One of the great themes in the Bible is that God stands by
and saves his own, even though the odds against them are overwhelming. Generally speaking, God is not with the
strong. He is with the weak. The Bible is full of examples of this, but
I’ll just mention a couple.
God was with Moses and the twelve tribes of Israel who were
enslaved in Egypt. Slaves don’t have
weapons. They are not allowed to
organize themselves so that they can revolt against those who are enslaving
them. The Israelites were weak. But God is strong. He pounded the land of Egypt with ten
plagues. With the tenth plague he
slaughtered the firstborn of every family, unless that family had been redeemed
by the blood of the Passover lamb. All
the Egyptians finally tell the Israelites to get out of his land, because
otherwise they would all die.
You might think that in such a situation the Israelites
would scurry out of town under the cover of darkness, escaping while they had
the chance. But that’s not how it
was. They left in the daylight, taking
all their stuff with them. God even made
it so that these powerless people plundered the Egyptians. Moses had told them to ask for gold and
silver and clothing from their Egyptian neighbors, and God made it so that the
Egyptians gave it to them. The slaves
became rich. The weak became
strong. How so? God made them rich and strong.
Another example of God fighting for his own people who are
weak is with Gideon. At his time the
Israelites were weak compared to their neighbors. They couldn’t defend themselves, and so their
more powerful neighbors would come and take their stuff whenever it suited
them. And so the Israelites weren’t able
to thresh out their grain in the open or store anything so that it was easily
accessible. They had to hide everything
carefully, because their enemies would take anything that they could find. But God decided to raise up the man Gideon to
free his people from their oppressors.
The call went out for men to fight and 32,000 answered the
call. But God told Gideon that the
number was too large, because otherwise the people are going to say that they
saved themselves instead of the Lord saving them. And so Gideon said to the men that whoever
didn’t want to fight should go home.
22,000 went home, leaving 10,000 to fight. But that number was still too large, so God
told Gideon to choose only those men who drank from the river with their hands
as his warriors. The final number was
just 300. These three hundred men were
vastly outnumbered by their enemies, but God made it so that the thousands who
were arrayed against them became terrified when the 300 approached them in the
dark. They ended up killing themselves
in their flight from the three hundred and those who escaped were taken care of
by the 10,000 who had stayed to fight.
When I teach these kinds of things from the Bible I often
ask those I’m teaching to put themselves into the shoes of the people they are
learning about. How would you feel if
you were a slave in Egypt? How would you
feel if you saw the horrible plagues that maimed and killed? And what if you were Gideon or one of those
three hundred soldiers who were sneaking up on the enemy camp that would
without doubt slaughter you if they knew how few you were?
I like how King David says it when he is an old man and he
looks back on the way that God had dealt with him over the years in Psalm
18. David says, “He made my feet like
the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights.” Think of those mountain dwelling animals that
run and skip along where there is just a tiny ledge of rock and on the other
side there is a thousand foot drop.
That’s the picture that David is painting for us. He is like that mountain goat that has it’s
little patch of ground and is happy and content, even though it is surrounded
by trouble and death. God is with those
who are his own, and he will never let them be confounded even if they should
be abandoned by family and friends, in the belly of a fish, or being crushed
with stones. The people of the Bible are
not strong in themselves. What makes
them strong is that God has chosen them and fights for them.
Recognizing this theme that runs through all of Scripture
can help us understand St. Paul’s words in our Epistle reading this morning. He talks about the Christian as a
soldier. The Christian is to put on the
belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness and the shoes of the Gospel
of peace. The Christian is to take up
the shield of faith and wear the helmet of salvation and take in hand the sword
of the Spirit. By likening Christians to
soldiers it can sound as though being a Christian is up to the individual and
his or her own efforts. Soldiers fight,
and seemingly they fight alone and for themselves. Being a Christian, then, might seem as though
it is a matter of putting into practice one’s own efforts.
But several details must be overlooked to maintain this
interpretation. Whatever persuasiveness
this interpretation has isn’t because St. Paul actually says that, it’s because
of our reason. Our reason thinks that this is how the Christian
life should be. But what does St. Paul
actually say? Does he say, “Be
strengthened in yourself and in the power of your resolve?” No. He
says, “Finally, be strengthened in the Lord
and the power of his might.” This sentence at the beginning of our reading
is determinative for everything that follows.
All the armor that is spoken about is the way in which we
are being strengthened in the Lord and the power of his might. With the different portions of armor he is
speaking about things that God does to you and in you, and not stuff that you
do somehow apart from him. It is God’s
armor, not your armor. He gives it to
you, you don’t manufacture it for yourself.
Furthermore, what is the goal for this armament and
equipping? Put on the whole armor of
God. Why? Is it so that you can rush into battle, to
strike and kill and conquer? No, St.
Paul is pretty emphatic about this. The
only goal is to stand. He says, “Put
on the whole armor of God so that you can stand against the scheming of
the devil.” And again he says, “Therefore,
take up the whole armor of God so that you can withstand in the evil
day, and having done all things, to stand firm. Stand therefore…” This runs counter to the way that we think
about battle strategy. Since when has
standing ever been able to bring about a victory? If there is no advancing there is no
winning. Of course, standing is
different than retreating. That is to
say, it is different than losing. But it
seemingly isn’t going to bring about a victory, so far as our experience and
understanding is concerned.
