink).”

If we believe that Jesus was truly the Son of God and that he told the truth about things like eternal life, sin and forgiveness, then the only reason he would have cast out demons and given other people the authority to do the same was because there were actually demons to cast out! Makes sense doesn’t it? But if that is the case, and as a Christian I believe that there is no other possibility, then that means that we have neglected to protect and prepare ourselves for dealings with the demonic and evil in our lives. We have pretended that this kind of thing just doesn’t exist when, in fact, that would be a lie. Jesus called the Devil, “The Father of lies” and our society has fallen for this one hook, line and sinker.

But why would the Devil want us to believe he doesn’t exist? For what purpose? If he is so strong and powerful why not just come out and scare the pants off of us and make us all cringe or run away? Why the secrecy? For what purpose? If you don’t think that there’s anything to worry about, then you won’t be prepared. And for the most part, I think all of us worry much more about the weather—keeping our ears and hands and noses warm and protected from the cold winds— than we do about keeping our children firm in their faith or protecting our hearts from temptation or preserving our church from hurtful gossip and division.

We don’t bother to take our swords of our their sheaths nor do we bother to learn how to use our protective armor, our helmets and our shields. We walk onto the battlefield dressed to the nines in battle regalia without shoes on. We walk nose to nose with our oppressor and then just say, “Excuse me. I don’t believe you exist”. But, here’s the thing, while there is real danger that the Devil will somehow attack us because we are not ready to defend ourselves, the scariest thing is that we do not take a stand and fight against the forces of evil in our world and in our lives. The truth is that the Devil does not want to fight a fully equipped Christian because he knows that he will lose EVERY SINGLE TIME! James 4:7, “Submit yourselves then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

When you resist the Devil he will flee. He won’t just walk away, he will run! Why? Because a fully equipped Christian scares him. This past weekend, the confirmation kids, their adult chaperones and I went to a Youthquake (a big Christian youth event held in different cities across the country). At that conference, the speaker explained how silly it is for us to believe the lies of the Devil by using this example. Have you ever seen a grown man or woman do something like this, “Oh! Oh! A spider! Get it! Kill it! Get it away from me!” as they run away as fast as they can? Have you ever considered how big you are compared to a spider? You are like, a bizzilion times bigger (approximating)! And yet people like me, I admit it, act like there’s a hungry polar bear running after us when we see a spider.

Today is the day I want you to understand this: because of Jesus Christ, you have the power and authority to stomp on the devil, squash him into the ground, wipe him off with toilet paper and flush him down the toilet. Romans 16:20, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” Today is the day when we tell the Devil that we will listen to NO MORE of his lies. We will follow him NO MORE. We will fear him NO MORE! We might know that the Devil exists but we do not believe IN the Devil, we believe in Jesus Christ who defeated the Devil once and for all on the cross!

For the next several weeks we are going to go step by step through this passage in Ephesians. I intend on leading you through ways that you can protect yourself and be prepared for this daily battle that we each face against temptation, the Devil, Satan and sin. Each of you should have picked up a card before the service, if you don’t have one please raise your hand and you will be given one. On the back of this card you have the opportunity to write down one way that you will commit yourself to fight against the devil this week. I’d like you to write one of the following.

First, you might commit yourself to ask for God’s protection each morning. Perhaps you could read Ephesians chapter 6, starting at verse 10 and prepare yourself for the day’s battle under God’s armor. You could write: morning prayer of protection, for example. Second, you could commit yourself to praying for protection and strength when dealing with a particular temptation or situation that is ongoing in your life. Perhaps you feel especially attacked when around another person or at a particular time of day. Ask the Lord for the armor and weapons to fight this evil attack. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you. You could write: Pray before (blank) and put in whatever situation you need to put down.

Third, you might commit yourself to pray for someone who is struggling with sin. Remember what Ephesians 6 said, “Our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces of evil.” All of us know of people who struggle with sin, or who try and hurt us, or who try and hurt others. The next you get angry with their actions consider this: pray against the devil. Take the fight right to him! Sure, the devil isn’t making them do it (they are happy to do the wrong thing) but pray for them to fight against the temptation to follow the devil’s lies. Your prayers might not only help them be free of their bondage to sin, but it might give you compassion for one of God’s children being oppressed by the devil. You could write: “Pray against the Devil”.

Remember, a fully equipped Christian scares the pants off the Devil. The truth is that you have protection you may have never used and weapons you may have never thought of. I intend on teaching you more about them over the next weeks, but I’m not going to give you anything you don’t already have. Psalm 91 says, “If you make the Most High your dwelling—even the Lord, who is my refuge—then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.” Today is the day for you to tell the Devil. No more! No more lies! NO more fear! In the name of Jesus Christ, get behind me Satan! Run away! I follow Jesus Christ alone. God is my protector. Amen.