Standing orders

Reading   Ephesians 6:10-12

Intro.

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 11  Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 10-12

Words to stir the heart - Prior to this the apostle Paul has spoken of glorious things, let me just mention one or two –

 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

1:7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.

2:4-6 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5  even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),  6  and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

But here as he draws his letter to a close, speaks to his Christian readers of another reality – the war they are in – He brings his readers to the battle they must fight because they are in Christ -  Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.

We live in a war zone, and it’s a war were you must take sides, there is no neutrality, there are no conscientious objectors, No truces, no common ground, it is a war to the finish.  No prisoners will be taken, though converts will be welcomed. There is grace and mercy for all who repent and utter damnation for all who don’t.

My dear friend – you are living in the war zone there is no question about that, no, the question is whose side are you on? 

The moment you believed in your heart and confessed with your lips that Jesus Christ is Lord you entered the battle on Christ’s side,  you transferred your allegiance from the world and Satan and became the object of Satan’s hatred.  You are beset by his hordes!  How are you to cope, to manage, to fight?

Well, here are your orders

Be Prepared for Battle.

You must of course be a soldier of Christ, be resting Him, in His finished work of Redemption. And then you must follow Him in life and practice..

Dear Brothers, dear sisters in the Lord – remember, that although Satan comes as lion seeking whom he may devour,  he trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees'

The first command that God gives to us in the battle - V10: 'Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might'.     There is no other way.  Literal interpretation - 'Be made strong in the Lord' - find your strength in Him! It's in the continuous tense: 'Be daily strengthened in the Lord'. Day by day, in all of your Christian walk, that is the secret to the Christian life

Here is the preparation the Christian soldier – resting on God - through meeting with Him, through communing with Him, through fellowshipping with Him. Without resting on God the preacher is powerless, the missionary can do nothing,  the evangelist will never lead a soul to Christ, the Sunday School teacher will never lead a child to the cross, and the individual Christian will never have a ministry or a witness, Is.40:31 But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

Obey Your Orders for Battle.

v11. Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

He is to stand  -   hold your ground, stay your ground, be anchored, don't move an inch! 1 Cor.16:13 Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.

Stand!  Military History records thrilling stories of soldiers who have be given such an order -  Their orders are to hold their ground for as long as possible and at any cost.  Usually, in the end, the smaller force is over-run and annihilated.  Their fame lies not in victory but in glorious defeat.  They stood their ground, they didn’t turn and run. 

A well known example is the Battle of Thermopylae when for three days 300 Spartans and their Greek allies prevented a Persian army hundreds of thousands strong from advancing through a mountain pass and on into the Greek mainland.  They were all slaughtered but ever since their bravery has been celebrated, most recently in the move “300”. 

Another well know example would be the Alamo(1836), it’s defenders held out for twelve days against the Mexican forces sent to quell the rebel Texans.  Though every single one of them died, their stand cost the Mexicans dear, and in the end Texas won its independence. 

The Christian soldier’s orders are “to stand”.  Four times in this passage alone the Apostle Paul tells us to stand against the devil’s schemes.  Normally we think of standing as something quite passive.  We’re standing in a queue, we’re standing at the bus stop, we’re standing waiting for something to happen, waiting until we can move on.

But to take a stand, to stand your ground, is far from passive.  It requires great courage to stand and not run.  It requires great concentration, great watchfulness.  Paul says in v.13: Therefore put on the full armour of God so that when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything, to stand.

After you have done everything—this is an active, deliberate standing. 

Remember the story of King Jehoshaphat in 2 Chron.20:17, Judah is being invaded by an alliance of their enemies.  The messengers bring the news that a vast army is coming against them.  Jehoshaphat leads the nation in prayer.  The Lord’s answer is (17)  You will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the LORD, who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem!' Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, for the LORD is with you.".

The Lord would fight the battle for them.  But they weren’t to go home and put their feet up.  They were to take their positions and stand firm.  They weren’t to negotiate a peace with the enemy; they weren’t to concede any territory to them; still less were they to flee.  They were to stand firm.

This command remains constant throughout the New Testament.  How is the Christian to respond in the face of death, with all the heart-ache it causes and questions it raises.  Paul tells us in 1Cor.15:58.  Having explained that victory over death is ours through our Lord Jesus Christ he concludes: Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. 

To the Galatians, enticed by certain teachers who were promulgating a perverted form of the faith, Paul cries out   It was for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Gal.5:1)

Don’t give in to false doctrine, don’t make any concessions to heresy.  Stand firm against it. 

When you pray for your loved ones, as well as asking the Lord to keep them safe, and provide them with their daily bread; do you pray that the Lord will enable them to stand firm in the will of God?  Surely it would break your heart if they strayed from the faith.  So pray that they won’t.   The same burden lay heavy upon the hearts of James and Peter.  Jas.5:8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.

Our orders are to stand fast, to stand our ground.  The Lord is the one who will take ground from the enemy, he will disarm the strong man.  What we are called to do is to keep what has been won.  It’s not starting the Christian life that counts, it’s finishing, it’s persevering, it’s standing.   We will all know people who have begun and not finished the course -They didn’t stand; couldn’t stand; because the roots of their faith weren’t deep enough.  At the first sign of trouble, they ran away. 

The Christian Soldier’s Enemy

that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil   -   The devil.  He was right there at the beginning, in the Garden of Eden, trying to destroy the harmony between God and humanity.  And he succeeded.  He sowed doubts in the mind of Adam and Eve about the love and goodness of God, and persuaded them to eat the forbidden fruit.  Immediately, there was a rift in the relationship between them and God. and the Lord had to expel them from the Garden.