But the advice that we should stand is not uncommon in the
Bible. At the Red Sea, when it looked
like the people of God were going to be either slaughtered by the Egyptian army
or drowned in the water, because there was no way of escape, God says, “Be
still, and know that I am God.”
Probably the hardest thing for the Israelites to do at that moment was
to stand still. Their reason would have
been screaming at them to do something—set up some kind of barricade and make
due with whatever they might use as weapons, or, on the other hand, to run for
their lives. If they ran, at least maybe
a few thousand might be able to get away from the Egyptian chariots. But God tells them to stand still and believe
in him.
And what does God do?
He opens up the sea so that there is a wall of water on the right and on
the left, and he miraculously dries the sea bed so that they can walk, not run,
through the midst of it. And then when
they are all safely through, he literally crushes the most powerful army on
earth so that not even one remained. No
victory could ever be so complete as God’s victory. Even if the Israelites had been superbly
equipped and led, they could not have won so completely as God did, while the
Israelites stood still and believed.
They were weak, but God was strong.
Standing and believing is the real theme behind the armor of
God that St. Paul is speaking about too.
You are to put on this armor so that you can stand against the scheming
and lies of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature. We are not fighting against flesh and
blood. We are fighting against the
powers and authorities that wish to define our life for us and tell us what our
life is all about. What do these spirits
say about life? They say that it is to
be lived for pleasure, or for human progress, or to make the world a better
place. They say that God doesn’t exist or
that he didn’t create anything.
Everything is a product of random chance. The Bible is not trustworthy. It is just a collection of myths and
legends. When you die, that’s going to
be it. There is no final judgment. There is no resurrection from the dead. These are all intellectual lies.
There are also lies about our passions and desires. The lying spirits will say that you can’t
keep fighting your sinful urges forever.
You might as well give in to them and embrace them. You can’t live with your ungrateful and
unloving spouse forever. You might as
well divorce. Whatever it is that you
want, just give up, fall down, worship the devil, and happiness shall be yours.
Then there are the spiritual temptations. Can’t you see how you have worshipped the
devil over and over again? How can you
think that there can be salvation for you?
People like you, with your history, and with your desires, don’t belong
in church. Or perhaps it is the
opposite: People like you are the exact ones who belong in church. You are a respectable citizen. You deserve to be at the Lord’s table,
because you are not one of those low-life losers who can’t get their life
together.
If you will only examine your own hearts and heads and pay
attention to the steady diet of spiritual food that is fed to you by your
television, you know that I could go on and on and on with this stuff. If one thing doesn’t work, then the spirits
and authorities will try something else.
Everything is geared towards you no longer standing and believing, but
forsaking God and making a life for yourself.
Standing and believing is no mean feat.
In fact, without the constant aid of the Holy Spirit no one can stand,
and unless he would pick us up when we have fallen, there would be no hope for
any of us.
The life-and-death character of the struggle for faith is
the reason why St. Paul uses the picture of a soldier to speak of the Christian
life. We might think that monsters or
murderers or some other frightening thing is what is to be feared above all else,
but that is not true. Such things might
be able to kill the body, but they cannot bring about damnation. What brings about damnation are lies, because
only lies can take away the truth that we have in Jesus Christ, whom we hold to
by faith. The armor of God, therefore,
is all directed against the lies that seek to dethrone Jesus in the heart.
The belt of truth renounces the selfishness and doubt that
cause us to lie. The breastplate of
righteousness is the righteousness of Christ that encases the heart and is not
dependent upon our own works. The Gospel
of peace makes us light and nimble, so that we can maneuver with a good
conscience while we stand against the lying spirits. The shield of faith extinguishes the fiery
darts of the devil that would otherwise pierce us through and kill us. We could never stand and believe on God if we
entertained the doubts that are sown in us by the devil, the world, and our
sinful nature. The helmet of salvation
encases the head and is to direct the mind.
The story of Jesus and his salvation is to direct all our thoughts and
understandings, and not all the other stuff that the world cares about. The sword of the Spirit is the Word of
God. This is the only offensive
weapon. It opposes those spirits that
say otherwise about life, about God, about ourselves, and in what we should
hope.
And so you can see that this picture of the well equipped
soldier is in harmony with the rest of Scripture. The saints are saved by faith. Their strength does not consist in themselves—in
their own thoughts, emotion, or willpower.
Their strength consists of the truth of God and his action on our
behalf. And so it seems to me that when
we put in mind the picture that St. Paul paints for us, we shouldn’t think of a
big burly man who is ready to conquer everybody in his path. We should put in mind a weakling, or a woman,
or a child, or a baby. God’s enemies are
always underestimating his people, and why shouldn’t they? They don’t look like much on the
outside. The boy David did not look like
much to the giant Goliath. But
Christians believe in Jesus, and he fights for them. The person in the armor of God is weak, but
the armor itself is as strong as God himself.
It is the truth. The devil and
all other liars can only gain the victory over us if we are moved from this
truth.
“Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth,
and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your
feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances
take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming
darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the
Spirit, which is the word of God.”
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