The Whole Armor of God: Truth and Righteousness

If you will turn with me to Ephesians. We are in the last chapter of Ephesians chapter 6. We will be reading verse 10 through 14.

Ephesians 6 beginning at verse 10. The truth is not against the 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. Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm, stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness. Let's pray together. Our Father God, you are our rock, our refuge, our fortress. You are the strength and power that enable us to stand in this evil time. Father grant us grace to know your truth, to walk in your ways that we might stand firm against the enemy. Open our minds and hearts to hear your truth. This night we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

You may be seated. We are continuing our journey through these last three chapters of Ephesians and we are in the closing section of his instruction. All that is left after this brief passage are some greetings and some personal greetings to the people at Ephesus. We are in this section that reminds us that we are at war. We are involved in a battle. We looked last time at verses 10 through 13 and we saw that it is the Lord's strength and power which is our confidence. He has overcome and he grants us strength and power enabling us to stand as we should against the enemy. We saw that our enemies are not other people but we are in a spiritual battle warring against the devil and his demons. We saw that we have the resources that are provided by God himself. The whole armor of God is available to us. We began to look at a practical application in a sense of what that means to put on the whole armor of God. How we understand this and how we live out the putting on, the taking up of the armor of God. There are a couple of extreme positions that we need to avoid here.

Number one, this is not a let go and let God kind of passage. That is where a lot of people try to go as if we are just passive in this battle that we are involved in, the warfare that is ours. Opposite extreme to that is that we have to do it all and just ask for God's help.

It is a little more complicated than that. It is like Scripture is in so many places. There is this balance between God working and us working and it is something that we have to keep in mind. The call to battle is filled with commands for us to obey with action words.

Things like be strong, put on, wrestle, take up, withstand and stand firm. There is a lot for us to do in this battle and yet we have to recognize that the battle has been won. The battle is the Lord's and He is the empowering strength and power behind us as we are engaged in this fight. But we have to fight and we have to be prepared for the battle. The Christian life is really a fight to the death, a fight to the finish.

Paul in writing to Timothy spoke near the end of his own life. He said, I fought the good fight. He was coming to the end of it but it was still a battle and we must fight. Knowing that the battle is the Lord's, that it is won and yet though He is our strength and our power, we have to keep at it. We have to be striving and fighting all the time.

I like what Martin Lloyd-Jones says about this. He said there is this perfect blending of His Lordship and our responsibility as we are engaged in this battle. So let's look at the text itself in verse 14 is where we are focusing tonight. Verse 14 says, Stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness. Stand therefore. The goal is to hold your ground.

We talked a little bit last time about this idea of holding the high ground. We have a responsibility to stand, not to flee, not to run from the battle. We need to be ready and be prepared to stand and to hold the ground and to fight the good fight.

But that takes some preparation. Paul says here that we are to take up the armor of God, put on that whole armor of God and to stand having fastened the belt of truth. In speaking to this, Paul breaks down the armor into various pieces that he treats and uses analogy to teach us the kinds of things that we must do in order to stand in this battle.

And here he speaks of fastening on the belt of truth. I think most of the commentators agree that he is talking about a belt that was worn to kind of gather up the loose garments that were worn in those days so that the soldier entering the battle is not encumbered by a flowing robe of any kind but all of this is gathered up under the belt and then armor is put on above that. I don't think it is wise in looking at this armor to get too focused on the pieces of armor and what they mean and try to understand them in some kind of allegorical way. Reality is that these pieces of armor are spoken of as representing different things at different times. For example, here we have the belt of truth but in Isaiah 11 for example, righteousness shall be the belt of his waist and faithfulness the belt of his loins. So he uses the belt to speak of faithfulness and righteousness rather than the belt of truth. Here we have the breastplate of righteousness but in 1 Thessalonians 5 he says, having put on the breastplate of faith and love.

So the armor that is pictured here is not to be understood allegorically and try to give some spiritual meaning to each of the pieces. But to understand that the point is we are to avail ourselves of all that God has given us. We heard this morning about how we are to avail ourselves of those ordinary means of grace that God has given us. So many times in our walk we are looking for some kind of special revelation giving us maybe a great task to do.

We want some really important significant job to do for the Lord, some great call in our life. And we are not faithful in those ordinary daily things that God has given us to grow us and sanctify us. And so we need to recognize that this battle that we are in is ongoing. It is something that is ever with us. The enemy is not sleeping.

He is not slumbering. He is constantly on the prowl. And we need to recognize that God has given us just an ordinary daily walk that is necessary if we are going to stand against the enemy. So we have to be watchful. We have to be ready and alert. There is a picture of this I think in Isaiah chapter 5 where the prophet is speaking about the foreign armies that God is bringing against His people to judge them.

And it says, Not a waistband is loose, not a sandal strap broken, their arrows are sharp, all their bows are bent. That is a picture of how we need to be standing ready, prepared, alert, able always to move in battle. I remember my time in the infantry, in a time of training, I was given the responsibility one time of guarding a motor pool. And I had had an unusual amount of responsibility that weekend. And Monday morning about 5 o'clock after I was finishing up almost 48 hours of various duties, I suddenly woke up at the sound of a deuce and a half horn.

I had gone to sleep walking. But we are to be alert and ready. The enemy will take advantage of any failure to be prepared. This kind of picture that Paul is painting here reminds me of how God's army was prepared when they were about to leave Egypt. When we think of Hebrews being brought out of Egypt, we think of them as a bunch of slaves and they were.

But if you read the Exodus account, God calls them his army. And he told them when they were celebrating the Passover the night before they were to leave, they were to eat it with the belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand, and eat it in haste. They were getting ready for battle. So the belt here points to preparation for action. It was used, as I said, to gather up the loose garments and get ready to put on the armor for the battle. So the belt comes first. It is a necessary step before the rest of the army.