But God had a plan of salvation already in mind, a Saviour, who would crush Satan under his heel. Therefore, Satan was ready at the birth of Jesus to try again.  The story is told in a straight forward way by Matthew—how Herod ordered the murder of all baby boys in the vicinity of Bethlehem under two years old.  The same story is told more graphically in Rev.12 where the red dragon attempts to swallow the male child at birth.

He failed, and therefore Satan turned his attention to the church.  That should come as no surprise to us.  Remember what we have read about the church in Ephesians already.  The church is the new creation, comprising of both Jew and Gentile.  Paul says in 3:10 that God’s intention is that through the church the manifold wisdom of God should  be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Have you ever thought that the church offends the devil and his hordes?  Have you ever considered that your life for the Lord is an affront to the devil and his hordes?  That the Christian is a constant reminder to Satan and his hordes of their lost condition, of all that is taken from them?  That your life in Christ is the salt that is rubbed daily into the very heart of Satan and his hordes. The evidence of his complete failure.

That’s why Satan hates us so much; that’s why he spends so much of his energy against us.  To borrow the language of Eph.2 we are those who once followed the ways of this world and the ways of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.  Satan regarded us as his personal property.  But Christ has rescued us from his kingdom of darkness.  Satan wants us back.  And if he can’t get us back he will do everything in his power to make us ineffective.  That’s why we must stand against him, that’s why we must resist him.  And he can be resisted.  Resist the devil and he will flee from you, James tells us (4:7).  

This is why it is more than sad when a Christian loses their witness because of sin. It is diabolically sad for it causes Satan and his hordes to rejoice.  Picture the scene from the OT account in 1 Sam.17 The Philistines are arrayed in Battle order against the Israelites, the two armies facing one another – Goliath steps forward from the ranks of the Philistines - I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together.  Morning and evening for forty days this challenge rang out and no one took it up – do you think the Philistine host was silent? NO! they exalted in it. – so the hosts of Satan rejoice when we fail to stand.

We must stand.  We must resist his temptations.  Remember that he tempted our Lord three times in rapid succession.  He failed, but that didn’t stop him returning.  Luke tells us (4:13): When the devil had finished all this tempting he left him until an opportune time.

An opportune time -  the devil’s timing is immaculate.  He knows when to choose his moment. He knows the weapons that are most effective on each of us -  the seeds of doubts in our mind.  Just as he said to Eve, he says to us, Did God really say?  It’s not a sin to doubt; it is a sin to believe the doubt, to disbelieve the veracity of God’s word.  It’s a sin to act on the doubt.  Many have fallen for Satan’s lie that God is not a consuming fire, that he is not as serious about sin as the Bible makes out.  They have fallen for the lie that because God is slow to anger and quick to forgive he is very relaxed about sin. 

Fear of men - how easily we give way to fear when we face ridicule for our faith.  Nobody likes to be laughed at.  Nobody likes to be marginalised. It’s not a sin to feel fear filling up in your chest.  It’s when we give way to fear that we have lost to Satan.  We try and hide our faith by swearing like a trooper, by telling the dirtiest jokes, by drinking everyone else under the table.  Or simply by saying nothing when something could be said. 

Sometimes we stand our ground by running away.  We hold our ground spiritually by literally fleeing.  I’m thinking about Joseph when Potiphar’s wife tried to get him into bed with her.  Come to bed with me, she said.  But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house (Gen.39:12).  If Joseph had hesitated, even for a second, he would have given ground to Satan.  Physically, he had to get out of there.  And in doing so, he stood up to the devil.

What happens when we do concede ground to Satan?  What happens when we yield to temptation?  The truth is that none of us manage to live a day without to some extent capitulating to his wiles.  It may not be the kind of gross sin that destroys our reputation; indeed, most sinning is done in the mind, so only God, Satan and we ourselves know about it.  Nevertheless, it is a mark of the true child of God to be distressed by our sin.  Satan knows this.  When we’re down he will try to drag us down even further.  He does this by trying to convince us that we are in fact devoid of God’s grace.  Our sin is so loathsome, and we sin so often, that either we never were truly saved, or if we were, we’ve well and truly lost that salvation. 

In Eph.1:4 Paul tells us that God chose us in him [Christ] before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.  If God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world then this is a decision of God’s which was fixed even before we were born.  How then can this salvation be lost?  Paul says in Rom.11:29: for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. Salvation is God’s gift to us.  His love is an everlasting love.  He has made a covenant with us and has sworn by himself on oath never to break it.  Whom God loves he loves to the end.

How can we tell the difference between a true member of God’s flock and wolf in sheep’s clothing?  If it’s not that one sins while the other never sins, what is it?  It’s that the believer, being filled with the Holy Spirit, will hate his sin, will mourn over his sin.  I hate the sins that made thee mourn and drove thee from my breast.

The Christian Soldier’s Reward for Standing

Let me conclude with this encouragement.  We’ve seen how the Bible uses the idea of standing to convey our duty in relation to the devil’s assaults.  Like the Spartans at Thermopylae or the Texans at the Alamo, we’re to stand our ground, we’re to concede nothing to the enemy.

But there is another application for the concept of standing which runs through the Bible. Ps.1:5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. Ps.130:3 If you O Lord kept a record of sins, O Lord who could stand? Mal.3:2 But who can endure the day of his coming?  Who can stand when he appears?

To be able to stand in the presence of the Lord God Almighty is an indication of sins forgiven, the assurance that comes from being clothed in Christ’s righteousness.  Rev.7:9: After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language; standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.

If you would be there in heaven, standing before the throne, standing in the presence of the Lamb, then you must take your stand against Satan now, today.    Therefore put on the full armour of God so that when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything, to stand.