The armor can be effectively put on and get ready for the battle. And that is one of the reasons why I understand truth here when he says to put on the belt of truth. There are some that interpret that to mean that we are to approach this in sincerity and singleness of mind. But I think it really is referring to the truth of God and his Word, a reference to the Word of God. Later on in this passage, the Word is going to be spoken of as the sword of the Spirit.

And that is, I think, more of an action of offense in the battle. But here Paul is speaking of preparation. And nothing is more important in the battle than that we know the truth of God. Jesus said, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. And I believe that our greatest failure in the battle, the most frequent failure in the battle, is when we believe a lie. When we are not walking in truth.

This has been so from the very beginning, hasn't it? Genesis chapter 3, Satan came and questioned God's Word and spoke a lie. He said, You will not surely die. And most of the time when we fail in the battle it is because we are not standing firm on the Word of God, his promises. And we are believing a lie. Jesus warned us that Satan is a liar and the father of lies. And when we believe his lie we are in trouble and we will not stand against evil.

Paul has pointed to this earlier in this letter to the Ephesians. We've seen there that opposition to Jesus and to the Gospel is characterized by deceit. We have to avoid, he tells us in chapter 4 verse 14, that we are to avoid being tossed to and fro by waves and carried about with every wind of doctrine by human cunning and craftiness, deceitful schemes. And in chapter 5 verse 6, Let no one deceive you. We are in danger when we are not grounded in the truth of God's Word. We believe a lie.

In Paul's letter to the Corinthians he said, The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, not fleshly, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. We have to be so filled with, saturated with, grounded in the truth of God's Word that we recognize the lie for what it is. And you know so many times when we come up against the difficulties of life in this fallen world our initial response is an emotional reaction of fear and apprehension and anxiety because we are not believing the truth that God has declared that victory is ours in Christ and we do not have to fear.

Perfect love casts out fear. We need to stand on the truth of God's Word and not believe the lie. The second part of the verse then says that we are to have put on the breastplate of righteousness.

The breastplate in Paul's day that he is referring to probably in the Roman army is a two piece apparatus that had one part in front and one part in back. It was a way of protecting the vital organs of the body and here Paul has it symbolizing righteousness. Now how do we put on righteousness? Well we have no righteousness of our own to put on. We are counted righteous by faith. We become the righteousness of God in Christ. We reveal our relationship with Christ by the fact that we are obedient. We walk in righteousness as we walk in faith with Him and we demonstrate that as we are obedient to His ways, to His Word. Paul again writing to the Corinthians said, For our sake God made Christ to be sin for us who knew no sin so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. There is the provision of God. God has given us the righteousness of Christ. He has imputed to us that righteousness.

At the same time we have to walk in that. We have to do the good deeds that we are called to in obedience to Christ's ways. John in Revelation chapter 19 describes the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he says that the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.

It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen bright and pure for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. It is a gift from God, this righteousness, and yet it is manifested in what we actually do. It is granted to us to make ourselves ready to put on that righteousness in some sense as we walk in obedience to Christ. There is again that sense of co-laboring with God and this is something we see time and again in the New Testament. You remember Paul's letter to the Romans in chapter 8 where he talks about the fact that we don't know how to pray as we should. And so the Spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know what to pray but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us. Lloyd-Jones again speaks of this. He says God doesn't take away the problem from us because we are weak but He helps us in our weakness. Lloyd-Jones describes it like two people carrying a log. You both got an end to carry.

And we are in kind of a similar situation. Christ spoke of our laboring with Him as a yoke being yoked together with Him. We are working but it is God who is at work in us giving even the desire to do it and the power to do it. But it is work and so words like wrestling and striving are used to describe how we are involved in this life of faithfulness.

Jesus said come to me all who labor in a heavy laden. I'll give you rest. But it doesn't give you rest by taking away the work. It gives you rest by putting you in the yoke with Him. And so we are yoked together with Christ. It's His strength.

It's His power. But we have to labor. We have to strive.

And here in this context we have to wrestle. So back to this idea of the breastplate of righteousness. Righteousness in which we stand before God, uncondemned, is the righteousness of Christ that is imputed to us. At the same time we are called to a life of obedience, pursuing holiness, imitating Christ, being like Him. We are commanded to let our light shine before others so that they can see our good deeds and glorify the Father who is in heaven.

Peter has a similar encouragement in his first letter. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. We are called to righteousness, not to earn God's favor, but to display His grace to the world as we walk in obedience to Him and to His ways. So Paul says, Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness. Truth will set you free.

Truth will make you wise. It will prepare you for the battle. Righteousness will prepare us as Christ's bride, like putting on a garment, fine linen and bright and pure. Righteousness will make it evident that we are the children of God. So take up the armor. Put on the armor of God because the day is evil and it's the only way we can stand in His strength and His power.

Let's pray. Father, we are truly weak and inadequate and unable, and left to ourselves we choose the wrong path. Left to ourselves we believe the lie. Thank you that because of your love, Lord Jesus came and took upon Himself our sin and lived a life of perfect obedience that we might be clothed in your own righteousness. Thank you that when He returned to be at your side to intercede for us, you sent the Holy Spirit to dwell within, to comfort and to strengthen, and to convict us, and to cause us to know the truth. Father, grant that we would be a people who walk in truth and manifest the righteousness of God to the world around us. We do live in an evil time, a time that is appalling to us and astounding to us, and yet what we see in the world around us is where we would be apart from your grace. Thank you that in Jesus you have opened our eyes, you have given us new life, changed our hearts, and made us your children. May we manifest that heritage to the world, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.